
The habit of reading: How might we help occasional readers to reach their reading goals?
My role: UX designer
I have completed this project as a single-member team from research until prototype as a UX design student at Springboard.
Duration: 3 months
Tools used: Miro, Marvel Pop, Sketch, Invision, Google docs
Many people are too busy and/or unmotivated to read. I used to be that person. I had very long work days and it was easier to watch something on Netflix or scroll through social media instead of picking up a book. And whenever I wanted to read something I never knew where I saved the title of that great book a friend had recommended. So I ended up in front of Netflix as usual. I used to read a lot and I actually didn’t like that I had let this habit slip. Then I discovered the GoodReads app and I took on a 20 book per year challenge. I started reading on my Kindle so I could always have the next book ready when I needed it and I loved the challenge because it motivated me to read more. This inspired me to find a way to motivate people to read more and keep them motivated to reach their reading goals.
My design approach: I took a human-centered approach to this project and decided to research people’s reading habits in order to figure out what their deepest motivations, challenges, and needs are in terms of reading.
Research finding: I discovered that reading is all about habit. People who read habitually are less likely to be distracted by other activities. However, the ones who read occasionally easily choose social life, daily to-dos, social media, and other distractions over a book.
Solution: My solution is Klio. I designed the Klio app as a platform where users can find reading buddies with whom they can motivate each other to read every day and make reading a habit. The app also provides a solution to those habitual readers who like talking about books but they don’t have anyone in their immediate environment who reads the same books. On Klio they can find a reading buddy who they can discuss books with and even start a virtual book club.
But how did I get to this solution?
The design process

1. EMPATHIZE
Heuristic evaluation:
Gaining insight into the reading app industry, discovering best practices, and uncovering design gaps.
When I started the project I had little knowledge about the reading app industry. To familiarize myself, I conducted market research. To my surprise I found many apps with various solutions from online bookshelves and reading social media apps to providers, which aim to help users making a habit out of reading. I wanted to learn about these competitors on a deeper level to see what are the current and best practices in this field, to see what elements I can incorporate into my own solution, and to discover possible design gaps I can improve. Therefore I conducted a heuristic evaluation of the following three social media reading apps: GoodReads, LibraryThing and Litsy.
For the analysis I used a 0–4 rating system (0 — No usability problem to 4 — Usability disaster) and I picked the following three out of Nilsen’s 10 Usability Heuristics:
- User control and flexibility
- Visibility of system status
- Error Recovery
Learning:
The method of heuristic evaluation is not only a powerful tool when it comes to the testing of one’s own product but for competitor analysis as well. During this phase, I managed to identify several best practices, creative ideas and design gaps.
I think heuristic evaluation has a lot to do with first impression. During the evaluation it helped me to pay attention to the first feeling or thought that popped into my head scrolling through the apps.
Screener survey and interview process
Finding my audience and the real problem.

In order to develop a solution, I first had to define the users. I decided to study two groups with two different behaviors: people who read a lot and people who don’t, in order to compare and contrast the behavior groups. I interviewed young professionals (25–35 years old) who work a lot (40+ hours per week) because lack of time makes it challenging to prioritize reading on an everyday basis.
I recruited and filtered out the target group with screener surveys. Besides screening questions, I also included questions concerning the participants reading habits, which gave me a starting point for the interviews.
I interviewed five people in both behavioral groups to gain further insight into their motivations and behavior, and to have a strong reference point at the later stages of the project.
Learning:
To interview a minimum of five people per user type is necessary to learn about behaviors and discover behavioral patterns.
2. DEFINE
Affinity map:
It’s not about whether the user types read many books or not.
Of the many methods one can use to make sense of interview data, I chose to use an affinity map to summarize interview findings and cluster information. I like working with affinity maps because it helps to visualize data. I “downloaded” all important quotes, insights and thoughts to separate post-its and clustered them. I was looking for behavioral patterns to see what makes people read a lot or a little.
Findings and disproving initial assumptions:
Before I started the interview phase, I assumed that people who read many books had different behaviors than people who read fewer books. However, the interviews showed that what actually makes a difference in the behavior is if reading is a habit or not, and how much of a priority reading has in the person’s life. Being a habitual reader doesn’t mean that someone is reading many books. Some of my interviewees were habitual consumers of news, studies, and other content but they almost don’t read books at all.
Learning:
Don’t get overwhelmed by the huge number of post-its. It’s better to have more information downloaded than having to go back to the interview scripts over and over again.
If you are not sure whether something is important start looking for a pattern.
Understanding user types through an empathy map
When I defined my two user types and immersed myself in their feelings.

