EveryTutee
A cross platform Book recommendation website with exchanging feature
Background
I worked with a team as a sole UX designer. I was responsible for the research, visuals, prototyping and Interaction Design.
Team
8 people
Duration
1 month
Tools Used
- Google Docs - For Documenting
- Google Forms - For Surveys
- Invision FreeHand - Forming Flows
- Balsamiq - For Wireframing
- Adobe XD - For Design & Prototype
Overview
The book industry is worth more than 100 billion dollars and in India it is worth 10 billion dollars. India has the second highest number of publishers in the world, of which 70% have digitisation enabled. No e-book company has made success in India. Amazon kindle , Audible Books is not successful, due high rate of cost.[ Revenue of only 15 million dollars ] 67% books are self-published.
The entire above factor speaks to the fact that there is a huge market unexploited. With our services targeted at the right audience, we can capture a large portion of this market.
Understanding the Problem
No matter how much digitization hits every part and everything in the world, Books are mainly enjoyed when it’s read manually. But people often find it hard to get hardcopy of books and some often like to exchange their books with someone. Many users are there who often get stuck in deciding what to read next with several websites available but not providing clear reviews.
Problem Solution
EveryTutee aims to provide a platform for readers, writers, publishers, critics. We have special concerns for students and we are committed to provide a better educational experience with our platform.
- - A feature where two nearby individuals - someone who needs a book for a certain number of days and someone willing to lend it, can help each other out.
- - An open platform where enthusiast readers and writers alike can review their favourite books (fiction, non-fiction).
Design Process
Revenue Model
- - The tenant may charge a rent while sharing book, in which a small percentage of the total rent (should there be any rent), might be charged by the company.
- - Banner Ads, mostly, Affiliated Links. Nothing intrusive.
Competitive Analysis
To get a stronger grasp on what other solutions are providing, we analyzed competitors who have attempted to design for a similar problem. Through research we came across some brands which provide similar features but not in India
JustBooks is online library that allows user to rent your favourite books from home at the click of a button. It provides a personal organiser for bookshelf with all details at fingertips and helps user discover and access a world of books.
It gives a way to search, discover and rent books and also user can rent and give reviews. User could have annual membership which makes delivery of rented books free every time they rent.
JustBooks make revenue primarily through advertising and affiliate revenue (a cut of book sales from major booksellers such as Amazon). They charge users in the form of annual subscription that they provide for delivery and early rent of new added books.
Goodreads is a social cataloging website that allows individuals to search freely its database of books, annotations, quotes, and reviews. Users can sign up and register books to generate library catalogs and reading lists
It gives a way to keep track of the books one want to read and those one has read, and to look for recommendations of what to read next. Along the way user can put in what they think of the book. But it’s not an actual source to find the actual book, though it will link user to book purchasing sites.
Goodreads make revenue primarily through advertising and affiliate revenue (a cut of book sales from major booksellers such as Amazon). They charge users in the form of annual subscription that they provide for delivery and early rent of new added books.
Book Swap is a digital platform, which allows user to exchange old books for exciting new reads in an easy way. Users can list the books they want to give way and the rest is taken care by the company.
Users lists the book that they have and if any other user orders it they score a point for each book which can be u to order a book. Bookswap keeps a tie up with postal service to ship parcels for a small fee.
Bookswap make revenue primarily through advertising and affiliate revenue. They have a tie up with Hermes ParcelShop Postal Service which controls all the delivery services for BookSwap.
Discover
In order to understand the users, their needs and expectations we conducted a survey that included set of questions related to both qualitative and quantitative needs. We collected survey from around 106 users which gave us a good perspective of our model and target user. Next we did a group user interview to get some more detailed insights.
Survey Results
Research Takeaway
Target User
Define
From research finding, A persona along with empathy mapping was prepared that depicts their goals, needs and problems.
Persona
Empathy Mapping
Ideate
Before wireframes, I decided to use venture design framework to draft user story, hypothesis statement, a simple story board and an initial crucial step for application i.e. Information Architecture and user task flow.
User Story Mapping
User stories helps in generating solution and understanding user needs by understanding the functional requests for features.
As a Book Enthusiast, I want a book recommendation platform, so that I can know what to read next based on my interest.
As a Book Enthusiast, I want to sharing website or app, so that I can exchange my books with someone for limited time frame.
As a Budding writer, I want a platform where I can share my works, so that I can get feedback and improve accordingly.
Hypthesis Mapping
Hypothesis gives a general idea of relationship between features that we provide and user reaction.
If we design a simple interface that recommends books with reviews on books for book enthusiast, they will have a easy way round to select their next book.
If we provide a feature that shows available books to be shared for Readers, they will be able to exchange their books for a limited time frame.
If we If we add a feature similar to blogging for budding writers, they will be able to publish their works and get reviews.
Story Boarding
I followed AIDAOR method to storyboard the customer journey. AIDAOR stands for Attention, Interest, Desire, Action, Onboarding, Retention
Information Architecture
User Task Flow
Design (Phase I-A)
Wireframes were the beginning of design process, various paper sketches were made to establish the basic structure with the use of sitemap. Then, a high-fidelity wireframe was designed using Balsamiq.
Low-Fidelity Wireframes
High-Fidelity Wireframes
According to research, Mobile and Tablet were in top priority in case of surfing through book websites. So keeping that in mind, a complete responsive design was made.
Desktop View
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Tablet View
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Mobile View
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UI Kit
In this step, I finalized a color palette. I tried to choose colors that are calm and soothing. Next, I chose the fonts. I used Poppins as the primary font.
Prototype
An interactive high fidelity prototype was created using Adobe XD. The prototype flow was created for review section(Phase I-A). Not all parts are clickable (active)
Desktop View
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Tablet View
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Mobile View
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Conclusion
I learned how to collaborate in a team effectively. I tried to follow human-centered design process throughout the project with emphasis on user research and ideation. We collected user insights though group user interview which I think would be more effective if we conducted one on one interview sessions. Further Next steps are going to include the usability testing using usability hub, so that we can get insights and work on repetitive design process. After successful testing of Phase I-A, Research and Design implentation of Phase II will be done.
Thank you for reading!
I would appreciate any feedback or suggestions. Feel free to contact me
Aug 14, 2020
UI/UX
Research
Design