Mobile App Design
Problem Statement
With the limited amount of time that life provides, readers deserve to spend less time searching for things to read and more time reading stories that they will wholeheartedly enjoy. Solution: BookSeal From different formats to different genres, BookSeal is a mobile application which connects readers to books that meet their tastes and to a community of similarly passionate readers. I conducted user interviews, synthesized research data, directed the information architecture, and wrote the copy of BookSeal’s application and design documentation. I also introduced my team to accessibility in design. |
Duration
January 2022 - May 2022 Role UX Designer, UX Researcher, UX Writer, Accessibility Lead Team 4 UX Designers Tools Figma, Miro, UserTesting.com, Google Suite Skills User Interviews, Affinity Mapping, Competitor Analysis, Information Architecture, Feature Blueprint, Sketching, Wireframing, Prototyping, Card Sorting, Usability Testing, Branding, Visual Design, Documentation |
CHALLENGE
How might we reimagine the digital reading recommendation experience to make it more exciting?
Through user research and my personal goals for BookSeal, our team envisions that-
The future of reading is...
Charming
Personalized
Social
Holistic
Designed by readers for readers.
Identifying opportunities & challenges.
INSPIRATION
The Big Idea.
BookSeal was born from our team's passion for reading, as well as the frustrations we each faced in finding "the next good read". I recognized and related to other readers' struggle with finding a good book to the investment in reading. Opportunities & Challenges. PASSION. BookSeal has the opportunity to ignite the "next read" excitement for novice and experienced readers alike with its engaging and personalized reading environment and recommendation system. RECOMMENDATIONS. BookSeal highlights valued recommendations, which comes from friends and using tags & filters to customize reading searches. No more generic, repetitive, and inaccurate recommendations. Recommendations are a two-way street where readers can suggest recommendations to their friends too. TRACK READING. BookSeal encourages readers to enjoy recording their reading progress and organizing their book shelves. COMMUNITY. BookSeal gives readers the flexibility to explore and engage with reading communities, contributing as much or as little as each reader would like, catering to both ends of the social reading spectrum. ONE-STOP READING RECOMMENDATION APP. BookSeal is a holistic reading recommendation ecosystem from finding a read, tracking progress, interacting with the reading community, and recommending readings to others. |
DISCOVERY RESEARCH
My research objective focused on understanding readers and the market landscape. I wanted to understand what was working, what could be improved, and what unique experiences could be offered on BookSeal's reading recommendation app.
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What can BookSeal improve? |
USER INTERVIEWS
To identify patterns and insights in readers' habits, preferred recommendation systems, and preferred (reading) tracking.
User interviews with 11 readers from our target audience [English speaking global audience, 20-30 years old]. The interviews ran 30-50 minutes and covered 25 questions on reading habits and reading recommendations. From my Participant 3, I learned that a reader may be resistant to genres outside of their usual genres, but they are open to reading "palette cleansers" (easy reads). Convincing marketing and popularity can also convince a reader to try a new genre. |
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Using the interview notes, our team created an affinity map.
AFFINITY MAPPING
As a team, we organized desktop research and user interview data into inductively identified categories: recommendation, community, searching, and reading experience.
From my Participant 3, I learned that some readers were only interested in passively engaging with the community, while another teammate discovered that some readers preferred actively engaging with the community. By mapping our notes, we generated insights that helped define BookSeal's main functions and user priorities. See full affinity map here RECOMMENDATION.
1. The reader's personal relationship/friendship affects how positively a recommendation is received and valued. 2. Convincing marketing and popularity can convince readers to try a new genre. SEARCHING. 1. Readers prefer using tags & filtering over keywords because keywords lack specificity. 2. Some readers really enjoy the experience of searching, while others really dislike it. READING EXPERIENCE. 1. Readers don't want to be pressured to read. Readers use reading to destress. 2. Readers are resistant to new and disliked genres, but they like to read easy reads in other genres in between their usual reads. COMMUNITY. 1. Readers actively contribute to the community through events and reviews. 2. Readers passively engage with the community by looking through favorite authors' works, friends' lists, or reviews. |
COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS
Our team analyzed the strengths, weaknesses, recommendation system, community features, search system, and incentives for each competitor.
See full competitor analysis here DIRECT
Goodreads, WebToon, Storygraph, Likewise Our direct competitors are apps who similarly focus on finding books and recommending books. Each of our direct competitor only focuses on a singular key feature. This key feature is done well, but the other features are lacking and don't support an end-to-end reading recommendation experience. From my research, I learned that GoodReads' main feature is searching for books. While it uses a comparative recommendation system based on general readers' likes, it doesn't have a personalized recommendation system. GoodReads also has a robust reviewing community, but its other community and incentive related features are geared towards passive engagement, such as creating book lists and signing up for a personal reading challenge. INDIRECT Netflix, Google, NaNoWriMo, Spotify Our indirect competitors each had a strength that would elevate BookSeal's functionality, such as Netflix and Spotify's recommendation systems, Google's search, and NaNoWriMo's community. |
PERSONAS & JOURNEY MAP
Our team identified our key reader types and key touchpoints in the reading journey, then creating our personas and journey map.
