The Global Player Eco-System

The Global Player is an all-encompassing audio ecosystem - one multi-platform product available where and when you need it; delivering radio, podcasts, playlists, articles and live video.

Be it iOS, Android, Tablet, Web, Smart speaker, TV, In-flight and In-Car, Global Player offers you an engaging, simple to use entertainment experience you can trust.

The Global Player Design System

We have implemented a living design system, the G:PS; driving brand, UX and UI consistency across our platforms through a shared understanding of Global Player's design language. It accelerates the speed we get features into user's hands and increases cross team co-operation across Global’s design and development community. By using G:PS, we can focus on unique design challenges rather than re-creating common design assets.

Global Player on iOS & Android

During my time at Global, the design team and I have designed and redesigned almost every aspect of the apps. From listening live to Global’s radio stations: Capital, Capital XTRA, Heart, LBC, Radio X, Classic, Smooth and Gold via the ‘brand-hub’ experience, downloading & subscribing to shows, skipping songs on live radio, discovering and downloading hundreds of award-winning Podcasts, curated streaming Playlists, getting the latest news, entertainment, videos and pictures from each of Global’s stations - our team has delivered it all.

Podcasts

The first project the new team worked on after starting at Global was adding podcasts to the Global Player apps. We worked on requirements, user stories, competitor analysis, wireframes and hi-fidelity prototypes. The MVP was launched with the essentials and we added more functionality over subsequent sprints, understanding the priority features requested from user feedback and feature parity with competitors.

Global has a dedicated Podcast team, making award winning audio content. Our design team have assisted them by designing many original covers and promotional assets.

Global Podcast | Original Artwork

As well as product design, our team create original cover concepts for the ever-growing podcast area. We take briefs and design an array of beautiful, exciting graphics for the podcasts, the studios, the video cards and assorted promotional materials.

Channel Brand Hubs

At the heart of the Global Player apps are the brand hubs. These are ‘Netflix’ style scrolling pages of branded content - allowing each radio brand to have its own unique space. The concept work that led to the final brand hub solution experimented with card interfaces, swiping wallets and many other browsing formats.

Global Player on Web

We looked at listener numbers on web - and seeing an opportunity driven by high weekday numbers on desktop - we created a desktop player experience. We extended the design system from the native apps and delivered a beautiful, easy to use desktop player for our growing desktop listeners. It delivers the same app audio content and allows users flexibility to pick up where they left off on mobile with a cloud library.

Global Player on Smart Speakers & TV

You can listen to audio from Global Player anywhere - we’ve delivered services on Alexa, Google Assistant & Home Hub, Apple Home Pod & Siri, Apple TV, Sky Q and assorted TV platforms. Global is a partner with Amazon so we’re working on new smart projects as I type.

Global Player Brand Mapping

We use Miro to keep track of all of the various branding elements on Global Player. This is an invaluable ‘living’ brand board enabling all the brand and digital elements to be seen together, much more up to date than a static brand guidelines PDF.

All elements are downloadable and allow the teams to refer to the latest assets across all areas. This collation enables transparency between the teams who manage, design and build the products.