description
Client
Kindle
Timeline
2023 | 3-week sprint
Role
Project Manager, UI Designer
Team
Eric Houng, Elliot Beak, Justin Lloyd
Services
App Design, User Research, UI/UX Design
YOUR KINDLE LIBRARY AND BOOK CLUBS AT THE TAP OF A FINGER
In this concept case study, we took one of the most successful e-book tablets and transformed the Kindle into the preferred platform for reading, sharing progress, and engaging in reflections among diverse readers. This addressed the challenge of fostering communal reading experiences, especially during COVID-related lockdowns, where in-person gatherings were limited.
“How can Kindle emerge as the favored platform not just for reading, but also for sharping updates and insights with fellow readers?”
We took one of the most successful e-book tablets and transformed the Kindle into the preferred platform for reading, sharing progress, and engaging in reflections among diverse readers. This addressed the challenge of fostering communal reading experiences, especially during COVID-related lockdowns, where in-person gatherings were limited.
Since this was the first time our team worked together, we discussed our strengths to better understand our roles and to divide the tasks. Despite my creative project management background, I was unfamiliar with the estimation of each turnaround. But we did our best to plan, track, and assess the 3-week duration of this project using the various tools mentioned here. Overall, we collaborated on key steps of the design process and made decisions together.
My main roles included leading the team as the project manager, defining the design style guide, and designing the high-fidelity wireframes.
I conducted a comparative analysis, researching an online book club, an e-reader by a major chain bookstore, and a competition digital book platform. Some of the strengths I found helpful were discussion guides, internal book reviews, and integration across multiple devices. But I also noted a common frustration with unlimited member size that could prevent deep discussions and hinder structured format.
But the research revealed that Amazon is already beta testing an Amazon book club as an extension of the Amazon domain. It is convenient how it effortlessly connects with Amazon’s extensive online book store, but oddly distinct from the Kindle app. So our team decided to move forward with an app-based solution.
But we needed to hear directly from the users, so we conducted 7 user interviews. The user participants are avid readers preferring either physical or digital books.
Based on our affinity mapping, some of the key trends revealed that our users:
Consider the book choice an important factor in engaging with community reading
Seek the deeper connection brought on by discussing books
Have difficulty finding enough time for a book club
Prefer deeper and more meaningful discussions of reading material
We then created two personas to help identify our potential users.
Delores is the type of person to have a book or digital reader on her regardless of location, event, or time. Because she is an avid reader that prefers to discuss material on her own time, she has tried attending book clubs, but couldn’t fit their schedule into hers. Although digital readers are visually strenuous for Delores, she prioritizes having the ability to engage in discussions on her own time.
Delores needs to engage in structured, communal reading on her own terms because her busy schedule prevents her from committing to book clubs, hindering her goal of sharing insights about the material she reads.
Alejandro is passionate about stimulating book discussions but has yet to find a platform that fulfills his desire for in-depth conversations within his community. Despite attending various book discussions, he often loses interest due to shallow topics or mismatched book selections. His eagerness to connect with like-minded readers is hindered by the lack of control over club reading choices, limiting his ability to share and expand on his thoughts.
Alejandro needs to have the freedom to choose and recommend books within his community because he is a devoted reader who enjoys invigorating book discussions with like-minded readers.
The Journey for Delores
Scenario: Delores wants to find a community that shares her reading interests and allows her to share insights.
Expectations:
Share reading insights with a community that fits her schedule.
Structured, engaging community.
Align With Existing App
Simplifying the Design System
We kept the typography, color scheme, and layout the same as the Kindle app. However, in that process we faced the challenge of Amazon's loosely structured design system. The current app utilizes more than 6 shades of black and grey, innumerable typefaces, fonts sizes, and so forth.
Therefore, we limited them as we defined the design system of UI color palette, typography, and components.
We designed the book club integration for a consistent user journey. Any Kindle users will feel at home browsing and managing their participating book clubs as they would browsing for a book.
We designed the book club detail page by taking strengths from Bookclub.com and the beta Amazon Book Club. The book club detail page clearly communicates the current book, club information, and discussion thread for joined members. The communal expansion of the Annotations tab within the book integrates smoothly to the existing design.
We wanted communal annotations to be a feature that readers can toggle on and off. It is important for readers like Delores to have seamless, uninterrupted reading sessions. This toggle feature allows Delores the option to focus on her reading and only have her own annotations visible. But when toggled on, she can easily see annotations by fellow club members in the Annotation side tab. These are also noted by icons within the reading text.
Most users found it easy to use, although some had trouble closing the annotation tab due to the non-functional exit button. Users familiar with the Kindle don’t naturally look at the global nav bar, so we're curious about how often Kindle users utilize the global navigation bar. This might be because of the various on-screen navigation options and the limited functions on the Paperwhite version's navigation bar.
There are a few things our team would like to improve and explore for improvement:
Add icons and information about whether the book club is public or private from the book club page list.
Conduct more usability tests and ask if readers want a limit to member size for public book clubs.
Explore adding a user name to member annotations in the reading annotations tab. This would help with responses and regulating the abuse of comments.
Design the customizable notification setting for book club alerts.
Brainstorm for possible improved design of the reading progress bar.