The persona I created, Mirabel, is representative of BookSeal's target fiction reader "The Entertainment Seeker" who reads for enjoyment and doesn't want to think too hard about how to find her next favorite read. The other personas created by my teammates are representative of our target nonfiction readers "The Learners" who are interested in professional and self improvement reads and our target community-oriented readers "The Social Butterfly" who is interested in actively engaging with a reading community. See personas here and see journey map here |
INITIAL RESEARCH INSIGHTS
01 Levels of Recommendation Acceptance
1. Readers are more likely to accept recommendations from friends and followed authors compared to general social opinions. 02 Comfortable Reading
1. Readers don’t like being pushed to read, such as reminders to read. 03 Consistent Standard
1. Readers want to read something enjoyable to them, and they want the “next best read” - not a generic genre recommendation. 2. Readers typically decline recommendations from new, different, and disliked genres. 04 Clean Layout
1. Readers prefer an aesthetically minimal layout for presenting books. 05 Tags & Filters
1. Readers prefer using tags & filtering over keywords when searching due to the level of specificity and customization. |
After the initial research was completed, our team brainstormed on what concepts, priorities, and features our book recommendation app would have.
From BookForest to BookSeal.
Testing concepts & finalizing features.
CONCEPT TESTING
Initial Concept: BookForest
BookForest, the original concept, focused on the themes of “environment” and “growth”, as our team envisioned a motivational feature to draw users into our app. |
Ideation
Our team focused on building out BookForest's main screens (Home, Discover, and Book) to brainstorm potential features, based on project opportunities and research insights. I individually designed the Home page and focused on engaging readers with features which were personalized to the readers' tastes and offered recommendations based on a range of criteria. |
Iteration 1 Lo-fi
Since our team diverged in creating our ideation wireframes, we converged in our iteration 1 lo-fi, reviewing each screen and then iterating based on those changes. This iteration, I designed the Discover page, which focused on searching and browsing general recommendations based on popularity and trends, compared to the more personalized recommendations of the Home page. |
New Concept: BookSeal
While designing the BookForest screens, our team faced issues with organizing the information architecture and expectations readers had of BookForest. Through card sorting and formative usability tests with 5 newly recruited readers, we discovered common patterns and priorities readers had for a fun, supportive, and social application. Instead of BookForest's focus on "environment" and "personal growth", our team brainstormed how we could brand our app and highlight its fun, engaging, and social aspects. We took inspiration from Duolingo, which makes language learning engaging with the help of Duo (the mascot owl), which led to reimagining BookForest as BookSeal. BookSeal evokes a playful and friendly vibe with its name pun and its seal mascot. Its main features focus on personalized recommendations, community, reading tracking, and browsing/searching. |
Iteration 2 Hi-fi
In Iteration 2, our team ideated on BookSeal's screens with the focus on personalized, social, fun, and engagement features. Using these screens, our team conducted usability tests with 5 users. Usability Test Round 1 & 2 Findings
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Iteration 3 Hi-fi
The Iteration 3 BookSeal hi-fi wireframes and annotations reflect the changes our team have made from the first two rounds of usability testing. Thanks to the valuable user feedback, we designed each app screen to be responsive to user actions, consistent in language and design, and distinct in each screen's main features. At this stage, we've also integrated our app's branding and logo, featuring our BookSeal mascot. While I initially designed on the BookForest Home and Discovery page, in Iteration 3, I also designed the BookSeal Discovery, Search, Book, Author, Activity, and Profile screens. Usability Test Round 3 Findings
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Testing Tasks
**Task 0 was only conducted in Usability Testing Round 1. Task 0: Select a book from your friend's recommendations and add it to your Want to Read shelf. Task 1: Search for an author and add one of their books to the Currently Reading shelf. Task 2: Update a book to "Read". |
Task 3: Rate a book and write a review under it.
Task 4: Edit your username. Task 5: Like and comment on an activity post. |
TESTING TAKEAWAYS
How might we reimagine the digital reading recommendation experience to make it more exciting?
01 Readers look for a comprehensive reading recommendation experience from apps.
And readers desire the freedom to choose what key features of the reading recommendation app they want to participate in. 02 Readers know what they like, and they want their apps to know that too.
Readers want to use personalization and customization features, such as privacy settings, accessibility settings, tags, and filters, to view what they want and to search what they want. Readers also don’t like being pushed to read, especially for genres, authors, and books which are outside of their interests. 03 Readers don't want to be overwhelmed with choice or content.
More is not always better, whether that’s more recommendations or more features. Instead, readers prefer a clean layout which highlights the key features. |
BookSeal captures the social, fun, and passionate
atmosphere we want to readers to experience.
ONGOING WORK
LESSONS LEARNED
My personal takeaways
Important for developing a social, engaging, and personalized app.
My personal takeaways
Important for developing a social, engaging, and personalized app.
01. The Importance of Brand Identity
02. Seeking Visual Inspiration
03. Feature Prioritization and Distinction
- While developing BookSeal through its many iterations, I realized how important brand identity was to define BookSeal’s main purpose, entice users, and stand out from other reading recommendation applications.
02. Seeking Visual Inspiration
- Through this project, I was exposed to many different sources in which to seek visual inspiration, thanks to my teammates. During this project, I learned to expand my view and look outward to other indirect digital and physical sources for inspiration.
03. Feature Prioritization and Distinction
- During this project, I struggled with identifying what features to prioritize and distinguish in BookSeal, since the goal was to make it a holistic reading recommendation app. The scope was getting too big. Here, I learned how card sorting and user interviews could help with understanding what readers care about and which features/functions fit together. Most importantly, I learned how the balance readers’ expectations and desires for BookSeal against BookSeal’s vision.
FLYNN TAN |
[email protected]
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