Nerdie: Social Reading App for Mental Wellbeing
If you love reading books, there’s a perfect chance you’ve experienced a book hangover. And for the folks who don’t find themselves drowned in the tales, a “book hangover” is the slangy shortcut for the feeling when a reader finishes a book — usually fiction — and they can’t stop thinking about the fictional world that has run out of pages. The story is over, but the reader misses the characters or the atmosphere of the novel.
-Clare Barnett
https://bookriot.com/psychology-of-a-book-hangover/
👉🏼 Defining Problem
I went down the rabbit hole of the internet and found out thousands of people are posting about Book-hangover. Book Hangover impacts readers' mental health. 🥹
What piqued my curiosity the most was how people deal with it (Move on or get over it). Multiple articles suggested that readers were facing depression, unable to start another book, and checking daily on what the Author was creating. Since Authors can’t write books constantly readers find themselves stuck with the characters. 🤓
I’m also still waiting for the book called The Door of Stone by Patrick Rothfuss. It’s going to be the last book of King Killer Chronicles Trilogy. The book was supposed to be published in August 2021 but it wasn’t and since then readers have been parading after Rothfuss. ( 😅 Myself included )
So I decided to find a solution for helping people who are suffering book Hangover. The solution turned out to be Nerdie, a social reading app. 📱
👉🏼 Ideating on Possible Solutions
How to get over Book Hangover:
1. Read another engrossing book
2. Talk to someone who has read the book 🧐
3. Give yourself time
The second solution got me thinking about how can you find someone who has read the book🤷🏻♀️. I followed up on this and found Social reading groups. in which readers come together to read and discuss books.
Unfortunately, there was no sacred space for like-minded readers to connect and discuss books online 👀. There were either book-reading apps where you buy and read a book or a social media platform. But no app brought together best of both worlds. There was a clear-cut gap. Therefore, I persevered and started thinking about possible solution in terms of a social reading app that could connect readers.
Crazy Eight technique
To hypothesize what a social reading app would look like I did the Crazy Eight exercise.
I could think 6 major ideas as mentioned below:
1. Read books
2. Buy books
3. Tracking reading goals
4. Share reading experience
5. Build a community
6. Chat, Call and Video Call
👉🏼 User Research
I kicked off user research by analyzing competitors. I analyzed the top three reading apps which had some social features. I used these apps and then charted out their features from the App Store page. I also looked at the comment section to see if users wanted something that these apps don’t deliver yet. 🚀
The research concluded that there were community discussions but there was no feature for readers to connect and share their experiences personally. All these apps failed to provide a good comprehensive social experience to a reader. 🤨
So I began planning my survey to understand whether my hypothesis was right or if I was serving my confirmation bias due to my love of reading and socializing. 🤓
👉🏼 User survey
User segmentation
For the survey, I segmented user groups into G1 = Ardent readers (Who are habitual readers) and G2 = casual readers. This provided valuable insights tailored to each group’s interests, behaviors, and preferences.
Group 1- Ardent readers read more than 5 books last
Group 2 — Casual Readers read 1 to 5 books last year
I conducted two sets of surveys in one. The first survey segregated users into G1 and G2 based on the number of books they had read in the previous year. In total, I got a response from 48 people.
Why was customer segmentation needed for the survey?
- Targeted Understanding:
G1: Explore reading habits, preferences, and factors influencing choices.
G2: Identify barriers to reading and factors that might encourage engagement.
2. Tailored Recommendations:
G1: Collect data for personalized book recommendations.
G2: Create strategies for promoting reading based on their interests.
3. Marketing and Outreach Strategies:
G1: Analyze effective channels for reaching avid readers.
G2: Determine outreach strategies to attract new readers.
4. Cultural and Societal Trends:
G1: Explore trends within the reading community.
G3: Understand factors contributing to a decline in reading habits.
5. Educational Initiatives:
G1: Investigate the role of education in fostering a love for reading.
G2: Identify educational gaps hindering the development of reading habits.
6. Product and Service Development:
G1: Gather feedback on existing book-related products and services.
G2: Understand features or incentives that might attract them to book-related offerings.
👉🏼 Survey Report Summary
Overall perception about reading was positive. Most respondents wanted to be more knowledgeable and thus, wanted to read more irrespective of how many books they could read last year.
Respondents believed that Social aspects, such as sharing reading experiences with friends and engaging in discussions, play a crucial role in fostering a positive reading environment and help in building character.
