The New York Times: Upgrading the podcast directory

A redesign of The New York Times' podcast directory header, rebuilt around a dynamic, artwork-driven browsing experience for listeners.

Unsolicited5 min read

01 · Overview

The New York Times podcast directory redesign by Jeff Shibasaki

Podcasts included

Past and current shows

Core tasks

Browse, discover, listen

Dynamic directory

One browsing system

Unsolicited redesign

This concept was created independently and is not affiliated with or endorsed by The New York Times.

Podcast-platform logos belong to Apple, Spotify, Google, and Pocket Casts. The remaining photography and New York Times brand assets belong to The New York Times.

Roles

User research, copywriting, visual design, and interaction design

Focus

Make the podcast catalog easier to browse, distinguish, discover, and play.

Scope

An independent redesign of the podcast directory header—not the rest of the page.

Tools

Paper, Markers, Miro, Sketch, Sip, WhatFont, Keynote

02 · Problem

Great podcasts were difficult to discover

The New York Times produces journalism-led podcasts across history, current events, and culture. While The Daily was prominently featured, visitors could not easily browse other shows from the homepage.

The directory required too much navigation to understand a show or begin listening, and it did not use podcast artwork to help people distinguish one series from another.

The New York Times podcast directory before Jeff Shibasaki’s redesign — The existing directory made The Daily prominent, but offered no efficient way to distinguish, browse, or begin listening to the rest of the catalog.

03 · Approach

Turn listening habits and pain points into a browsing system

I listened to 1619, Popcast, and Still Processing to understand the catalog beyond The Daily. That made one content decision especially clear: the journalists and hosts needed to be part of the experience.

Empathize

I listened to several shows I had not heard before and reviewed NPR, Gimlet, Relay FM, and TWiT to understand how other networks support discovery.

Define

I translated friction—extra clicks, indistinguishable shows, and weak browsing—into goals for recognition, discovery, listening, and measurable efficiency.

Ideate

I cataloged The Times’s podcasts, sketched options, and centered the concept on artwork that people could swipe to change the active show.

Prototype

I developed the visual system in Sketch, then used Keynote to communicate the motion, state changes, and emotional effect that static screens could not show.

Test

In a real product context, I would test discoverability, comprehension, swipe behavior, time to play, successful subscriptions, and exploration beyond The Daily.

Study how podcast networks support discovery

I compared NPR, Gimlet, Relay FM, and TWiT. TWiT was crowded, but made shows, subscriptions, and recent episodes easy to reach. I wanted that efficiency with a more focused, dynamic header.

NPR podcast directory used for competitive research — NPR provided a useful reference for organizing a large journalism-led podcast catalog.

Gimlet podcast directory used for competitive research — Gimlet showed how a network could use distinctive artwork and concise descriptions to differentiate shows.

Relay FM podcast directory used for competitive research — Relay FM made its catalog easy to scan through consistent show artwork and a predictable grid.

TWiT podcast directory used for competitive research — TWiT felt crowded, but made browsing, subscribing, and finding recent episodes possible without excessive navigation.

Define what the redesign should improve

I listed pain points in Miro, inverted them into goals, and identified measures for success. The concept needed to reduce clicks, improve recognition, and support browsing and listening without sending people through unnecessary pages.

Pain points, design goals, and success metrics for The New York Times podcast directory — I inverted observed pain points into design goals and paired them with measures that could evaluate browsing efficiency, discovery, and listening.

Make artwork the interaction

I cataloged current and past podcasts before sketching. The wireframe uses a swipeable artwork carousel: selecting a show changes the header, enlarges the active artwork, reveals the host and description, and brings listening options and recent episodes into the same surface.

Alphabetical catalog of New York Times podcasts used during ideation — I cataloged current and past shows so the concept represented the breadth of the directory rather than only the most visible podcast.

Wireframe for the redesigned New York Times podcast directory header — The wireframe introduces a swipeable artwork carousel, a larger active state, direct listening options, and recent episodes in one browsing surface.

Build one system for different shows

I used available typefaces with a similar editorial character, changed Subscribe to black to reinforce brand hierarchy, added Log In as a secondary action, rewrote show descriptions, included host headshots, and standardized the listening badges. Each show’s artwork color becomes the dynamic background.

The Daily selected in The New York Times podcast directory redesign — The selected artwork becomes the clear active state while the header reveals the show description, host, and listening options.

The Book Review selected in The New York Times podcast directory redesign — The same system adapts to a different show without changing the interaction model or information hierarchy.

Popcast selected in The New York Times podcast directory redesign — Artwork color drives the background, giving each show a distinct visual identity inside one repeatable component.

Together Apart selected in The New York Times podcast directory redesign — Standardized listening badges reduce relearning while the show-specific content and imagery change.

Still Processing selected in The New York Times podcast directory redesign — Host imagery makes the journalists part of the browsing experience and helps each podcast feel more personal.

A streamlined design that’s easy to browse, discover, and listen to podcasts.

04 · Solution

A dynamic directory that changes with every show

I created the final prototype in Keynote because static screens could not fully communicate the interaction. The video shows how artwork, color, descriptions, hosts, listening platforms, and episodes work together as people move through the catalog.

05 · Reflection

The prototype makes the hypothesis testable

This concept brought 20 NYT podcasts into 1 directory built around 3 core tasks: browse, discover, and listen. Those numbers describe the project’s scope, not evidence that people would discover more shows.

My hypothesis is that bringing the catalog into a single browsing system would make new shows easier to find and encourage discovery beyond The Daily.

I’d test whether people can discover a new show, understand what it offers, start an episode, and subscribe successfully. Time to first play, subscriptions, and the number of shows explored would become useful signals only after the discovery experience proved clear.

The project reinforced that a prototype is most useful when it turns assumptions into something stakeholders and users can evaluate.