App Critique | Pocket
This is part of a month long personal challenge to critique an app almost every day. It’ll be short and scrappy.
Why
Pocket markets itself on the app store as a way to save, read and grow.
1/ Save great content from anywhere
2/ Read it everywhere & listen to articles
3/ Absorb knowledge and let your interests grow
Pocket offers a premium version which offers advanced search (full text searching), unlimited highlights and automatic article backups. Users rating the app with less than 5 stars point out issues such as regressions around sharing with friends who are non-pocket users and the overhead involved in organizing information compared to apps like Instapaper.
Who
I suspect pocket users are:
1/ Tech-savvy: Pocket advertises “saving from anywhere” which works thanks to extensions in PC and mobile browsers. These are harder to find for people unaware of their browser’s capabilities.
2/ 18–25, 25–39 infovores: Pocket used to be called “read later”. In essence, it is a way to save articles one can’t read on the spot. This means users are both busy and curious to read and learn about new things.
When & where
Pocket users’ needs can be summarized as: “I can’t read this right now but am really curious and want to make sure I can save it somewhere — without having to keep the tabs open — and get back to it later”.
Hence, there’s both an organizational need and a desire to learn. The former is more urgent and obvious, the latter more important and less prominent.
Hence, pocket users journey could go as follows:
a\ I found an interesting article on the web
b\ I save it for later using the Pocket extension on my browser (and potentially organize it with a tag)
c\ At some point in the future, I open my pocket app
d\ I pick an article and either read it or listen to it
e\ I archive it
f\ I remember one day and need to get back to it so I use search in Pocket
I can imagine that a and b are the most common behaviours with c,d, e and f much less so. It’s an 80/20 kind of world. However, pocket premium targets specifically users who find value in the latter 4 behaviours.
What
Based on the above, I would expect the following from the Pocket app:
1/ Save great content from anywhere: Since the saving aspect exists outside of the aspect (Extensions etc.), I wouldn’t expect too many ways to save articles from within the app but there should be some way to do so.
2/ Read it everywhere & listen to articles: The IA is centered around my reading experience. A place where i can see all the articles I’ve saved for later and the ability to filter based on the tags I’ve picked when I was saving. When opening an article, I am given the choice to read it (and a few readability options such as font and screen darkness) or listen to it.
3/ Absorb knowledge and let your interests grow: This promise sounds a bit ambiguous. Pocket’s monetization depends on users finding value in advanced search, permanent archives and article backup. Yet this last promise doesn’t echo any of these. “Absorb knowledge” could mean Pocket gives users the ability to highlight passages from articles. “Let your interests grow” migh mean Pocket recommends articles based on a users’ interests.
Critique & Improvements
I. Onboarding: Pocket’s onboarding journey echoes mindfulness apps (“make the most out of every moment”, “your quiet corner of the internet”) which doesn’t exactly echo how it markets itself in the app store.
The onboarding screens however are focused and simple. The illustrations are of the same style as those on the website and the messaging straightforward. Pocket’s illustration language is slightly metaphorical which is fitting for an audience hungry for new information and mental stimuli.
[Critique] In the second step after authenticating, the user is shown a series of steps to be able to save to pocket from several devices. The carrousel dots on the bottom of the illustrations however are similar to the initial onboarding screen. That made me want to scroll horizontally. [Improvement] A step by step progress bar would be more helpful.
II. Home screen: I’ll focus on the home screen in this critique. Pocket introduces a new navigational paradigm in their app. The home screen tab has two arrows pointing up and down next to it. Clicking on it opens a bottom sheet that borrows elements from a navigation drawer. The placing of this navigational tool as a bottom sheet makes more sense however than a navigation drawer. Indeed, a drawer would have signaled to users that it pertains to the entire app whereas this crafty mechanism signals to users that their actions will only impact the home navigation tab.
Clicking on each element (favorites, shared with me etc.) reveals a new view of the home screen. The IA in the sheet also makes sense (lists, content type and tags) though placing tags as a list ends up elongating the sheet a lot for those users who have a lot of tags. [Improvement] Turn tags into pills to shorten the sheet and help people stay focused on their reading activity instead of spending too much time looking for the right tag.
Looking at the home screen, it’s clear Pocket delivers on its promise to put the reading experience front and center. The option to listne ot articles is in the top left and articles are outlined clearly with relevant tags.
III. General IA: The recommendation screen echoes Pocket’s promise of educating users (“Absorb knowledge and let your interests grow”). Notifications and profile show the app’s attempt at venturing into the social realm. My hunch is it’s a minor use case which introduces tension in the app. More so, the profile’s placement in the bottom app bar is questionable. For an app whose premium version advertises advanced search, there’s a case for having search as a navigation tab for instance and have search be combined with recommendations (eg. what Instagram accomplished with Explore).
Add ons
With more time, I would have touched on moving the profile entry point to the top left to drive the social use case more clearly. I also understand the tension between the app’s need to advertise the premium plan (the diamond) and its attempt to be a social network for infovores.
