Goodreads
Redesigning goodreads mobile application
Concept
Project overview
Arguably the largest online book database in the world, Goodreads is the world’s largest site for readers and book recommendations. Currently being owned by Amazon, goodreads users complain of difficulties in navigation and architecture, and its outdated features.
Below in this case study, you’ll find a number of potential solutions to the problems being faced by the Goodreads application in order to help people find and share books they love.
Role
UX, Research, Prototyping, Conceptualisation
Stakeholders
Self-initiated Project
Project duration
July - September 2019
Secondary Research
To understand the problems being faced by the users and the current usage of goodreads, I started the project by exploring the application, navigating through the website, studying the history of how goodreads was conceived and what happened afterwards. Diving deep into articles and user reviews on goodreads, and reading user’s comments in social media.
Pain points
Users appreciated the fact that it is the most complete book database and they regularly use it to read the reviews and search for books.
Crappy recommendations, difficulty in navigation, unnecessary notifications (who became friends with whom) and bad search engine experience were the most commonly noticed frustrations during primary research.
Personas
During the research, there were two primary personas being highlighted, ones who socialise, get recommendations from friends and actively post updates on goodreads. Another who visit goodreads to search for the books and read the reviews. Surprisingly a vast majority of users are latter one, primarily due to the non-intuitive interface of goodreads, in comparison to the most comprehensive book database in the world.
Onboarding
Since a large number of users visit goodreads to search for books, the website features the accessibility of searching without logging in. As one of the most used features from the primary study and an efficient customer acquisition strategy, it could be beneficial to extend it to the mobile application as well.
It taps into the most comprehensive database of goodreads, without any hassles, adding to the flexibility and efficiency of use - including the scan feature, where readers can search the book in goodreads by scanning it’s cover or ISBN code.
Supporting variety of search results with subsections
Currently, the mobile application provides the functionality to search for books with the specific keywords mentioning every ‘and’ and ‘the’. However it made more sense to include variety of results through smart search. In this scenario, if a reader searches for Ruskin Bond, they'll receive results of his author profile, his books, and user profiles if there are any. All of them can be viewed collectively or separately using the sections.
Improving the recommendations for first time users
Asking readers to rate at least 20 read books for further recommendations of books stood out as one of the primary pain points for a new reader to get onboarded. When you rate a book, the application automatically assumes that the reader has read them, which makes it difficult for readers to rate books.
Proposed solution is to mark five books as your favourites. They might not have read them, but be looking forward to read it, or love the words quoted in the book. This relieves the pressure from the readers to rate only the books that they’ve read.
Home page
Restructuring different sections in the Hamburger menu
It reduces the cognitive load off the user’s mind if they are reminded of what page they are in to reduce errors and ease in navigation.
No visual cues in the My books section
Readers were interested in the books they've read, regardless of the quantity, which can be provided by using book covers.
Sign out button is not visible in Hamburger Menu
Offering the possibility of signing out in the hamburger menu gives users more control and freedom.
Explore section contains blogs and articles
Explore section could potentially contain something new to explore, which can include, new arrivals, recommendations, trending books, along with the new blog posts by authors.
Filtering information displayed in news feed
To provide the best curated content to the users, only the reviews and progress updates from friends and authors they follow are displayed in the newsfeed.
Encouraging users to update progress on the books added to their library
The books added to their library are the first thing they see on the home. The bottom highlight shows them the reading list, the books is added to.
Giving more importance to ratings
Ratings provide a way to quickly judge whether the readers liked the book or not. Review cards on newsfeed are redesigned in a way that the first thing you see on the card is book cover and the ratings.
Library
Long press the cover to add it to any reading lists in your library
Author’s Profile is divided into: About Author, Books written by them, and books read
Long press the cover to add it to any reading lists in your library
One book profile, all editions philosophy
Having multiple profiles of same books for different editions was one of the biggest pain points. An english edition has a separate profile, a Spanish one another, a 90’s edition profile, and a newly illustrated hardcover is featured separately.
In the proposed design, every book has a single profile, whether it has many editions published or just a single one. You can tap on to see details of all editions along with the ISBN code using the button.
