During the week of November 4, we organised a radio focused Hack Week at VRT. Working with teams of several VRT departments (Innovation, Radio Technology and Digital Production) and with MARCONI project partner Pluxbox, it was our aim to prototype a proof of concept that combines the rundown, phone & chat application and playout tools in an integrated radio production system. By doing so, radio producers should be enabled to interact with listeners in an easier way, as defined at the start of the MARCONI project early 2018.
Set-up
In particular, the proof of concept consisted of four building blocks: playout, rundown, phone and app communication. The prototype was built on top of the Privaults back-end, developed by Pluxbox during the MARCONI project. The front-end was built using WebComponents, which were also developed during the MARCONI project. For the actual audio playout, we integrated the APIs of the playout system Omniplayer. For the telephone communication, we used the Phonebox API.
Aim
The aim was threefold:
Get an insight into how feature complete the playout system is via API integration, especially in a live situation;
Test the feasibility of the WebComponents to build a custom flavour of a radio system, tailored to a radio station;
Find new use cases made possible thanks to the integration of the four main building blocks for making live radio.
Procedure
To be able to focus on front-end prototyping during the Hack Week, we prepared much of the integration work beforehand. Pluxbox set up a microservice to connect to the Omniplayer API via the MARCONI GraphQL interface. The same was done for the Phonebox API. We also organised a UX-focused workshop to get an idea of the important front-end elements, as well as observations at 3 of the 5 VRT radio stations, to really understand what they use and need whilst making a radio show. We did not want to miss things which seemed obvious to them and maybe not even worth mentioning, while they’re paramount for creating a live radio show.
During the Hack Week, we worked in two teams. The first team focused on user research and the design of the front-end. They created clickable mock-ups and wireframes and gathered feedback from radio producers. The second team set up the technical environment and implemented the mock-ups into a real, working proof of concept. The first group was slightly ahead and refined the user interface while the second group figured out how to achieve things technically. This tandem worked very well and sparked new ideas.
Next Steps
At the end of the Hack Week, we presented the proof of concept to a large group of radio producers and technicians. Our next steps include making the prototype ready for actual radio productions and testing it in a real studio environment.
