A Safe Hub

Complex audio software is a key pain point for podcasters. So we attempted to make it as streamlined as possible.

My Role

UI/UX

UX Testing

Visual Design

Podcasters worldwide want to tell their stories, but they have so much to do. The last thing they want to do is become audio engineering experts. So, how could I make controlling their audio interface easier?

Other Mixing Software

Mixing software can be daunting. Its whole purpose is to act as a control center for routing audio from input to output, with the added complexity of recording software also having its own routing.

Focusrite had improved on usability from Scarlett Mix Control to Focusrite Control, but the software still had a high learning curve and was generally intimidating. Plus, Vocaster had the ability to control the Microphone gain from software as well. Something that previous control software, and its users, hadn’t needed to think about.

Design Intent

It’s in the name

The first thing I wanted to think about was the name of our software. Look at a thesaurus, and for the word Control, you’ll find the following: Authority, Discipline, and Domination. Not particularly positive terms when our goal was to reduce pressure on customers.

How about Hub? Here we find terms like Core, Focus, and Heart. It definitely was more what we wanted to embody. Thus, Vocaster Hub was named!

Early Iterations

We knew that the main focus of podcasters was to set up their microphone levels, and with new features like Auto Gain and Microphone Mute, we wanted to make sure we focused on that area. We also knew that Podcasters didn’t talk about Inputs, they talked about Hosts and Guests.

An early layout of the preamp and mix section.
An early prototype of the Host and Guest channel controls and the mix window. Familiarity iconography is used for the mute and enhance function to aid identification.

Matching Hardware

As each function could be controlled from the hardware or software, it was ideal to match the layout. As such, the Host and Guest sections had the same button layout as the Host hardware section.

The Host and Guest sections on the hardware were mirrored to ensure that the mute buttons were quickly accessible.

The Vocaster Two Audio interface. There are three dials laid out horizontally. The first controls the level of the first pair of headphones. The next is used to control the gain level for each input. The third is the level of the second pair of headphones. Beneath this is a row of six button: Preamp 1 mute, Preamp 1 enhance, Preamp 1 selection, Preamp 2 selection, Preamp 2 enhance, Preamp 2 Mute.
Vocaster Two Audio Interface
The Host and Guest section of Vocaster Hub

Testing

Throughout the design and development process, we tested with target customers in early-stage UX tests and in the latter stage Beta testing to ensure we ironed out usability issues. We also implemented full control from a screen reader to support our accessibility initiatives.

Options were evaluated for how the slider components should interact with the meter

Post-Release Enhance Editing

Even after release, there was work to do. We’d wanted to include editing of the built-in Enhance features before launch, but it didn’t quite make it into our MVP. But how could we expose controls of complex Digital Signal Processing in a simple way?

After some iteration and testing with our customers, we resolved on a uniform layout that offered the key control functions to customize a podcaster’s voice, but with positive constraints such as limited range control and fixed frequency ranges.

Learn More

The software control panel for Vocaster. There are two main panels side by side which control the inputs for Host (Preamp 1) and Guest (Preamp 2). Each of these has a horizontal gain slider, along with buttons for Mute, Enhance, and Auto Gain. Below these two panels is a mixer panel with volume control of: Host Input, Guest Input, Auxilliary input, Bluetooth input, Loopback 1, and Loopback 2.
An interactive prototype of Vocaster Hub built in Axure 9

For more about the main Vocaster Hardware project, see here.