Frequency of Podcasts

I've been a podcaster for more than two years now, producing the UXDesignCast and Life Habits podcast series. I've often wondered at what frequency listeners would like to have the podcast delivered. My ideal frequency, and the frequency I like to receive the podcasts I listen to, is weekly. I listen to a lot of podcasts in a week and typically get through them all in the week. I get a fair bit of feedback from listeners, especially from those who listen to the Life Habits series. Of the feedback that concerns the frequency of episodes, listeners who write in generally ask for more frequent delivery of them. Of course, it could be the case that the people who write in are into the podcast the most and, as a result, want more episodes faster. Podcast download statistics aren't really much use in this regard because subscribers have the episodes delivered to them automatically as soon as they become available and it isn't possible to know when they actually listened to the episodes that were downloaded.  I therefore decided to put up a quick poll to ask the question, "How frequently would you like to have podcast episodes made available?" with the response alternatives of "weekly", "every two weeks", "monthly", and "other". The results indicate that 54% of respondents prefer weekly episodes, 33% every two weeks, and 13% monthly. So, the vast majority of 87% would like to have episodes within a two week period and the majority of those prefer them to appear weekly. This tells me that I should continue to try to deliver on a weekly basis but, if circumstances prevent that and an episode comes out in two weeks, it will still satisfy most listeners.  Of course, I do target putting out weekly episodes, particularly for my Life Habits podcast series.  I'll continue to do that then and will try to increase the frequency of the UXDesignCast ones as well. Of course, feel free to provide any additional feedback you may have on this via the comment feature of this site.

Social Software

We're all familiar with Social Software like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and blogs in the consumer space but little is often said about making this capability available in the enterprise space. I post regularly to all these systems and have done for some time but have been looking forward to a complete solution to use inside a company and behind its firewall as well. The latest release of our IBM Lotus Connections 2.5 product does just that. Listen to my interview with two of the lead designers on the project in this podcast.

Micro-blogging, Typography, Clouds, and Browsers

Joining me on this episode of UXDesignCast are Jay Trimble (Group Lead for the User Centered Technology Group, NASA Ames Research Center), Keith Instone (Information Architecture Lead, IBM CIO’s Office, IBM.com), and Eliane Tozman (User Interface Designer, IBM Media Design Studio). The panel discusses the new way of using Web 2.0 including micro-blogging behind corporate firewalls with IBM Lotus Connections 2.5, the recent typography choices make by IKEA and what impact they may have, the need to consider the total cloud user experience importantly including ISPs, the implications for designers of Google’s Chrome Frame, key principles for and examples of effective Rich Internet Application (RIA) design, and planning for World Usability Day.

Business Landscape of Design Podcast

Joining Karel on this episode are Val Fox (Director, Innovative Technology Solutions, Ryerson University), Keith Instone (Information Architecture Lead, IBM CIO’s Office, IBM.com), and Eliane Tozman (User Interface Designer, IBM Media Design Studio). The panel discusses the recent announcements of Bing and Chrome OS, followed by a description of the Ryerson Digital Playground and the poll results relating to the design impact on purchase decisions. The interesting link for this month is the what is a browser video and the community news regarding the call for papers for CHI 2009 and the new UX Book Club initiative.

Mobile & Real-Team Web Innovation Podcast

Joining me on this episode are Val Fox (Director, Innovative Technology Solutions, Ryerson University), Keith Instone (Information Architecture Lead, IBM CIO’s Office, IBM.com), Eliane Tozman (User Interface Designer, IBM Media Design Studio), and our newest member of the panel Jay Trimble (Group Lead for the User Centered Technology Group, NASA Ames Research Center). The panel discusses the Palm Pre and Palm's new WebOS, an update on the Usability Professionals Association (UPA) including an innovative perspective on design called Evil by Design, a summary of the trend toward what has recently called the real-time web including design features of Google Wave and recent experiences regarding Twitter. The interesting website of the month that was discussed is spezify.com and the community news concerned the IxDA organization. The Mozilla Labs design challenge together with IxDA was also discussed.

As always, please use the comment capability of this blog to provide any feedback you may have on this podcast episode.