recast

Turn reading into listening

Product Design - UI/UX - Illustrations - App Icon

The product

Keeping up with online information is becoming increasingly overwhelming. To stay fully informed, you’d need to read news articles, opinion pieces, and blog posts all day — and then you might still miss important updates.
With Recast, we built an app that turns online reading into audio podcasts. It cuts down the time needed to stay informed, while transforming reading into listening in on a conversation of experts that you can enjoy while commuting, working out, or relaxing.

The role

As a Product Designer, my focus was to design an intuitive and flexible listening experience that reduced information overload without losing depth — turning complex online content into something users could enjoy effortlessly, whether actively exploring or passively tuning in.
In the early phases, I worked on shaping the core listening experience, ensuring each mini-podcast felt clear, cohesive, and engaging. This included AI voice selection, prompting, and tuning, adding subtle personality to make the experience feel more natural and human.
As the product evolved, we explored ways to make discovering new content easier, balancing actively browsing with curated playlists based on user preferences. The goal was to design a product that fit naturally into users’ daily routines, whether they wanted to follow specific topics, catch up on trending stories, or just hit play and listen to something new.
This balance between control and serendipity was central to the design approach, ensuring the product felt both personal and dynamic. It became a space where users could actively shape their experience or let the app do the work for them.

The Castmi

Every app needs a cute little character to make it more delightful. Enter Castmi. This little meerkat helps users navigate, shortens loading times by making them more entertaining, and overall just gives a little extra to the users experience in the app.

Sadly, the recast app was discontinued in Dec 2024.