Based on the patterns discovered using the affinity map, I identified two user types: 1) habitual and 2) occasional readers. Although this was a key discovery in the project, this level of understanding of the user types was not enough to design a solution. Therefore, I created an empathy map to understand these user types better, to discover their feelings, actions, motivations, needs and frustrations.
Learning
Frustration = design gap
Creating personas
Introducing Olivia Andersson and Arnold Jung: the personas of habitual and occasional readers.

To dot the i’s and cross the t’s, I created user personas. This was the stage when I thought about the specific attributes, set of needs and behaviors which the user types embody. With that, I answered the question: “Who am I designing for?”
Learning:
When I had to write the personas I kept describing one of my interviewees, therefore I had to go back and consciously change up a few parts and integrate other attributes, needs, and elements which represent them all.
Problem Statement
Defining and prioritizing the needs I aim to solve.
By immersing myself in the users' behaviors, frustrations and needs during the previous exercises, I was clear about the problems that the users directly or indirectly formulated during the interviews. But to be able to design a solution, I had to formulate them in a way that it allowed me to formulate a possible solution in the ideation phase of the project. Therefore, I analyzed the needs and formulated user-centered “How might we” (HMW) questions. First, I listed all the needs, then rephrased them in the form of HMW questions. Finally, I prioritized them based on the level of impact a solution would have on users’ lives.
I came up with the following two HMW questions, which solves two needs of Arnold (occasional reader) and one need of Olivia (habitual reader):
- How might we help motivate users who are reading occasionally to develop a habit of reading?
- How might we help occasional and habitual readers to select a book they will like?
Learning
It is very important to phrase the HMW questions in a user-focused way. It is easy to fall into generalities but the focus should always be on the user if you aim to design a user-centered solution.
3. DESIGN
Ideation and idea selection process
Experiencing the fun of ideation- even alone — and coming up with the idea of the Klio app.
To come up with solutions I tried different brainstorming methods which ensured that I selected the one that really solved the users’ needs. I tried laddering, word association and mash-up in combination with sketching, which are great ideation methods for single person UX teams.

My favorite technique was mash-up since I was able to generate the most ideas with this method. After brainstorming with the mesh-up method, I sketched out the ideas on an idea board, which helped me further improve the ideas. Some solutions I came up with were more complex, others were very easy with the potential to be built into the final product as features.
Together with my mentor we analyzed all ideas from different angles and picked the reading buddy app to continue working on.
Idea selection process: I picked the idea based on the three criteria listed (in order of importance).
- Does it solve the user’s need which I formulated in the problem statement?
- How complex is the idea? How complex the solution is and what technology would be needed to develop it.
- What is my personal preference?
Learning
Embrace learning and be flexible. Reflecting on each phase of the project with the customers needs in mind, helped me to come up with a solution, which has a bigger scope than what I had imagined I would be able to create. During the define phase of the project I strongly focused on helping occasional readers. I didn’t realize it until later, that the Klio app also solves a primary need of habitual readers, which is to have someone to share their reading experience with. I discovered the pattern in the affinity map but unintentionally left it out from the list of problem statements. It wasn’t until I analyzed the possible solutions ideas after the ideation process that I realized that the app solves various needs of both user types. Therefore it is very important to make sure to list all needs at when writing problem statements without selection.
User stories and MVP
Defining the functional requirements of the Klio app and the MVP.

After I decided on which idea to continue working on, I was very excited. This is the point in the design process when you see the results of your research and with that I was very eager to prototype and sketch out the entire product. However, I still needed to think about the essential features customers would need to complete critical tasks in the app to make sure I don’t forget to include anything crucial. I created a list of user tasks (user stories) in the following form:
As a habitual/occasional reader, I want to (do some goal/task) so that I can (achieve some outcome).
Once I was done with the list, I divided them into three categories to see dependencies. I also gave each story a number. Numbering stories is useful for collaborating with developers. Numbers are easier to communicate across the team and help avoid any misunderstanding by ensuring clarity. Finally, I prioritized the stories according to importance from priority 1 to 3. The priority 1 stories were to be included in the MVP to keep the core idea small and quick to validate.
Learning
Even though designing your solution is exciting, first the usability has to be right. Therefore, listing user stories is an essential step before moving onto design.
Information Architecture
Exploring site navigation

