PROJECTWhite Rabbit Reading App (2023)
DISCIPLINEUX/UI Design, User Research, App Design
SOFTWAREFigma
TEAM COLLABORATORSNabiha Tasnim, Jenny Zhao, Pia Wolter, Sam Overend
AREA OF EXPERTISERecorder, Wireframe, UX/UI Design
White Rabbit is a reading app designed to improve users’ reading habits by setting goals, creating book lists, and becoming part of a book-reading community with other users.
OVERVIEWWe were challenged to design a mobile application dedicated to help users spend more time reading, while also discovering new books that they will enjoy. We went through an extensive 12 weeks of interviews, user analyses, prototyping, and interface development before the final design of White Rabbit.
THE OPPORTUNITYThe findings from our research revealed that a significant portion of Americans read four books or less per year and spend only an average of 15.6 minutes per day reading. It's evident that there is a need for personalized book recommendations, particularly among young adults and individuals with busy schedules.
In a world where time is increasingly scarce and attention spans are decreasing, the opportunity lies not just in encouraging people to read more but in helping them discover reading material that truly resonates with their interests and preferences. This is where personalized book recommendations play a crucial role.
How can we help people read more?
Young adults and people with busy schedules need more personalized book recommendations so they can allocate time and enjoy reading material that suits their taste.
Personalized book recommendations can help address the common barriers to reading faced by young adults and busy individuals. By streamlining the process of discovering relevant and engaging reading material, we can empower readers to make the most of their limited leisure time, producing enjoyment and enrichment from the experience as an outcome. RESEARCH DEVELOPMENT USER INTERVIEWS During the user interview phase, we engaged with a diverse group of six individuals ranging from high school students to individuals in their late 30s. This broad demographic spectrum allowed us to capture a wide range of perspectives and insights regarding reading habits and preferences across different age groups and lifestyles.
Some participants described reading as a hobby that they actively pursued in their leisure time, while others admitted to rarely or never engaging in reading outside of academic or professional practices. A common theme emerged from our interviews: a desire to read more. Despite the decline in average reading time in the United States, our interviewees expressed a genuine interest in increasing their reading habits and incorporating more leisure reading into their daily routines.
INSIGHTS:
- Book Cataloguing
- Community Seeking
- Personalized Recommendations
- Track Reading Progress
- Time Scheduling
- Reading for Enjoyment
Through these interviews,
we uncovered an array of reasons why individuals struggled to allocate time for reading, ranging from busy schedules and digital distractions to a lack of motivation or access to engaging reading material. We also gained a deeper understanding of the target audience's needs and behaviours, which served as the foundation for the subsequent research phases.
USER PERSONAS
Based on the insights gathered from the user interviews, we develop two personas representing distinct areas of our target audience. Each persona encapsulates key characteristics, goals, motivations, and pain points of the users, providing us with a human-centered perspective that guides design decisions throughout the process.
USER JOURNEY MAPThrough the perspective of our persona, Trevor, we walk through the different steps of selecting, reading, and completing a book, along with the varied emotions and pain points he may have.
By mapping out the user journey, we gained valuable insights into the user's experience at each stage of their interaction with the mobile app. This holistic understanding enabled us to identify opportunities for optimization, refine existing features, and design new functionalities that would enhance the overall user experience while fostering a deeper connection with reading
USER TASK FLOWSBased on the customer journey map, we developed three task flows that represent common user scenarios: the onboarding process, searching for a book, and tracking reading progress, along with a series of steps that users must take in order to accomplish the specific goal. This helped in allowing us to visualize the user's path to ensure that the interface is intuitive, efficient, and aligned with users' expectations and preferences.
INTERFACE PROTOTYPE DEVELOPMENTEach team member collaborated to develop their own interpretations of White Rabbits’ mobile interface, starting first with low-fi paper prototypes. The task flows were used as the base for the app architecture to ensure the essential features were taken into consideration. These sketched prototypes offered a simplified visual representation of key design elements and user interactions, exploring and validating design concepts early in the development process.
These revised prototypes incorporated basic typographic elements and placeholders for images to convey content structure and hierarchy, while also introducing usable interactions, allowing users to navigate through key features and interactions with basic functionality.
USABILITY TESTING10 participants were selected to test the mid-fi prototype. These usability tests were conducted both in person and virtually, with sessions lasting approximately 45 minutes each. Throughout the tests, participants interacted with prototypes while their screens were recorded, allowing for comprehensive analysis of user interactions, preferences, and pain points.
This meticulous approach of our interface development played a pivotal role in refining and enhancing the user experience, ensuring that White Rabbit met the diverse needs and expectations of its users effectively.
Goals and Objectives: to understand intuition of layout and make improvement on certain elements
Tested Task Flows: user onboarding + searching for a book to then log in reading progress and update status
Metrics: ability to complete task, time to complete task, level of ease of use
Strengths
- Intuitive interface
- Fonts have good readability
- Interface looks/ feels clean
- Easy to navigate
Pain Points
- Book ranking
- Labels
- Nav Bar naming
- Progress Page
- Snippet ranking system
User Feedback
- Using clearer language for book rating system
- Refer to existing design and naming conventions
INTERFACE SYSTEM DESIGNFor the interface system design, our team employed a monochrome colour palette with blue as the accent colour as it signifies an academic and educational undertone while remaining neutral to the concept of reading books. A hierarchical typeface system was also used, to align itself with the interface’s information architecture to enable easy navigation and separation between headers and bodies of text.
DESIGN SOLUTIONMy team and I successfully designed an app that encourages positive reading habits to increase users’ time spent reading, and for users to read more books annually, through research-led methodologies, and user feedback. The interactive Figma interface prototype can be found below.