Orange - Live Radio

Throughout my research of internet radio devices I came across many different types. There were ones which included a number of buttons to ones that only had a wheel or maybe 2 for selection and options, some had a large bright colourful LCD, whilst others had a nice crisp LCD display which would blend in with the rest of the design to show a sort of 'hidden' view.

 

The design that really interested me was this white one called 'liveradio'. It was very simple and included a bit of each of the elements from various designs. In my research I was not looking for the necessarily 'best looking product' but I was instead trying to find out what simplest and most natural user experience could be. This radio device termed 'liveradio' is very prevalent with using a wide variety of buttons on their interface, but only what is necessary. I remember looking at a design which consisted of a keyboard or some sort at the top! That my be useful but its not required as such. If we can get to a station that we like quickly and then 'save' that station, it is much quicker than retyping. In this design they have successfully implemented the strategy of placing such buttons, which are like 'hotkeys'. Just find the station first time, and then save it as the hotkey!

 

Another thing I noticed about this radio was that it was similar to the design of the interface of a car radio, only that this had speakers inbuilt at the front. As we compare the designs of the radio of car to the 'liveradio', we can see that the liveradio has the same buttons, but just placed differently. It has the hotkey buttons, the volume control is a round knob, there are arrow keys, and there is a play and pause button. The only feature added to the internet radio device is the 'home' button. This makes the radio very easy to use because he users can already adapt to it.

 

I believe this is a good design from the perspective of not so much the best looking product, but great usability for the user and natural and easy interaction.

Bishavjot Singh