Duration
5 Weeks
Project
Case Study
Roles
User Research
UX Design
UI Design
Case Study
A redesign of the Goodreads mobile app to enhance the user experience to complete tasks and increase social engagement.
Background
Goodreads is a website for readers and book recommendations with a mission to connect readers with books they love through reading lists, book reviews, suggestions, and book discussions. Launched in 2007, Goodreads had since developed revenue streams through affiliate links, targeted ads, and giveaways.
Purpose For Redesign
Goodreads has a dominant market share in the book review and discussion business but has not kept up with updating the interface and key functionalities that would further engage users and increase discovery of otherwise obscure book titles. This case study will focus on the Goodreads mobile application as it is the primary method users access the service.
Research
The study evaluated the Goodreads mobile application as that is the preferred method of accessing Goodreads per Device Statistics provided by Semrush.
To identify areas of opportunity for redesign I conducted a user study through interviews.
4 users were interviewed for this study.
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Users ranged from
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using the Goodreads multiple times a day, weekly, or monthly.
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age 25-45
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Reading habits:
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Voracious readers (complete 5 or more books/month
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Casual readers (complete at least 1 book/month.
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Analysis
Analysis of user surveys revealed 3 problem areas that could be addressed to improve the user experience.
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Book tracking pathway leads to distractions to complete task and limits user input.
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Difficult to navigate to locate areas of interest and complete tasks.
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Users not notified know when their comments are responded to.
Problem 1
Book tracking pathway leads to distractions to complete task and limits user input.
75% of users interviewed use the book tracking tool but have various problems with accessing the tool due to being unable to navigate to the tool and are often confused by the Goodreads interface. Leading to a failure to complete a task that is a main feature of Goodreads.
One user described that they would like an easier way to access the book tracking tool because their main problem was that…
Findings
Book tracking is one of the main features that is used on Goodreads. Booking tracking provides users with a satisfying feeling completion of annual reading goals and offer insights through their reading history over time where users enter their progress on books by writing the page number they are currently on or the overall percentage of the book read with a status of their thoughts on the title so far. However, Goodreads doesn’t take into consideration the multiple clicks that users must go through to get to the book tracking feature on the app.
“…it’s buried in the app, which then leads me to get distracted and I end up looking at other things on my phone instead.”
Solution
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Minimize the number of clicks it takes to get to the book tracking tool.
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The current path to book tracking tool can take 4-5 clicks to navigate to.
A book tracking redesign feature can incorporate utilization of a lock screen widget to minimize distractions and give users a more direct option to the book tracking tool.
Problem 2
Difficult to navigate to locate areas of interest and complete tasks.
Users generally rated that they are satisfied with the app with 75% ranking their satisfaction as 3 (satisfied) and the rest ranking their satisfaction as 2 (unsatisfied) on a Likert scale from 1 to 4 where the following number values of:
Findings
Upon closer inspection, this may be due to the lack of competitors in the social book cataloging market and users are still able to complete tasks but it takes more time than they would like. Feedback provided by users highlights a direct desire to have an updated interface despite an overall rated feeling of 3-Satisfied from the majority of users interviewed.
1 - Very Unsatisfied
2 - Unsatisfied
3 - Satisfied
4 - Very Satisfied
Contextual inquiry with users had surfaced the overwhelming user interface and confusing navigation. Users found it difficult to navigate the Goodreads application and many functionalities were unclear, hidden, or available in too many ways where it was duplicative and contributed to the overwhelmed sentiment of users.
“It is very difficult to navigate the app.”
“The interface sucks but there's nothing better yet.”
Solution
Goodreads is a social platform by nature and the navigation on the app can be redesigned to take advantage of the cognitive affordances gained by the popularity of social media applications. By applying the law of proximity and grouping similar pages and functions together in ways similar to that of widely used social applications, then this can mitigate user confusion and allow users to complete tasks faster; leveraging recognition not recall.
