Re-design of GoodReads

Rediscover the joy of reading

OVERVIEW

Try searching a book, its reviews or ratings and there’s a good chance you’ll end up opening GoodReads. So what is GoodReads?

With a potential to be the instagram for book lovers, Amazon owned GoodReads is the world's largest site for readers and book recommendations. Along with book cataloging features, it allows individuals to search its database of books, annotations, quotes, and reviews. Users can sign up and register books to generate library catalogs and reading lists.

Problem Statement

In spite of being one of the largest site for Readers and book recommendations; GoodReads seems to be frozen in time. Its design looks outdated compared to other Amazon apps. Thus, a visual overhaul is long overdue. Moreover, the mobile application lacks a lot of features compared to the web; and the cluttered UI just makes things worse. After talking to multiple users, it was clear that though Goodreads promises a lot of things, the poor user experience makes it difficult and at times frustrating to use. I thus set out to reimagine the GoodReads App.

Scope

GoodReads started out as a web application and later expanded to a mobile application. The web version offers a wider set of features to both readers as well as authors. Due to the expanse of the project, I’ve limited the design scope to reader profiles and focused on the following three main features that the platform offers in the mobile application:

Improving the book searching experience
Tracking reading progress and book cataloging
Bonding over books

Solution

I started this design exercise by first understanding the app, its current users and potential future users. Using this as foundation, I followed the non-linear design thinking methodology and redesigned an interactive prototype of the GoodReads mobile application. Throughout I was careful about not incorporating any drastic changes which users might not find intuitive.

Approach

Jump to Final Design

RESEARCH

Defining User Needs

To have a better understanding of the problem and see if it even requires a redesign; I decided to

look into app reviews and tweets,
interview existing users via online survey (28 users filled the survey) and
conduct quick, semi-structured interviews with readers around me.

Based on this user research I made the following observations:

Over 60% of the users from the people interviewed stated 'browsing book recommendations' and 'list down books to read' as their main purpose for using Goodreads

Rating and reviewing books are the most commonly used features followed by browsing book recommendations.

I also asked people to describe their book browsing journey in a bookstore with an intent to deliver a similar experience on a digital platform.

In order to create a book browsing experience closer to what physical bookstores offer; it was important to understand what influences people to pick new books to read:

Pain points and needs:

Managing shelves and tags require number of steps; making the process tedious
No benchmark/ filters for book reviews
While browsing new books is an important feature; it is at times confusing
Home feed is boring and irrelevant
No option to see what others are reading at a single glance
No option for searching new groups and friends on GoodReads
Multiple options leading to the same screen; adding to the clutter
Groups are a good concept with poor execution
There is no option to search groups
Lacks an option to privately shelf book

User Personas:

To empathize better while designing, I created three personas representing different types of primary users I came across during user research.

IDEATION & DESIGN

Design Goals

Based on the user needs and the pain points in the existing mobile app, I summarized the design goals I hope to achieve with the redesign.

Making home feed visually more digestible
Improving the book searching experience: discover books, relevant reviews & ratings,
Creating a more intuitive book cataloging experience
Bonding over books: improving the existing book club concept, ‘Groups’ and increasing visibility

Existing flow

Re-designed flow

Information Architecture

paradox of choice: As psychologist Barry Schwartz puts it; having many choices seems attractive at first, but can be ultimately paralyzing

With five icons including a hamburger menu in the navigation bar, and further nine icons inside the hamburger menu creates clutter and confuses users. More so as most of these are repetitions. It was challenging to condense this without compromising on ease of navigation. I used a flowchart to understand the existing layout better and identify the changes required. Based on this and observations from user research; I made changes to the existing flow by avoiding repetitions and rearranging things to eliminate confusion.

To avoid confusion between 'Search' and 'Discover', I have combined both the features under 'Discover'.

Bottom Navigation Bar

Sketches and Wireframes

1. Making home feed visually more digestible

‘Home’ is where the user lands up first. During the interview, when asked about ‘home feed’ experience, many users complained about irrelevant contents. It was obvious that providing an option to customize the feed, similar to the website would solve this problem. But is there a way to make it better?

I observed that users like to scan what others are reading. To make this easier, I introduced two carousel panels. One to quickly glance through what others are reading and other to make groups visible and easily accessible.

2. Improving the book searching experience

‘Discover’, as the name suggests, would be where one finds reading recommendations and related features. Over 60% of the people interviewed mentioned finding book recommendations being their primary reason behind using GoodReads. Therefore, I started by filtering out what works and what doesn’t in the existing book browsing experience.

While browsing books is the highlight, other features are also important. Keeping in mind the wide user groups, I have put together a layout that users can easily scan through and linger longer in the sections they find interesting.

searching book in existing app

3. Creating a more intuitive book cataloging experience

managing shelves: existing

managing shelves: redesign

4. Bonding over books

Groups on GoodReads are based on a similar concept as that of book clubs. People with similar interests come together to read and discuss books. It’s a good concept but seems incomplete in terms of execution. Users have the option to see and access only the groups they are members of. But there is no option to browse new groups, search or create one. In case one accidentally exits a group, the only way to join back is through web application.

Along with adding the missing features, I made changes to existing group homepage layout. I moved the position of 'About This Group'; (which users usually check only while joining a group) and in place added the information about 'Currently Reading' and 'Upcoming Events'.