Bookd was my first UX/UI design project at Academy Xi.
It was a solo project following the Double Diamond design process from start to finish: I was the researcher, UI designer,
and copywriter. It was challenging and I loved it.
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THE BRIEF
Design an Audiobook or Podcasting mobile app that is highly personal, highly interactive, and with the ability to bring even more utility to the user then a book ever could.
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PROBLEM STATEMENT
Audiobook listeners are unable to enjoy all the physical benefits that come with reading a printed book. They also lose the ability to narrate a book themselves or enjoy the nostalgic aspects that come with reading and owning their own books.
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RESEARCH PLAN
My research plan went as follows:
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COMPETITOR ANALYSIS
There are quite a few audiobook apps on the market already, the main ones being Audible and Apple Books. By looking at these apps and going thru all the steps I was able to see which elements worked well and which we should steer clear of.
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SURVEYS
I created my survey in the hopes of reaching a broad range of
users quickly.
If you would like to see the survey you can find it here: https://arjvbjayzi4.typeform.com/to/BoWxU8iK
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ONE ON ONE INTERVIEWS
This was a great exercise and I managed to gain a lot of insight which you will see on my next few slides. My only on regret
was not interviewing more people who actually listened to audiobooks on a regular basis as I got the most insights
from these people.
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GUERILLA INTERVIEWS
I was quite excited about this one as I follow quite a few passionate bookstagrammers so I slid into their dm’s and go
zero responses. I am assuming they thought I was a bot or someone trying to gain followers.
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MAIN FINDINGS
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Listeners were often put off by the narrator.
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Some people got distracted whilst listening and couldn’t recall some sections.
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People missed the aspect of discussing the book with a book club and partaking in buddy reads.
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Favourites are hard to find, they should be a bit more obvious.
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Would be good to have more personalised and interactive experience, similar to social media.
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A more personalised profile making it easier to find books that you are interested in.
PERSONAS
It was great to humanise my research by creating Cora Jones
as you will see she goes on the whole journey with us.
HOW MIGHT WE
provide audiobook listeners with an experience that rivals
reading and owning a physical book thus increasing the
number of subscribers to the app.
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IDEATION
After a successful brainstorming session with some of my peers, sketched some some crazy 8’s and then I was able to focus on my storyboard which helped me to decide what areas of the app I would be focusing on:​
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IDEATION
After a successful brainstorming session with some of my peers, sketched some some crazy 8’s and then I was able to focus on my storyboard which helped me to decide what areas of the app I would be focusing on:​
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Be able to set up a profile with genre choices, favourite authors, ‘want to reads’ and more, this will make choosing books easier.
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Have a choice of 2 narrators as you are more likely to enjoy one of them.
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Voice prompts to assist with functions when unable to use hands. A chapter recap incase you missed or forgot anything.
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A social chat section where you can discuss books with others and form your own online book club.
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USER FLOW
My persona had a thought about a book she had been listening to earlier that day and she wanted to share with her online book club. This was my happy path to get to that point.
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WIRERAMES
From my happy path I started working on my wireframes. This allowed
me to visualise where
things would go and their functionality. I feel I spent too much time on these, they didn’t need to be so detailed and they are more
like lo-fi prototypes.
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I then started testing the prototype and made all the relevant changes.
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DELIVER
We are finally at the delivery phase of the project. I created my prototype in Figma which I found to be such a powerful tool, I am looking forward to using it more in the future.
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