Bringing Social Reading to the Kindle App
“If you find a book you really like... you wanna share it with other people”
How can the Kindle app become the preferred method of not only reading, but sharing progress and reflections with others? In this UX concept project, I teamed up with another student to develop concepts for adding social reading functions.
OVERVIEW
Project Duration: 2 weeks, June 2022
In Partnership with: Laura Belmont
Responsibilities: UX/UI Design, Research
Tools: Surveys, Interviews, Sketches, Figma, Asana, Photoshop
PROCESS
Discover: Task Analysis, Surveys, Interviews, Competitive and Comparative Analysis
Define: Affinity Map, Persona and Problem Definition, Current User Flow, How Might We Statements
Develop: Additional Features, Proposed User Flow, Sketches, Wireframe, Mi-Fi prototype, Testing
Deliver: Hi-Fi Prototype within current tablet app, Insights
Talking to Readers About Reading
We conducted surveys with readers and found that they prefer in-person social reading, but aren’t currently participating, and they value community the most in Social Reading.
The Plot Thickens
Going more in-depth with Interviews, we were able to see more clearly what readers value around social reading.
Distilling Feedback
We distilled feedback from our social readers into an affinity map.
Along Comes Pep
we created Pep Bishop’s persona to capture the needs, desires and story of our larger group of social readers, and to keep them in mind as we began ideation and design.
Brainstorming Solutions
We thought up some How Might We statements to kick off the creative process.
Let's Look at Current State
A very limited sharing option is shown in our current user flow and interface review.
What's the Competition Doing?
With initial data in mind, we conducted competitive research.
Who's Really Killing It?
Next we looked further afield to review and learn from best-in-class apps and products in group communication.
What Could This Look Like?
We sketched out a user flow and very rough wireframes showing how we can incorporate social reading functions right into the app to make users’ experience seamless.
A Mid Design Check-in
This is a good point to check back in with the core questions we were asked, and remind ourselves what the goals of this project are.
Proposing Two New Features
Introducing Kindle Taverns and Fireside Chat, two new and improved ways for fans of novels
and short stories to come together. Best of all, they are right at your fingertips as you’re reading! At this point we prepared a greyscale prototype to start testing.
That Fit Right In?
I paid careful attention to the other icons in the Kindle interface when designing the new icons.
Testing Our Plan
We recruited users to help test out our new features. Interest was high, and we quickly identified some improvements that would be needed specifically in how best to introduce the new features. Creating a clear icon for our Taverns feature that still fit into the Kindle look and feel required some A/B testing.
Now for the Prototype
We built a high fidelity prototype with some basic functionality and included improvements from the testing feedback.
Insights & Takeaways
Adding new functionality inside an existing interface requires careful attention to detail, as well as honoring the existing environment.
Launching new product names like "Taverns" or Fireside Chat" would require some work around user understanding and education - a proper rollout would need to be considered.
Getting chat and video chat features right would require significant iteration, testing, infrastructure and technology.