BookSeal
A vivid, fun, and content-focused reading recommendation app.
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Project Overview
Product Definition
BookSeal is an inclusive reading community with a personalized recommendation system that connects users with stories they will love. From different formats to different genres, BookSeal helps readers find books and stories that meet their tastes. Readers also have opportunities to share their favorite books with an equally passionate community and find new aspects of reading, and storytelling to share with others.
Features Overview
Home Page
Home page provides a personalized reading recommendation experience in different aspects to every user, as well as tracking for the user’s currently Reading books.
Discover Page
Discover page allows for searching and it provides reading recommendation on more general preferences
book Page
Book page shows the individual book’s details, as well as the associated comments left by users. Users can rate the book, change reading status and add the book into reading list.
Activity Page
Activity page provides a way for users to find community in reading, discuss plot points, and share recommendations and updates. They have the option to switch between a following(friends-only) feed and discover( public) feed.
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Problem Statement
Background
Background intro
More readers are reading in digital formats.
In 2021, over 42 biliion dollars book revenue in United States; 77% of adults read books, 33% of Americans read in digital formats, and the number is growing...
" I have been using Goodreads for a long time and would like to explore because it is outdated but can't find other competitor App in the market."
" The biggest disadvantage is being tied to a single library or the Amazon eco-system.Why don’t we have a standard ebook format that is supported by all the electronic book readers."
Question
Are modern people satisfied with reading in the digital world?
Our Mission
Goal
Our mission is to engage all readers on a one-stop reading recommendation platform
Our mission is to engage readers of all backgrounds, reading habits, and genres on a one-stop reading recommendation platform. BookSeal will not only be a powerful tool for readers to use, but also ultimately offer a holistic reading ecosystem from finding something to read, updating your reading progress, interacting with your reading community, and recommending readings to others.BookSeal connects readers with an engaging reading community and stories they will love through a personalized recommendation system.
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Research
User Research - Interview
We completed user interviews for preliminary insights into readers’ habits, preferred recommendation systems, and preferred reading and tracking preferences.
First, we created an interview script and contextual observation guidelines. After we concluded interviews, we divided interview results into three main categories: personal background, reading habits, and book recommendations.
Interview Insights
Users want good resource, want to improve search issue and want to improve the reading environment.
User research - Personas & Journey Map
After completing user Interviews, we gathered raw data and turned them into more detailed and user-centered specific categories and subcategories to create an affinity map. Based on the insights generated by the affinity map, we created a primary persona to represent the target audience: Mirabel (fiction reader, largely relying on browsing and friend recommendations)
Based on our persona, we created a user journey map, tried to empathy the whole user flow: Interested in reading - Search for something to read - Select something to read - Reading - Finished Reading. While creating the journey map, we found out that our users might find difficulties and most frustrated in the select something to read stage. Our user journey map helped us to identify where our direct competitors are coming into contact with users. This is where we also identified some gaps we may be able to address in BookSeal by offering a more holistic reading ecosystem.
PERSONA & USER JOURNEY Insights
1. Readers are most depressed and frustrated in the "select to read" stage.
2. It is difficult for readers to find out reliable reading recommendations and figure out what to read.
summarized insights from User research
By integrating data from user survey, we generated further insights that helped us define the app’s main functions and user priorities.
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Design
Main Features
Iteration
During our ideation stage, we have 3 round of iterations. 1st round of iteration we finished our low-fi and part of our mid-fi wireframe to create prototype flows for six tasks which used for 1st round of user testing. we encompassed the core features and existing challenges of our product in 1st round of testing. For the 2nd round of iteration, we updated our exiting wireframe and finished the hi-fi screen according to the users feedback we got from the last round of user testing. We also set up the 2nd round of user testing to test our product's overall usability. In our 3nd round of iteration, we mainly focused on visual upgrade according to the feedback we got on our last iteration.
Design system
Prototype
Onboarding & Set up preference
Register/Login to Bookseal, set up your reading preference to help us generate personalized recommendation for you.
Connect you to your love books
Find you favorite books and authors simply by using search function
Tracking your reading experience
Update your reading status and add your favorite books into shelf to track your own reading experience.
Share your books review
Rate your favorite books and share thought with your friends.
Inclusive reading community
We offer a free space for you to engage with your fellow friends and authors.
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takeaway
1. One of our challenges in design was deciding how to present each main screen, making it both distinct but intuitive for users. We especially struggled in deciding the content and presentation of the Home and Discover screens. While we were struggling in this, we conducted a closed card sort which clarified the issues, as well as the expectations our potential users and we had for each screen. In the end, we succeeded in improving this issue as many users commented that our design was easy, accessible, intuitive, and as if we predicted the next steps in their minds.
2. Another major challenge in design was the overall identity of our application. The questions of how to make our app stand out from the competition, what features to focus on, how to present the style of the application, and our branding was a prominent question in our minds from the very start of the project. One of our participants also brought this concern up during Usability Testing 2, where they mentioned that our application was well on its way but lacked a sense of identity. We observed that there are many apps these days where it feels like the app doesn’t have an identity, and we brainstormed the qualities of applications which we felt had a clear identity. Taking these qualities into mind, we developed BookSeal.