Antennapod: "Home" screen

[ByteHamster]

In my usability studies, users were sometimes confused by the lack of a "home" screen. The home screen would be a sidebar entry like the existing ones (and can therefore be hidden by long-pressing). The default value for the back button behavior would then be to open the home screen.

I drew a mock-up how the screen could look like:

Opinions? What would you expect a home screen to show?

[Matth7878]

Instead of new episode I think it will be better to have latest episodes.
New episode will always be empty for me as I always remove new flag either by downloading episodes or swiping them away.

And I will prefer to have : first 3 episodes in queue, latest 3 episodes not in queue, a line like discover podcast but for subscribed podcast. Not sure having currently playing episode is useful since there is the mini player.

I think discover is not great : either you are a new user and when opening AntennaPod if I'm not wrong you have discover panel by default or you are already a user and you don't need to discover podcast.
It's more useful to have a link to your subscription in which there is a shortcut to discover with the add button.

[Matth7878]

Thinking a bit more I think these are the main panels : queue / playlist, episodes, subscriptions.
Home screen should let you have an overview of them and enable you to go quickly to one of them.

[ByteHamster]

New episode will always be empty for me as I always remove new flag

You can do that on the home screen, then :) The idea was to let users directly play new episodes on the first screen.

first 3 episodes in queue, latest 3 episodes not in queue

Many users I have talked to do not use the queue at all. AntennaPod does not have any analytics, so I do not know if this is true for a majority of users.

An argument for displaying the queue would be that currently, AntennaPod is built around the queue (continuous playback, etc).

I think we should display at most 2 items in each section because it keeps the screen short enough to be displayed without scrolling.

a line like discover podcast but for subscribed podcast

I thought about that, too, and finally thought discover would be more interesting. I discovered some great new podcasts during development because I opened the suggestions page a lot. I think showing the suggestions more prominently (even if you are not actively looking for new podcasts) could be interesting. Maybe we can display both but that brings the problem of having a long and cluttered home screen.

Not sure having currently playing episode is useful since there is the mini player.

My thinking was that there might be multiple started episodes that you want to continue. Not sure how common that is, though.

[sbadux]

I really love AntennaPod as-is.

IMHO, you should show an HOME only when the queue is empty because the "blank" screen could be confusing for a new user at first install. Anyway, you can add the HOME if you think it's a good idea, but please keep it as opt-out in the options. I would disable it because I really like the simple, stright, current app.

[ByteHamster]

The home screen would be a sidebar entry like the existing ones (and can therefore be hidden by long-pressing).

[tonytamsf]

I like the idea, maybe not need for the Pused area since it is duplicate of the bottom area.

For the discovery area, can you filter out podcasts I have already subscribed to? or even better, allow me to long hold and 'hide' podcasts I will never subscribe to like the Rogan show.

[Pentaphon]

I think people are looking for something simpler like the 4 bottom button designs we are seeing today. The sliding menu-based system is really the most confusing part to people because they aren't used to a UI where menu navigation is mostly hidden from view.

[ByteHamster]

I do not want to do big structural changes, to be honest. Removing the sidebar would make many users (including me :D) not happy.

[Pentaphon]

Fair enough. The home page just seems like a 4 bottom button nav spread out through the whole page but I guess that would be the only way to show most things at one glance.

[travisfw]

I was going to submit an issue for having the back button go "up" to the grid of podcast subscriptions. I have been repeatedly frustrated throughout my years of use of AntennaPod, that pressing back when I'm looking at the episodes in a podcast exits the app, when what I want is to look at a different podcast. Would such a change (back goes to subscription grid) be welcomed, perhaps as a temporary compromise while the discussion of the design of a prospective home screen continues? I would submit a pull request if so.

[ByteHamster]

Would such a change (back goes to subscription grid) be welcomed, perhaps as a temporary compromise while the discussion of the design of a prospective home screen continues? I would submit a pull request if so.

There is already a setting for this: User interface » Back button behavior

[travisfw]

Well, despite that this setting is about as buried as it can get, now that I know, great. Is everyone happy with the default?

[tonytamsf]

I would love to have the statistics screen at the bottom (if the user selects a "Show statistics on home screen")

[keunes]

Many users I have talked to do not use the queue at all.

Honestly, this I really don't understand. Personally I would say the 'queue' should be the 'home' of AntennaPod. If we could figure out somehow _why_ it's not used, that'd be very valuable. Don't they get the concept? Would it help if we rename it to 'playlist'? Do they prefer a different workflow? ... It feels to me like adding a home screen is tackling a symptom rather than a root cause.

Anyway, that said, I can imagine it's useful for people. For me, personally, I would say (in this order):

• Latest: newest episodes not in the queue. Should be hidden if not subscribed to any podcasts.
• Continue listening (paused): I do see the benefit as one may (as I) have paused several episodes. Should be hidden if there's only 1 (in mini-player) or 0 paused episodes. (link to what? new screen, queue?)
• Queue: episodes in top of the queue. Should display start-using-the-queue-hint to if there are no episodes in the queue.
• (Re)Discover:
  
  
  
  • if subscriptions < 50: display unsubscribed podcasts (link to 'more')
  
  
  • if subscriptions => 50: display random subscribed podcasts (link to 'all')
  
  
  • reasoning: if one is subscribed to so many podcasts, it's near impossible to follow everything (is my experience, with 73 subscriptions. This can help to rediscover gems within one's own collection.
  
