Context
The world is going through a global pandemic and It is truly the most disturbing time I have ever seen.
India is in a 21 days of lockdown. We all should be extremely thankful to be privileged enough to take this time for ourselves.
Coming to my Case study
In this time we all are opting to do activities for ourselves and in this , reading tops the list.
However we can’t go buy book right , so we turn to kindle app.
I did the same and figured it needs some redesigning.
Hence, with my basic knowledge in the UX field, I tried to research the current Kindle app and looked for ways to improve the experience.
Little context about me, I am a computer science graduate who is stepping into UI/UX design and I am self teaching myself everything from scratch with the available resources as blogs and youtube.
I took up this redesign as a learning project.
About Kindle
So kindle is basically a ebook reading device by amazon, it lets you browse buy books online and read an electronic version of book.
Amazon also offers a kindle app for ios and andriod to read books bought from Amazon
let’s head to the real things.
Research
For my research work, with my restricted research options in these circumstances. It was difficult to conduct task analysis which is required part of this research.I opted for telephonic user interview with secondary research.
Target audience: 13–40
Telephonic conversations with my target audience led me to certain conclusions
- People generally get book recommendations from friends or family, which leads them to search the book online for buying.
- Reading an ebook on a phone is full of distractions.
- People opt for kindle to browse books, read reviews.
Secondary research
I dug in deep platforms like reddit , play store reviews , Quora.
I found actual users who have faced issues with the features and their frustrations.
I clustured all the issue and did affinity mapping to get to the crux of the issue.
Pain points:
I concluded few points from my research
Clustered UI: For example the home page is filled with repetitive options as discover your next read, recommendations , similar to last read.
Inability to Organise : It has options to add to list but unable to find list as it gets stored in amazon’s website. Add to collection feature lets you add books but lacks to stand out for user experience.
Search engine limited: The search engine doesn’t dissect the choices between author or books. Audiobooks are completely left out of scenario
Based on my research, I mapped out my user persona
Customer journey map
I created a customer journey map to get a better requirement of the users.
Design
Wireframes
After my research process i moved to my design section , where I made some wireframes to gain a full picture of my design.
Part 1/4: Home page
The home page was filled with numerous books for user to browse which defeats the motive as a ebook reader application.
What I changed :
- In the home part, I changed the excessive Advertisement of books to a minimal approach.
- I added a Current reading section with the progress bar of the book so that user is reminded of completing the book.
- I kept the discover next read to keep a hook of new books.
- Adding a Book You may like section to keep the user engaged and looking for more new like type books.
- I changed the UI to make it more appealing as first law of UX states
Users often perceive aesthetically pleasing design as design that’s more usable.
Part 2/4 : Library
The library section feels a bit clustered.
What I changed?
- I added the current reading section to keep a preview of progress of user’s books.
- I changed the all — download section as it didn’t really paint a clear picture.
- I added the section of collection which contains all of your tags and add tags. It helps user to collect and organise better. It directly leads to the books tagged under a name.
- I added the section of your books and sample books. It is easier to dissect between your bought books and sample read.
- I changed the UI to add features Resume reading, Hide book, Explore the web about the book, direct access to notes of the book.
Part 3/4 : Discover
What I changed:
- I removed the static advertisement banner. The prompts of harry potter or Indian languages seems very generalised.
- I changed the page into sections of Recommended for you, best selling and kindles top ten books.
- To discover more I added a list of authors.
- Next comes the option of choosing book genre wise.
Search
The search engine is not very specific. It gives answers not specific to books or authors. The search engine is not consistent across library and discover page.
What I changed
- I added a search button which helps you search across the amazon with respect to authors , books , audiobooks.
- I added the feature of last search to help user recognition over remembrance of last searches.
More
What I changed
- I added the number of books owned and written reviews
- It displays reviews to make it more informative.
- I added amount of time spent on reading a page which leads to user stats of reading each day. (something inspired by number of steps by Apple health.)
- I kept the settings and help part intact.
Book
Book detail
I feel the features given by Kindle on book page are very useful, except the excess of features present in the top bar.
What I changed
So i switched to a singe button . I tried to change the layout only
Changing font in book changes the font in all books . So i kept that restriction with availability of changing fonts for all the books under settings.
