The Australian Broadcasting Corporation has taken out not just one, but two Good Design Awards this year.
The radio network triple j app won a Good Design Award in the Best in Class category, which represents the highest level of design excellence and is limited to the Top 30 entries. Meanwhile, the ABC’s Kids app received a Good Design Award in the category of Digital Apps and Software.
The triple j app, which was relaunched in 2018, connects with the ABC’s youth audience, allowing them access to live radio, podcasts and catch-up episodes and segments from across the triple j, Double J and triple j Unearthed networks.
Key features include up-to-the minute playlists for all music that appears on the stations, and the ability to add these songs directly to Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube Music streaming services. There is also a suite of listener engagement tools that allow audiences to interact with live radio, including polls and emoji reactions.
Since relaunching, the triple j app has grown its average weekly users by more than 70%, and it regularly appears as one of Australia’s most popular music apps in the Apple and Android app stores, especially during peak usage periods such as the Hottest 100 or events like Requestival, Splendour In The Grass and Ausmusic Month.
The Good Design Awards’ Jury evaluated entries according to a strict set of design criteria covering “good design”, “design innovation” and “design impact”. The panel jury praised the triple j app, saying it was “a brilliant example of the role of design in driving strategy for a brand (triple j) and then also using this to drive change inside a wider organisational context”.
The ABC Kids app, which won a Good Design Award in the Digital Apps and Software category, was tested with over 1000 families to uncover insights that better connect Australian pre-school and younger school-aged children to Australian culture, and it is now Australia’s No. 1 kids app with over one million monthly viewers. Content is carefully curated by experts, including early education specialists. ABC teams completed the design work in an extremely fast turnaround of less than 10 months.
ABC Chief Digital & Information Officer Helen Clifton said receiving two Good Design Awards was a great industry acknowledgement and reflected the ABC’s commitment to providing innovative, forward-thinking design and accessibility solutions to meet audience needs and expectations.
“The Good Design Awards are the highest honour for design and innovation in the country. We are so proud to be recognised with two Good Design Awards this year for our ABC Kids app and our triple j app. Winning these awards represents the concerted efforts of our ABC digital, production and engineering teams in developing and delivering exceptional experiences for our audiences, so I am thrilled their efforts have been recognised in this way.”
To download the triple j app, visit https://www.abc.net.au/triplej/app/
To download the ABC Kids app, visit https://www.abc.net.au/abckids/abc-kids-app/11131264