To find out how users will interact with the content and features available in the app, I prepared a site map and user flows. In the former, I sketched out the hierarchy of the content. For the latter, I identified three red routes, in other words, critical tasks, which enable the user to get the benefits of the app and therefore are essential to the product’s success. After that, I was able to visualize these critical tasks in user flow maps. This helped me to identify important steps in the user flow, understand the users’ needs better, and work on the overall concept of the app.

Learning
It was challenging to clearly differentiate between sitemap and user flow. In this phase I learned that a sitemap should extensively consist of the information to be included in the app and hierarchies. It doesn’t include any flows, arrows, or other directional information.
When I did the users flows for the first time, I kept them too general and process-focused instead of being user-centered. To improve my process, I put down notes next to the process, which explains what the user sees and wants during each step of the user flow.
Sketching and guerilla user testing
Creating the first sketches of the Klio app and getting user feedback.
The time had finally come to put my idea on paper. I prepared a sketch prototype of the app with paper and pen, which I made clickable with the Marvell Pop app to give a better user experience to testers. I sketched out the three red routes, which I identified in the previous phase of the project. The goal of the guerilla testing was to get a quick, first round of feedback. I interviewed four people who didn’t necessarily fall into any of the user types. The purpose of these test sessions was not to get feedback from the actual users but to gain a new perspective on the usability, which set the direction for further iterations. After the first test session I already discovered major flaws in the usability, therefore I decided to adjust my prototype before I conducted further tests and this proved to be a good decision. I got these major flaws out of the way early and during the following test sessions, I discovered more design gaps to improve.
Learning
You cannot start testing early enough.
UX is not about pride and getting it right from the beginning. Embrace learning and revision.
Wireframing
Planning the overall concept of the Klio app.

With the feedback I gathered during the guerilla user test sessions I started the visual planning of the app: the layout of individual pages, content, and hierarchy. For this I created grayscale wireframes. I chose not to do the wireframes on paper but in Sketch. First of all, I wanted to get more familiar with the tool. Furthermore, I was able to create a cleaner visual appearance, which helped gaining a better overview of what the prototype should look like.
Learning
Leave design guidelines for later. Thinking about design guidelines, drew my attention away from the overall concept and made the wireframing process longer than necessary.
4. TEST
Prototyping and testing
Bringing the Klio app to life.
Based on the wireframes I created the first low-fidelity prototype of the Klio app, I included real information and examples in the app, which in turn made it easier for the users to get a feel for the app and test the usability.
Before doing so I had a brainstorming session to come up with a name for the app. This process resulted in a bit higher fidelity prototype than what I planned to design. Coming up with the name made me think of logo variations and colors, and I went down on the brand identity road. This took a lot of time and it was unnecessary at this stage. Designing a color logo and putting a few colors in the app drew the attention of the users to the design even though I made it clear at the beginning of the test sessions that we were testing functionality only.
Learning
If you don’t want users to see something, don’t include it in the prototype. In this case keeping the interface grayscale would’ve been better.
Key takeaways
I enjoyed the process of completing this UX Design project. Learning and practicing each phase of UX design process taught me a lot and having an amazing mentor, Ana Santos who guided me through the entire process had an enormous value.
For my future projects, I take away many best practices as well as lessons on how to do things differently.
- Keep the prototypes grayscale as long as possible. Early on I got into the design mindset and started thinking about design guidelines, colors, logo, etc. which drew my attention away from the usability and also confused the users during the test sessions.
- Due to the restricted scope of the project during the last test iteration I was able to test the prototype with three users. To get proper feedback and discover patterns I would have needed to test with approximately five users per user type.
- It is difficult to recruit test users. Start it in time.
- You can never start testing too early and do it often enough. The feedback and new perspectives I received during test sessions was always fascinating.
- Low fidelity prototypes allow both the design team and the users to focus on functionality only. Design is important but usability has to be right first.
Next steps
This project ended with the first test iteration and adjusting the prototype based on the test outcome. As a next step I would conduct further user tests and design the visual interface of the app.
