AMAZON KINDLE APP
The Opportunity and Initial Assumption
People love to discuss what they’re reading! Amazon wants to connect their users to make the Kindle reading experience more social by giving readers ways to share and discuss the books they’re reading.
This project was intended to design a new feature for the Kindle app on a iPad device. The first step in validating this assumption is research, which included user interviews, competitive and comparative analysis.
Research: User Interviews
We conducted six interviews of readers of e-books and regular books. In order to find out thier behaviors and preferences on reading. We asked:
How did you found out about these books?
What do you do when you finish a book?
Have you had a book discussion in the past? Why or why not?
Research: Affinity Mapping and Synthesizing Data
We compiled all of the interviewee answers and wrote them all on post it notes. We placed each user answer on the wall for comparison. We stepped back from the wall and we began to notice similar trends and affinities. We regrouped the data again according to their common pain points.
Research: Findings
On our first findings we were able to validate the assumption given to us.
Four out of six interviewees discussed before and after reading a book.
One of our interviewees said that,
“I would love to talk about a book, especially if it’s a book that I can’t put down.”
The second finding was that people want to have a sense of control about their book discussions.
“I would love to join book clubs but I don’t want to have to commit.”
The third finding was that six out of six interviewees value their friends’ opinions over strangers.
“Book recommendations from friends are more important than seeing the top bestselling books.”
Research: Personas
From results of the user interviews, we were able to create three personas. The personas were represenations of our user base.
Research: Tertiary Persona
We designed one persona that wasn’t really much of a reader. This persona represented a couple of our interviewees. This persona was important in order for us to solve and address their pain points of reading. This also represented a target audience that is very common today.
Research: Secondary Persona
Our second persona would be considered in the middle range of reading frequency. This persona was also important because it represented fifty percent of out interviewees.
Research: Primary Persona
Our third and primary persona was created from the ideal user of the Kindle app. The persona read often, uses social media, values friends and loves to share and discuss books.
Research: The Problem Statement
As an E-reader user, it is hard to trust book recommendations and find book discussions that are worthy of my time.
We needed to create a feature on Kindle that could somehow have a social aspect to allow e-readers to interact with friends in order for them to receive book recommendations and discuss books on demand.
Research: Competitive Analysis
So given the problem, we wanted to see if and how other competing e-readers were solving the problem of trusted book recommendations and ability to have book discussions.
Research: Competitive Analysis
Common Features of all 6 E-Readers
Search for books
Read a book
Some sort of social media aspect
Shared discussions
Rate books
Recommendations based on algorithms.
Research: Competitive Analysis
We began to narrow the competitor list down to three. Because they had some sort of social ability.
The three e-readers apps had some some sort of social feature.
Follow readers
Discussion boards
Write reviews to the author
We were also able to find some pain points amongst all three.
Research: Competitive Analysis
We were also able to find some pain points amongst all three products.
Research: Feature Priorization Analysis
After looking at the paint points of the competing e-readers we began to prioritize what features our app must have, should have, could have, and would like to have.
Research: Feature Priorization Analysis
Using this prioritization technique we came up with these seven features for the new Kindle social app.
Live Chat with Friends
Profiles
Follow/Add Friends
Bookshelf
See What Your Friends are Reading
See Where Your Friends are on a Book
Send Recommendations
Design: Wireframe Sketches
In our next phase, we started the process of sketching rough drawings of wireframes. We did a process called designer’s studio where as a group each team member drew their version of the wireframes. Together we collaborated over each team member’s drawings to come up with the best wireframe design.
Design: Wireflow Sketches
We then created low fidelity drawings on whiteboard. We were able to layout where our features would live on the app. It helped us visualize how a button would function and where it would take the e-reader user. These designs also helped us in creating the basis of our wireflows.
The results of these sketches eventually led us to our first high fidelity wireframe designs.
Design: Annotated Wireframes
We designed the wireframes by staying consistent with the brand and messaging of the Kindle app. We made sure the addition of the feature would be intuitive for the e-reader user.
Design: Wire Flows
We designed the flow to also be seamless with the Kindle app.
We didn’t want the user to be confused with action buttons or have them believe they were all of a sudden taken to another app. The flow had to be simple and intuitive.
Design: Usability Test Results and Iterations
We began to test three different users and walked them through one of the personas’ scenarios. Here is the scenario we gave them.
You recently ran into your friend, Joshua L. from undergrad. You got to talking about books and then learned that you both have a Kindle Social account. You want to add Joshua to your list of friends. How will you do that from this screen?
Now that you’ve added Joshua, you looked at his profile and saw that you’re reading the same book (Talk Like Ted). After looking at his activity, you saw that he annotated the book and you want to ask him what he meant. How will you do that?
Design: Usability Test Results and Iterations
We found in our testing that 3 out of 3 users could not seem to find the button to lead them to add Joshua to their friend’s list. Two users kept tapping on the settings button on the bottom right and another user just got stuck and needed assistance. This had to be reiterated in order for the app to work at all.
We added a social icon button at the top right of the global navigation. The icon resembles a silhouette of people. We tested again once and immediately the user knew what to click on.
Design: Usability Test Results and Iterations
We had a button that literally said “ Chat about this book.” Two out of three users never read this and always clicked on the book image to try to start a chat. This resulted in us just taking away the button and making the book itself lead to the pages of the notes and highlights. The two users stated that clicking on the book itself should be intuitive to see the details inside. It should allow the user to see what notes and ideas the reader had. This was a simple task that made logical sense.
We used the existing progress indicator to show how far a reader was in the book. This design was neither noticeable nor understandable. We iterated this by using a progress bar showing exactly what page the reader was on or if they completed the book.
We created check boxes for the user to select certain notes he or she wanted to chat about. Two out of three users where tapping on the quote themselves rather than the check box. Users said they didn’t know it was a check box and also the lines reminded them of clickable links. So we just created the action tapping on the whole sentence.
Design: Next Steps
We had another interation to a couple of pages. We added the features of note and highlights. This would signify to the user that the reader has notes and highlights ready to be viewed and discussed.
Final Thoughts
For this project we were given the opportunity to create a feature that would connect Kindle users in a way that has never been done. The process to get to the solution was long journey. The team went back and forth with ideas. The team moved at a very fast paced, sometimes too fast. We were worried if we were doing right. Our findings couldn’t be this easy, can it? We synthesized and synthesized again, and the results always validated our assumptions. Once that happened we knew we were on the right track to successfully taking on the challenge.