👉🏼 Finding a pattern amongst the chaos
Data Analysis
After getting an astoundingly positive response, I wanted the app UI to look intuitive, creative, and inviting. So I conducted interviews with 8 people (4 from Group 1 and others from Group 2) to understand what would users expect from a social reading app.
One insight that shook me was that people wanted both books in text and audio format. Up till now, I had not considered the audiobook feature. Damn right! 🫠
👉🏼 User Persona
I created the user persona of an ideal customer after going through interviews.🫰🏼
👉🏼 Gathering user requirement
User interviews directed me toward requirements. I used the Card sorting technique 📄 to shortlist Must Have features.
Must-have features are mentioned below:
- Personalized Book Recommendations
- Social Feed
- Discussion Forums
- Book Clubs or Reading Groups
- Progress Tracking
- Virtual bookshelf
- In-app messaging
- Online reading events
- Author Interaction
- Audiobook Player
👉🏼 Business Opportunity
I understood that there was a market gap. But was there a viable business opportunity? So I honed my thinking hat and after research, I found the following business opportunities:
- Subscription Revenue:
- Opportunity: Charge users a subscription fee for premium features like ad-free reading, advanced analytics, or exclusive content.
- Monetary Benefit: Predictable and recurring revenue stream, providing a stable financial foundation for the app’s development and maintenance.
2. Partnerships and Collaborations:
- Opportunity: Collaborate with authors, publishers, and bookstores for promotional activities within the app.
- Monetary Benefit: Earn revenue through sponsored content, exclusive book releases, and co-branded marketing initiatives.
3. Data Analytics Services:
- Opportunity: Offer publishers and marketers access to anonymized user data for targeted advertising and market research.
- Monetary Benefit: Charge fees for data analytics services, providing insights that can inform publishers’ marketing strategies.
4. In-App Purchases:
- Opportunity: Allow users to purchase books directly within the app.
- Monetary Benefit: Earn a commission on each book sale, creating a revenue stream tied directly to the core activity of the app
5. Advertising Revenue:
- Opportunity: Incorporate non-intrusive advertisements within the app.
- Monetary Benefit: Earn revenue through ad impressions and clicks, with rates potentially increasing based on the engaged user base.
6. Global Expansion and Localization:
- Opportunity: Expand the app’s reach globally, with multilingual support.
- Monetary Benefit: Increased user base and potential partnerships can lead to higher advertising rates, premium subscriptions, and collaboration opportunities on a global scale.
👉🏼 Jobs to be done
I considered both user and business needs and crafted Jobs to be done in steps to be followed. (I would to love launch Nerdie one day, if you like the concept I’d be more than happy to connect with you 😄)
👉🏼 Information Architecture
I laid out the information architecture of the App using Figjam. I did not overly populate it with all the internal screens. To understand simply, I added only the main screens.
Check out Information Architecture
👉🏼 Moodboard
I searched Behance, Dribble, Pinterest, and Mobbin to gather UI inspiration.
👉🏼 Wireframes
I used Figma Software ❤️ to design Wireframes and High-fidelity screens.
👉🏼 High Fidelity Designs
High Fidelity designs were created on Figma. I repurposed Uber’s design system to speed up the design process 👩🏻💻. Because of this, I was able to finish both UX research and UI design within 3 weeks. 😮💨😮💨😮💨 I have picked the most important screens for display.
High-fidelity UI design turned out to be a feast to a designer’s eye.😍
👉🏼 Usability Testing
I simply picked 5 users and gave them tasks to complete. Testing was done on the Figma Prototype. I mentioned the task on one screen and the second screen was used for testing.
👉🏼 User Feedback
After completing the tasks, I asked the following questions:
1. Did you find the tasks easy or difficult to do?
2. Would you like to recommend something?
3. What are your general thoughts about this app?
👉🏼 Lessons Learned
- It’s good to not reinvent the wheel every time you start a new project. I used Uber’s base design system to fasten my design process. I Customised the design system according to my needs which helped me to stay consistent in the design and maintain the quality of design.
- User research and user psychology are two factors to hook users and make the app intuitive. I used the Hooked model by Nir Eyal to design the social features of the app like infinite scroll and used it to direct the hook towards encouraging reading.
Nerdie App is made with❤ ️to promote social and mental well being of readers.
Check out other UIUX design case studies:
👉🏼 Website Redesign for better user experience
👉🏼 Fitness App for Comprehensive Health Management
👉🏼 View my Design Portfolio 👩🏻💻❤️😮💨
👉🏼Let’s Connect LinkedIn
