Book reading app

Onebooks is an all-in-one platform that offers a huge range of e-books and audiobooks just a few clicks away. Onebooks helps users to find and access on-demand e-books and audiobooks easily, without the hassle of looking for them one by one. Unlike other book reading platforms, Onebooks promotes friends features to encourage users to maintain or improve their reading habits.

Product designer, Visual designer, UI/UX designer, User discovery and researcher

I used to be an avid reader, but over time I found myself reading less and less. I noticed the same trend among my friends. It made me wonder why people tend to leave their reading habits behind as they get older.

Although many people are aware of the benefits of reading, fewer and fewer people are doing it. This could be due to several reasons such as lack of time or easier access to information through other sources. After talking to more people about this, I came up with a hypothesis that

The goal of this study is to build a platform that can encourage people to revisit their habit of reading books.

Before talking to users, I went online to find out why people like to read books and why people start to read books. I looked through different community platforms such as Reddit, Quora, etc; where people exchanged their points of view regarding this topic. The results that I found stated:

I conducted interviews with 7 frequent readers to confirm if the problems I faced were common among readers. During the interviews, I asked questions about their life and reading habits, the steps required before reading, and what they like or dislike about reading. After analyzing the results using affinity mapping, I found some patterns in the interviews.

As part of my research, I analyzed some book provider mobile apps that have similar goals to Onebooks. I aimed to identify their strengths, weaknesses, and features that address readers' problems, ultimately helping me find the gap Onebooks can fill in the market.

After conducting interviews, I created a persona to detail the characteristics, motives, and needs of the target users. I then crafted out the persona's journey maps to better empathize with the users and identify opportunities.

After understanding more about the users, I noticed some of the design opportunities I can achieve:

HMW help Felisha to find books to read based on her interest.

HMW provides easy access to books that Felisha might get interested in.

HMW help Felisha to find friends with the same interest as her.

HMW makes Felisha feel productive by reading while not wasting too much of her time.

After defining the HMW statements that Felisha has, I decided to choose 2 of the statements that I wanted to focus on:

HMW help Felisha to find friends with the same interest as her.

HMW makes Felisha feel productive by reading while not wasting too much of her time.

The decision was taken by measuring the impact of solving these problems to maintain the reading habit of the users, which were based on the profile of the target users.

To tackle the HMW statements, I brainstormed ideas for key features that the solution should include. I generated as many ideas as possible and organized them into an effort vs impact matrix. From there, I selected the ideas with the highest impact but requiring less effort. Here are the main features I decided to develop for Onebooks:

Accurate book recommendation: This feature will provide readers with accurate book recommendations based on their preferred genre, authors they like, books they've previously read, and books their friends have read.

Simultaneous reading with friends: Onebooks users can invite friends to read books together on the platform, enabling them to discuss the book via the chat feature.

Detailed ratings and reviews from past readers: This feature will allow users to access ratings and reviews from past readers, which can help them find the best books to read.

I conducted user testing with total participants of 6 people. Here are 2 scenarios that I gave to the participants.

Before jumping right into the app, the users have to answer some preliminary questions: preferred genre and authors, books read, and movies watched to help the app discover the user’s preferences and find the book they most likely will like.

From the interview, users' main motivation to read books is by having a friend to discuss the books with. This app allows users to invite their friends to read the same book together and discuss the content of the books within the chat features provided.

Finding the right book is one of the most important points for readers. It can be one of the motivations or stumbling blocks for people to read. Hence, our app tries to personalize the book recommendation that we give to the users by considering all the information that the users give initially.

The app allows you to connect with your friends from all over the world, or follow your favorite book lovers and authors, and take a look at their bookshelves to find the next book that you want to read.