PBS KIDS Podcast Player

In 2021, in a joint venture with PRX, PBS KIDS, and CPB in order to leverage the power of podcasting, the Ready To Learn Podcast Accelerator was created. The target audience is children between the ages of 2 and 8. The accelerators, focus is on existing podcasts and funding for the creation of new ones. However, PBS KIDS did not have a stand-alone podcast player. Borrowing heavily from the PBS KIDS Video player, I designed a player that PBS KIDS users could navigate and integrated the addition of standard feature sets found in podcast players. Another design consideration was customization allowing our show producers to theme their players. Although this gave me a flashback to the Winamp skins of my youth, I must admit that the show producers have shown restraint so far.