BookTalk Case Study
Shared virtual reading experiences for busy adults
3 month Analysis Methods group project
HFE Analysis Methods | UI/UX Design | Mobile UI
Our goal was to understand the challenges adults face in meeting their reading goals and to design a solution that provides adults with greater convenience, accountability, and interactivity in their reading experiences.
MY TEAM
Olivia Galarza
Neha Yeola
Luke Paillet
MY ROLE
Project Manager
Product Researcher
UI/UX Designer
TOOLS
Figma, FigJam
Google Sheets
Miro
PROBLEM
Many adults struggle to find the time and motivation to keep up a reading habit.
BookTalk
OUR SOLUTION
BookTalk, a digital platform that allows users to create shared reading journeys.
For our Analysis Methods group project, my team decided to explore the following Research Question:
What challenges do young adults (18-35 years old) face in cultivating a reading habit and maintaining their reading goals?
METHODS USED
1. User Research
Interviews
Survey
Online research
4. Design
Mid-fidelity wireframes
Clickable prototypes
2. Product Research
Literature Review*
Market Research*
Gap Analysis*
5. Refine
Task Analysis*
Risk Analysis*
3. Ideate
Brainstorming
Site Map
6. Evaluate
Usability Testing
Root Cause Analysis*
Residual Risks*
*new methods I learned and used in this project
USER RESEARCH
Understanding the full range of relationships adults have with reading over time
​What do people like or dislike about reading?
What helps them read more? What stops them?
What strategies have they tried?
Did they work? Why or why not?
How do people choose to access books?
User Research Methods
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Interviews
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Survey
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Online research (blogs, forums)
Participant pool
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College students
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Recent graduates
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Young working professionals
Key Findings
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A lot of people use smartphones to read.
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Physical books can be inconvenient to carry around everywhere.
- Forcing reading into a busy schedule makes it feel like a chore.
- Coordinating book clubs feels impossible!
- Readers enjoy the sentimental and social aspect of sharing books.
PRODUCT RESEARCH
Understanding the existing market landscape and defining project goals
My Role
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Conducted a literature review to understand habit-forming and more
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Identified products for our market research and gathered insights with Luke
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Developed action plans to bridge current gaps through our design solution
Literature Review
Social reinforcement and
vertical social networks
To dive further into possible design directions, I researched effective habit-forming strategies, keeping in mind the social context we live in: an age of social media, busy schedules, COVID isolation, shorter attention spans, and more.
How many new hobbies and trends did you discover because all of your friends were doing them too?
That ripple effect is called Social Reinforcement:
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When everyone around you is doing something, you're more inclined to do it too!
Some apps using social reinforcement:
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Strava for runners
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Dribbble for designers
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Goodreads for readers
These are Vertical Social Networks:
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Social media apps for communities with niche interests or hobbies
Besides building a community based on shared interests, vertical social networks can be designed to create a sense of fun, accountability and motivation to maintain a hobby!
Market Research
Existing apps used for reading and sharing text
Strategy
To conduct a thorough competitor analysis, we found existing products that had different elements that addressed various user needs:
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Reading books on smartphones (Kindle, Libby, Wattpad, Webtoon)
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Annotating and sharing with other users (Google Docs, Perusall)
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Finding a community of readers (Goodreads, Storygraph)
Gap Analysis
What's missing? How can we address unmet needs?
Essentially, there is no comprehensive digital platform that combines:
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the convenience of smartphone reading
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social annotation and sharing features, and
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a community-driven environment.
Project Goals
Objectives, scope, final deliverables
Goal: Conceptualize and design that comprehensive digital platform!
Objectives: Convenience, Accountability, Motivation
Deliverable: Mid-fidelity wireframes with usability testing and further analysis
IDEATE
My Role
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Having gathered our research insights, Olivia and I brainstormed potential design features and concepts to meet our objectives.
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I created a Site Map on Miro to visualize the main pages of the app and how the features would be connected to each other.
