Building a new reading platform: Texture

The texture is made to solve the problem of reading difficulties. My team built an MVP website to find market data and user insights and launched the app on October 2021.‍The primary function of Texture is to allow users to upload sentences from books and discover other books and sentences based on their interests.

My team created the Texture app's MVP entirely and transformed it into a complete product. In only six months, we amassed 15,000 registered users and over 50,000 posts. Additionally, we secured $500,000 in seed funding within that same time frame. I also improved the uploading sentence experience.

The purpose of this product is to revolutionize reading habits in an era where people read less and less. The goal is to provide an easier and more enjoyable reading experience.

I looked into different services related to reading to understand how the industry works right now. While doing my research, I discovered that there are three main groups in this field: E-books, Reading Content, and Social Reading. From this, I realized that our service needs to offer something unique because there are already big websites for reading books online, work-related content, and book clubs in each of these groups.

To learn about the real experiences people have when they purchase books and read, my team conducted a survey and recruited 5 participants for user interviews. Here I focused on asking how users find books to read, how to read, where users buy books and what they do after reading.

These were the main insights from the user research.

1. People usually don't finish reading the book.

2. People usually buy books from the best seller list.

3. People have different reading styles depending on the book's genre.

4. People usually write sentences from books and thoughts after reading.

My team launched this website within a month by uploading sentences from books and scraping other sentences.

1. HMW- How might we help Alex to find a book to read easily? Exploring sentences to find books to read To help Alex in finding books to read, we added features that allow for reading sentences and gaining a sense of the book.

2. HMW- How might we help Alex to read the sections that she will learn? Search sentences by keywords To help Alex in finding the sections that she will learn, we included a feature to search sentences by keywords. 3. HMW- How might we help Alex write about her insights after reading? Uploading sentences after reading Additionally, we have included a feature for Alex to upload her insights and sentences.

Based on insights from one user survey, there were 3 main solutions. 1. Organize sentences in folders. 2. Provide customization posts. 3. Search sentences with more options.

In collaboration with the branding team, I developed a design system that utilized various colours and text. I made sure that it met level AA for accessibility.

Texture appThe app launched with 3 main features to help people's reading experience. 1. Read sentences & archive them in folders. 2. Customize sentences to upload. 3. Search sentences using more filters.