Stay connected with your books and engaged in your reading.

OpenBook helps readers reach their reading goals by finding optimal times in the reader’s day to open a book. Using user insights, it tracks the user’s movements through their day to find where they will have the most success and give users a look into their progress and achievements in their reading goals.

Concept

Often we hear people say they want to read more, making new year’s goals of reading X number of books per month, and by the end of the year only to have read less or little at all.

PRELIMINARY PROBLEM

The problem we suspect is that working adults struggle to find the time to read in their current day-to-day. With a multitude of choices of entertainment, how can we get people to choose to read over others and help them reach their reading goals?

GOAL

Identify how people choose what to do on their free time and what prevents them from reading.

DISCOVER

Competitive Analysis

A feature matrix was completed to identify where competitors fell short.

To determine whether there was a market need for a product like OpenBook, I researched both direct and indirect competitors. I used the feature matrix method to identify what features were currently available from these competitors.

Direct Competitors

Amazon Kindle, Audible, Apple Books

Indirect Competitors

BookFunnel, Libby, Apple News

Key Takeaways

Based on my evaluation of the competition currently existing in the market, there appeared to be a sufficient gap in the market to justify pursuing the concept.

Reader insights appeared to be limited within each app and the apps lacked personalized reader recommendations. Most recommendations were based on top titles in the market, as well as general recommendations for readers as a whole. All apps also had an abundance of choices.

METHOD

5 users

29–35 years old M/F

Occasional readers

All working professionals

User Interviews

DISCOVER

User Research

The affinity mapping method was used to synthesize results and identify patterns.

A series of user interviews were conducted to gain insight into the user's daily activities and what they spend their free time doing.

Key Findings

Through our interviews, it was found that most people only spend approximately 1 hour per day or less reading, but had goals to read upwards of 3-4 hours per day.

Most did not see reading the news or social media as a form as reading as it served a different purpose than reading for entertainment. It was crucial for our users that reading served a purpose or that they would gain something in reading certain material.

Pain Points

Affinity mapping revealed key pain points our user's experience with reading. User's most often found a lack of time for their reasoning for not reading. This was also followed by difficulty focusing, too many choices or not being able to decide what to read, choosing other entertainment options over reading, and fatigue.

DEFINE

User Persona

In order to empathize with the different types of users, we developed a user persona, which reflects user's basic needs and goals for reading more.

DOMINIC SIMMONS

32 years old

Software Engineer

Chicago, IL

BEHAVIORS

Dominic works full time as an Account Executive in tech. He commutes daily to the loop and enjoys meeting up with friends and coworkers for happy hours after work. He considers himself an average reader, and likes to stay up to date on news around the world to be able to converse with his coworkers. He struggles to find a lot of free time as his schedule is typically booked, or spends his free time staying active or exploring the city.

GOALS AND NEEDS

Wants to read more, but doesn’t have a lot of free time
To find reading that serves a purpose
Would like to be able to know what he’s reading is beneficial or fits his preferences
Wants to consume information quicker

STORIES AND SCENARIOS

Enjoys reading various subjects, but struggles with knowing what he’s reading will be worth the time
Likes to be able to read multiple kinds of books dependent on his mood
Struggles with multiple choices per day

DEFINE

Feature Prioritization

NOW

Calendar sync

Prime reading time suggestions

Personalized reading suggestions

Goal setting

Progress tracking
(weekly, monthly, and yearly)

Music/white noise options

Options to read key sections of books (dependent on subject)

Input progress from paper books

Sync with Spotify, Apple Music, Calm, and other music apps

Continued improved reader insights

Later

Integrations and partnerships with other reading apps

DESIGN

High-Fidelity Wireframes

A series of hand drawn sketches were created to test content arrangement and layout options. These were then translated into high-fidelity wireframes to the MVP user flow and test and identify user's understanding of the app.

METHOD

5 users

30–35 years old M/F

Using a low-fidelity prototypes, followed by high-fidelity wireframe prototype

DESIGN

Usability Testing

Using the initial low-fidelity wireframes and paper-prototypes, usability tests were conducted to find friction points or areas of confusion for users. Refinements were made while developing high-fidelity prototypes and tested again with new users.

Tasks

Discover your reading preferences and goals to get your personalized recommendations
Find your dashboard and increase your notifications.

Key Findings and Results

Users struggled with content placement and organization. Initial wireframes only used icons and it was apparent that icon labels were necessary for users. Users also wanted to know the value of the initial set up, but were very engaged in goal-oriented questions. This had the response from users to want to see more questions around goals.

Lastly, the menu in the onboarding distracted users and navigated users away from key elements of the user onboarding.

DEVELOP

Prototype

Using Sketch + CraftManager through Invision, I created a digital prototype to simulate OpenBook's functionality.

The initial screens go through the progressive onboarding screens.

To interact with the prototype, click here.