Key Features
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Creating book clubs
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Privacy settings: invite-only vs. public clubs
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Highlighting, commenting, replying
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Onboarding and personalization sequence
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Notifications with spoiler alerts
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Member progress bar or "timeline"
DESIGN
Team Roles
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Whole team discussed and sketched basic layouts for different pages
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Neha and I took the lead on creating wireframes on Figma
Concept Summary
The app BookTalk (a play on "BookTok") provides a platform for readers to create or join virtual book clubs. To replicate the social interaction and discussion aspect of traditional book clubs, the reading interface allows users to share annotations by adding and replying to comments within the book. They can also see how far along the other book club members are in their reading journey.
Wireframes and Prototypes
Representing key features and flows:
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Onboarding and personalization sequence
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Main page navigation: Home, Clubs, Search, Profile
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Creating a new book club
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In-book view, including progress bar, highlights, and comments
Onboarding
Onboarding explains the purpose of the app and its basic features to new users. We made it visually interesting to capture users' interest.
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Personalization helps users pick their favorite genres to tailor the app's recommendations to their interests.
Personalizing
Home
Clubs
Search
Profile
Create Book Club
Users can join/ create public or invite-only book clubs. They can interact with other users and view their progress within a book, which is super motivating!
A new use case: read with celebrities!
In the age of social media "influencers", the option to create and join public book clubs would give content creators popular on BookTok and BookTube (like Jack Edwards) a platform to encourage their followers to read more and interact with them.
Think Oprah's or Reese's Book Club!
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First View
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Progress
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Annotate
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Comments
REFINE
I conducted a Task Analysis and Risk Analysis to identify mitigations to implement in our designs.
The use and purpose of our app was obvious to us, but by conducting a Task Analysis and Risk Analysis, we identified points at which our designs could be clearer and needed changes or features to mitigate potential use errors.
Risk Matrix
Modified to fit our context
Our app wasn't exactly "risky"... errors did not have devastating consequences to our users.
So, I adapted the Risk Matrix above to better suit the concerns of our target users.
For example, readers often really care about spoilers! Since those are a major concern for our target users, I marked their severity as "Major".
EVALUATE
Having refined our designs further, we were ready to test our prototype.
We recruited six participants, giving them 4 tasks, encouraging them to think aloud, and asking follow-up questions to evaluate key interactions.
Usability Testing
Tasks for Usability Testing
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Complete the onboarding process → explain understanding of app
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Create a new book club → walk through steps out loud
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Join another user's book club → find alternative way to do the same
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Reply to a friend's comment within a book → explain thought process
Our participants said an app like this would help them read more :)
Root Cause Analysis
For each task, we looked out for instances of error, difficulty, or requests for assistance and then asked questions to understand the underlying reasons.
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Error during Personalization sequence
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​This screen asks users to select a minimum of 3 topics of interest to guide their personalized book recommendations.
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Our participant skimmed the instructions, selected only 2, and hit the purple Submit button.
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To indicate visually that the task was still incomplete, we grayed out the Submit button until 3 topics were chosen.
Based on a few more observations, we implemented changes to some of the language and iconography we used.
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Changed the "New Club" button to "Create Club" to differentiate between joining a new club and creating your own book club.
- Made the Notification icon more noticeable when there are pending notifications
Residual Risks
Skipping the Onboarding Process
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Use error: People rarely have the patience to carefully read the onboarding process when opening an app for the first time.
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Consequence: Skimming or skipping these screens could mean that the purpose of the app and the features aren't totally clear to the users.
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While we made our screens visually interesting and interactive and limited the text to bite-sized chunks to address this risk, ultimately, we cannot force users to actually read any of it.
Overcommitting to Book Clubs
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Use error: Users might join too many book clubs in their initial enthusiasm.
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Consequence: Feeling overwhelmed, users might give up on their goals.
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We included a suggestion to users to limit themselves to 5 book clubs, but our design doesn't stop users from overdoing it.
REFLECTIONS AND TAKEAWAYS
I learned a lot of project management skills: the value of understanding everyone's working styles, splitting up responsibilities based on our strengths, and pairing up to ensure consistency throughout the project.
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I enjoyed using concepts from my coursework in psychology to inform our design directions!
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Doing a Risk Analysis and developing mitigation plans can save you a lot of time.
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You can take a Risk Matrix and reinterpret it to better fit the context of your work!
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From our testing feedback, I learned the importance of not straying too far from people's mental models of how apps work.