  
  • I'm placing this towards the bottom b/c as a current user I want to get on with my flow (so this is not top priority). It'll move up the screen if a user has no subscriptions or the queue is empty.
  
  
• Favourite podcasts (stats): four squares; one with half circle + total hours; three with the most-played podcasts. More or less like such:
  

[ByteHamster]

Personally I would say the 'queue' should be the 'home' of AntennaPod.

This is how AntennaPod was meant to be used. AntennaPod does not have any analytics, so I can not say things for sure but I think that there are many users who use the "subscriptions" screen as the main entry point. They click the stream button of single episodes manually.

A friend of mine just uses the "all episodes" screen. This is basically how YouTube works: You get an endless list of "suggestions" and select a single one manually.

newest episodes not in the queue

This basically is the "New" tab on the episodes page, right?

if subscriptions < 50

That feels quite arbitrary. Could be confusing to users if the behavior suddenly changes.

three with the most-played podcasts

Building the stats is currently quite performance heavy (looking at every single episode). In this case, the performance should either be improved or we should just display the podcasts with the highest number of played episodes instead of the total played time.

[keunes]

This basically is the "New" tab on the episodes page, right?

I'd say so, yes (I must say I copied this from @Matth7878, so they might have a thought on this also)

That feels quite arbitrary. Could be confusing to users if the behavior suddenly changes.

Of course the number is a bit arbitrary. But I feel with such a high threshold, it's bound to only happen to podcast enthusiasts who are probably comfortable with the app and not quickly derailed.

Building the stats is currently quite performance heavy (looking at every single episode). In this case, the performance should either be improved or we should just display the podcasts with the highest number of played episodes instead of the total played time.

It'd be cool to have the graph, so I'd be in favour of improved performance (but I know, easy request if not being able to contribute code). As for the number of played episodes: that's a very good metric too (and I was thinking to create a separate issue requesting this), which better represents those short daily podcasts that one faithfully listens to every morning. Ideally, the preference for hour- or completed-based choice would be made in and taken from the stats view.

[Matth7878]

newest episodes not in the queue

This basically is the "New" tab on the episodes page, right?

I'd say so, yes (I must say I copied this from @Matth7878, so they might have a thought on this also)

Having latest episodes not in queue is not the same as new tab.
My new tab is always empty because I mark episodes as seen (or I remove new flag) but it doesn't mean there is not some recent episodes which I didn't add to the queue.

For instance if you subscribe to a serial podcast and you have a lot to catch up you don't necessarily download new episodes. Especially if you have a lot to catch up.

Or there is some episodes that seems less interesting and when my queue is already crowded I might skip them. Later on if I'm running out of episodes to listen I might download those episodes I skipped.

[travisfw]

Many users I have talked to do not use the queue at all.

Honestly, this I really don't understand. Personally I would say the 'queue' should be the 'home' of AntennaPod. If we could figure out somehow _why_ it's not used, that'd be very valuable.

It's too much to manage. When I have tried using the queue, I usually find its contents too old to be useful.

[lukaszkruk]

Many users I have talked to do not use the queue at all.

Honestly, this I really don't understand. Personally I would say the 'queue' should be the 'home' of AntennaPod. If we could figure out somehow _why_ it's not used, that'd be very valuable.

Hello All,

I suppose this is as good a place as any to say hello, and thank all the contributors for the fantastic app. I'm just in the process of ditching player.fm after their ads became too annoying. My use of any podcast app is therefore probably influenced by player.fm's model, which I find to be super convenient and intuitive. I will try to answer _why_ the queue model is less than immediately intuitive for me, hoping that this indeed is helpful.

I am subscribed to ~40 feeds. Some publish every day or two, some every few months. Some of them are episodes of a series to be listened to in sequence, others are one-off episodes which I choose to listen to or skip on a case-by-case basis. The time I have to listen is not very consistent - sometimes I'll have 2 hours to listen in the afternoon, sometimes I'll go a week without listening to a single podcast, and a round trip train journey on the weekend means I have 4-6 hours. I imagine all this is not very unique, there are likely other users with similar patterns. As a consequence, whenever I have a window to do some listening, I will choose what to listen to based on how much time I have and what I'm in the mood for. Half an hour commute? I'll pick a 25-minute one-off episode. 2 hours to spare? I'll go for a longer episode or a few that go in sequence. The decision is made then and there, and I want to be able to choose from all my 40 subscriptions. I want to just click the episode to listen to, and not build a queue. The next listening session will not pick up where I leave off, so I would have to clear my queue and build a new one. That would be a hassle.

Hope this helps?

[keunes]

if the 'Discover' section on the 'Add podcast' screen gets hidden if you select 'no country', how can you reactivate it?

The section is still there - it is just empty with a message that it is deactivated (and it does not do web requests to iTunes).

From https://github.com/AntennaPod/AntennaPod/pull/4515#issuecomment-720113876. This should be improved when implementing the Home screen.

[antennapod-bot]

This issue has been mentioned on AntennaPod Forum. There might be relevant details there:

https://forum.antennapod.org/t/play-a-random-episode/571/2