Design Talk: Why I love the Webtoon App

Esther Choi
4 min readJul 12, 2020

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We all have that one favorite app — or a few.

With increased exposure to mobile devices, it’s not surprising that digital comics had their own taste of popularity among its users. Coming from someone who was born as a Millennial, I feel like I grew up during the technological evolution of comics. One of my earliest childhood memories was going into a comic book store in Seoul, Korea — also called man-hwa bang (or comic book room for the literal translation) — and my mom helping me register for their monthly subscription membership plan.

Even today, I’d still love to visit a man-hwa bang, which is now hyped to be more like a pretty cafe with comfy sofas and comic books (aka man-hwa cafe). This is where digital comics filled in the gap I felt was missing. It was a gap between my desire to read these picturesque stories and the lack of resources to access them now that I live in the U.S.

Amongst other similar apps I’ve tried, I find the Webtoon App my favorite.

Webtoon is the comic app that I gravitate towards the most, so one day I stopped to ask myself why. What makes Webtoon more pleasurable than its competitors like Tapas, Lezhin, DC, Marvel, etc? Is it their content? Their app design? What are they doing successfully?

With a curious mind, I thought it be fun to start looking look for a few usability and accessibility principles in Webtoon’s app design.

Visibility and Feedback

With Webtoon, I found that it didn’t require much effort to learn how to use it. A search icon at the top right corner, a clear visual hierarchy, and bottom navigation bar. Once you find a comic you want to read, a loading icon will appear to communicate that it’s buffering. Sometimes, as you move on to the next page, a page will have a loading transparent background to show that it’s still processing. Since there is a clear indication that my click to read a comic chapter went through, I know that I just need to wait for just a few seconds for the page to appear.

Understandability

Webtoon uses everyday language to communicate with its users, targeting simple words. It also has a straightforward layout, where users can find daily updates for all of Webtoon’s comics.

When I click a different category of my bottom navigation bar, the selected icon is colored a bright green while the other features are grey. In the image on the left, the highlighted green color indicates that I am currently on the Originals tab.

The bolded fonts signal that we are currently looking at comics released on Monday under the Daily category.

This page organizes which comics are released everyday. There are 2 main categories (Daily vs Genres) and sub-categories (Mon, Tues, Wed, etc) below it.

Visually having a daily calendar of releases makes it easier to find new content and the likes being displayed under each comic immediately let’s me know what’s most popular.

Affordances

The affordances, or cues for interaction, clearly shows the user how a button can be used.

From the main screen, you can follow a specific comic of your choice by clicking +Subscribe on their top navigation.

Once clicked, the Subscribe icon is changed to a check icon, confirming to the user that the comic has been added to their personal list for easier access in the future.

Users are also able to customize their Notifications settings with toggle switch features. To turn on a notification, a toggle switch can be clicked and moved to the right, showing a bright colored green.

If the user turns off a notification, they would swipe the toggle switch to the left and the button will be greyed out — like the Sleep Mode depicted in the image. The grey color indicates that it is dead, or inactive. A disabled feature like this is called a constraint. Constraints limit the perceived function of a device.

Conclusion

After having a quick look at Webtoon’s design, the app implies a number of actions that users like myself are already familiar with. It’s simple language, layout, and interaction cues are just a few design examples of usability and accessibility. By the end of 2019, Webtoon claimed the #1 title, ranking above all of its competitors, with over 100 billion views and a $502 billion revenue. Maybe we can possibly say that their attention to the user’s experience led them to be a successful digital comics app that so many people — like myself — are a fan of today.

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