Booked - A book discovery app

Problem

In this modern world, people often feel they are too busy to read a book.

Non-book readers:

About a quarter of American adults (24%) say they haven’t read a book in whole or in part in the past year, whether in print, electronic or audio form. Who are these non-book readers?

(Pew Research Center, 2018)

Why? Too busy?

Are we too busy or do we perceive ourselves as too busy? If we find untapped time what do we usually do with it? Well why not expand your mind with a book?

Research Questions:

How do busy people and non-book readers correlate?

I asked the book readers: “What motivates you to read?”

Some of the responses were: it’s the emotional connection, their imagination, someone’s recommendation, a captivating series, self-betterment, entertainment and so on. Sometimes the hardest part is picking up a book. Disengage with your phone and the television for a bit and make habit of it. Whether you find time on your morning commute or winding down before bed. I have the perfect tool for you to help form a reading habit.

What hinders you from reading?

• Finding the time is difficult?

• It’s not a habit?

• Don’t know what to read?

Times to Read

When do you usually have time to read?

• Commuting to/from work  

• Traveling 

• Before bed  

• Instead of screen time  

• On vacation 

• At home
  

Solution

Booked is a mobile/smartwatch application that is meant to hook it’s users back into reading. It’s goal is to be habit forming while working alongside your busy schedule.

After I conducted my user research, I began to narrow down features that would be included in the app. I weighed the impact the feature would have on the user against the effort it would take to build it. Furthermore, I mapped user goals to a specific feature that would enable them to reach that goal.

User Goal → Feature

Notifications based on location and schedule

Reminders

Set Goals and reach Milestones 

Commit with friends (Virtual book club)

Click to Order (from Amazon)

Audiobook/ebook experience

Curated Suggestions, Reviews, Ratings, Recommendations

Important Features

Reminders to Read

Sometimes all the user needs is an little reminder to do something. They can set a recurring time that is convenient for them and snooze it. They can also allow their phone to notify them to read based on location services. Before they know it they’ll be reaching their goals!

Goals and Milestones

Setting goals and reaching milestones will help the user make a habit out of reading. Goals seem more attainable when you break them down into smaller, achievable milestones.

Quick Sketches

To begin, the user must first complete the on-boarding process. On the first screen, they connect their social account: either facebook, twitter, or google. Next, they pick their interests from the listed book topics or if they don’t feel like selecting topics of interests, they can skip this page. Next they sent their monthly and yearly reading goals. This is how many pages they want to read in a month and how many books they want to read in a year. Finally, they set reminders for good days and a time that is usually free for them to read. This will help them remember to pick up a book when the time comes or they can choose to snooze it for later.

Then, the user reaches the core of the app, the ‘Discover’ page. Here they can find the books they could read based on their chosen interests, books their friends from their social accounts are reading, and popular books in general. Once they choose a book they can either listen to it via audiobook, read a digital copy, or purchase it from Amazon. Taking one of those actions adds the book to the user’s profile. They can update how far along they are at any moment through the app.

Low Fidelity