The navigational content is extensive so an assessment of the content of each navigational page was inventoried, and similar content combined into respective groupings. The most extensive changes were made to My Books as it was renamed and had combined completely with My Profile and utilized this name instead as it is representative of content typically found on profile pages: user specific, friends, followings, settings. Search and Discovery were combined into Discovery and many aspects of navigation hidden in the More section were duplications of specific sections of other navigational areas so those moved or kept in areas related to them as shown in the navigation redesign figure below.
The current navigation consists of 14 options and many of them are duplicated across other pages already:
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Home
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My Books
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Discover
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Search
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More
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My Profile
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Top Picks For You
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Reading Challenge
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Friends
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Groups
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Give Aways
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Best Books of 2023
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Scan Books
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Settings
A navigational redesign would reduce the number of navigational pages from 14 to 4. Content pathways would be deduplicated and a grouping of similar content will provide a streamlined and minimize touch taps/clicks to get to content.
The resulting 4 navigational pages includes an added main navigational option dedicated to directly opening the Book Tracker feature as a new navigational option which will meet the needs of better access to the book tracking tool as well: Home, My Profile, Discover, Book Tracker.
Problem 3
Users aren’t notified when their comments are responded to or liked.
“It is very difficult to actually engage in a back and forth with friends via comments. It is difficult to access comments from friends since I don't always get a notification and there isn't a place to see them except when scrolling through the feed.”
“When people comment on your updates you can't respond or even see it unless it pops up on your feed where you see other people's updates. Like someone responded to a book I posted and said they loved it but that doesn't show up on my profile. So it's just luck that I saw it.”
“If friends comment on my activity I usually don't see it.”
“I would like a better way to find/ revisit comments and communicate with friends via the app.”
100% of the users interviewed reported having difficulty engaging with posts as many of their interactions don’t have notifications, particularly if responding to a post originating with another user. It was found that when a post has originated with a user, that that specific user will be notified but not the commenter on the post if their comment was replied to. This is a problem because it limits the engagement of users and the potential discovery and connections to other users with similar interests and the discovery of new books to consume.
Findings
Goodreads Co-Founder, Otis Chandler, describes the service as “…a place where you can see what your friends are reading and vice versa. You can create "bookshelves" to organize what you've read (or want to read). You can comment on each other's reviews. You can find your next favorite book. And on this journey with your friends you can explore new territory, gather information, and expand your mind. Knowledge is power, and power is best shared among readers.”
Sharing and connecting have been found to be stifled and notifications do not work on Goodreads as it does on other social platforms. Notifications are limited and often users find that their comments or posts or were responded to only by scrolling through their own updates feed or coming across on their homepage.
Redesign notifications functionality to incorporate comments to expand beyond only notifications to the originator of the post. Replies to comments should notify the original poster and the commenters to build a conversational exchange. An added the ability to like specific comments of posts, and for users to select specific comments to be able to reply to. The inclusion of a button to share a post will contribute to increased user engagement and a more organic community of social sharing on Goodreads.
Solution
The largest user demographic, identified as females between the ages of 25-34 years old, made up the majority of study’s participants to ensure that problems found are those that will have a high impact on Goodreads users.
Prototype
Goodreads is a platform that benefits from being the sole major player in its market. This market position should not dissuade usability improvements to address the needs of the millions of users that utilize this service. The redundancy found in the navigation and the various pathways to the same information is a viable option for addressing confusion of the interface by users of this study and would be relatively quick and inexpensive to address as it is removing and repositioning content in ways that users are accustomed to.
Updating other aspects of the application: notifying the user when their posts or comments are interacted with, the ability to like individual comments, and taking advantage of lock screen widgets and haptic push provide sensible enhancements that complement the current services that Goodreads provides and supports foundational functionality that will help the service meet its mission of being a place where you can share what you’re reading with your friends, comment on each other's reviews, and discover your next favorite book.
