The one app that I grew to love recently

Image credit — Unsplash.com. Cover designed by Tram Nguyen.

Context

I love libraries. I grew up in Vietnam, where public libraries weren’t free (at the time). I was charged a fee to make a membership.

In the meantime, in America, everything at the public libraries is FREE.

I low-key panicked the moment I found out about this life-changing fact. I want to take full advantage of this huge resource.

From then on, I went ham and made a library card pretty much wherever I stayed for a little longer than 2 weeks.

And what’s better than a humongous library system all around the U.S? An app that allows you to access its virtual library — LIBBY (supported by Overdrive).

Libby has just gone through a HUGE transformation.

I’ve had Libby for a few years now, yet I hadn’t been impressed with this app as much as recently when I happened to get into audiobooks and want to borrow them from a virtual library.

So, what made this app so impressive?

Here are the top 7 things that stand out to me as I use this app:

1. I can switch among multiple library cards

I can link as many accounts from different libraries as I want to. And I like that they have cute card symbols to indicate different cards.

The star indicated the card you’re using aka which “virtual library” you’re at.

2. Enjoyable setup process

The process of adding a new card is a form of gamification but done in such a subtle and entertaining way.

It’s set up like a text dialogue between you (as a user) and the Libby girl.

Such small details yet it made the setup process feel like a breeze and very enjoyable.

Adding a card feels like playing a game. The app even goes a step further, when you don’t have a physical card on hand, or you don’t remember the account number, you only need to put in your phone number.

3. Interesting categories

Typically, I see categories like “Just added, teens, non-fiction, fiction, etc.” in pretty much any physical library or bookstore.

Besides those, Libby also offers a range of quirky and intriguing category names, such as: ‘Addiction affects everyone’, ‘Meow-der: cat mysteries’, ‘Dystopian visions’. These names not only make me, who rarely touches a mysterious book, would want to pick up a ‘Meow-der’ thriller and read away.

What’s more, different libraries will have their takes on how to categorize their book collections. Seeing this helps me have a glimpse of what theme the library is having at the time.

Quirky category names that caught my attention right away. The list will only recommend audiobooks once you set your preference to “audiobook” as your preferred format

4. Unconventional book display

Books that get featured on the homepage will be displayed in a diagonal grid system. Not only do they look cool, but they are tappable! (Not sure if that’s a word) Meaning you can tap onto each of these book covers to go to their detail screens.

At first, I thought these were static images of books, turned out they are real buttons. You can tap and go into details about these books.

I think it would be even cooler if I can swipe this display to the right or left to see more book titles. Nonetheless, the current display is already very satisfying to see and play with.

5. (Fake) Infinite scrolling through the list of books

Instead of turning to the next page of the inventory list after 20 or so book titles, Libby showcases the infinite list of books with a divider to indicate where the page starts.

Doing it this way helps users like me in 2 ways:

a. It keeps me from tapping to see the next pages → doesn’t make me feel tired from using the app

b. Declutter the screen- Imagine having 21 or so pages of inventory, and you have to show the status of where the users are at.

The usual way would be to have back/ forth arrows on both ends and a list of pages, then highlight the page number that the users are at. In this case, the way Libby displays its inventory is a lot more clean and easy to follow.

Next to the page indicator, you can choose the specific page where you want to jump to

The conventional way to display pagination, yet not so effective when applied in Libby’s big inventory lists.

Conclusion

“Don’t judge the book by its cover. Don’t judge the app when it first gets released.” — Me.

This pretty much sums up my whole experience with this app.

Overall, I never expected to spend so much time wandering through this app.

But its sleek UX has successfully kept me on this app for longer than would have ever imagined. It’s now a 5*/5* for me.

What about you, have you used this app before? :)