The product team at Chicago Public Media discovered that most users were using the WBEZ app primarily for live radio, with user engagement dropping after the initial download. Users were not frequently returning to the app, leading to minimal interaction with other types of audio content beyond live listening.
2022
Nick DePrey
Shira Gersten
J. Kyle White-Sullivan
Oliver Holmberg
Tenaysia Fox
Figma
Zeplin
Product Design
Visual Design
Quality Assurance
During my time at Chicago Public Media, working exclusively on WBEZ, Chicago's NPR news station, I played a key role in developing push notifications aimed at enhancing app engagement, boosting retention, and keeping users well-informed.
As the solo designer with the product team, in 6 months we shipped a push notification feature that introduced subscribed users to new content, ongoing broadcasts, and company wide sweepstakes. In this project, I was responsible for mapping out permission flows, designing backend content management system pages, and prototyping both system and stylized prompts for iOS and Android. Additionally, I created requisition campaigns and ran QA tests for feature intents and niche use cases.
The initial version of the push notifications resulted in a lower-than-expected conversion rate of 2%-6%. This led me to spearhead a reacquisition campaign that focused on more visually appealing design elements, moving away from standard system prompts and reworking the user flow. As a result, the second version of the push notifications saw a significant improvement, with conversion rates increasing to 13%-17% in less than a month of implementation.
Push notifications enhance user engagement and retention by sending timely, relevant content directly to users' devices. This helps keep them informed, encourages them to use the app more, and provides a direct way to communicate with users.
To start, the team wanted to send push notifications content already available on the app like live broadcasts, podcasts, and featured stories, and my task was to create content management system pages for these notifications.
| Type | Action |
|---|---|
| Queue the livestream (from point in time) | Notifies users about the ongoing live broadcast or special programming, opening the live player and starting from the current point in time. |
| Queue the livestream (scheduled) | Same as above, but starts from the beginning. This notification will be sent near the end of the broadcast or after it has finished. |
| Featured story | Alerts users about a new featured story, opens the player, and starts playing the audio snippet. |
| Radio highlight | Same as above, but for radio highlights. |
| Podcast episode | Alerts users about new podcasts or podcast episodes, opening to the specific podcast page or starting playback of the episode. |
Chicago Public Media uses an in-house content management system and I was tasked with designing system panes to simplify the content creation process. I focused on designing screens using familiar UI elements to make the transition easier for employees.
These pages were then prototyped to help identify and resolve flow and interaction inconsistencies, leading to clearer and simpler user paths for development.
iOS and Android devices have different consent requirements for push notifications. Mapping out the system prompt flow helped reduce confusion by clarifying these differences.
Given time and development constraints, the team opted to add a simple notification settings panel to the app menu. This panel will be updated or expanded in the future as WBEZ plans to offer more notification customization options.
Above also shows a planned app menu refresh, displaying how the notification settings panel would fit into the updated design.
QA testing took up most of the project's time and involved several key tasks. This included testing the CMS tooling for overall functionality and accuracy, ensuring that each push intent triggered the correct app behavior, and performing regression testing. Testing scenario examples:
In-app interactions:
Background interactions:
We also tested how many app opens were optimal for each notification ask—whether initial or reacquisition—to determine if they were effective or overly intrusive.
After the initial build on May 2nd and the first push notification on May 5th, the team monitored performance over the following weeks. Conversion rates initially ranged from 2% to 6%, with some tracking issues affecting accuracy.
1.
Banner blindness
Habitually rejecting system prompts without reading them.
2.
Inefficient user flow
Users could be opting out entirely due to the final step showing the option to toggle off.
To address the plausible issues stated above and increase push authorization numbers, the following changes were planned for the next major app update:
The new push authorization screens offered a friendlier approach to boosting subscriptions for both initial asks and reacquisition campaigns. They were designed to combat banner blindness by clearly presenting push notification frequency options, removing the need for users to visit the settings menu.
From the release date on June 8th to my last day on June 27th, the push authorization conversion rate increased to 19%, representing a 13-17% improvement in less than a month.
I learned how important it is to design with empathy, especially when it came to permission requests. I had to make sure I knew when to ask, how many times, and when to follow up, all without being intrusive. This project taught me how thoughtful design and respecting user autonomy can not only enhance the user experience, but also positively impact business metrics.