Anybooks Mobile App - UX Case study

But with passing time, AnyBooks began to lose not only its ratings but also its users. The major turn came on 5 March 2020 with their recent version 3.22.1 in which they have introduced new features which might not be appropriate for their readers. The disparate interface changes only added the pain in the neck.

Considering I am an avid reader who also happens to self-start her career in UX Design, I tried to improve the overall experience of the application. And my process is what I have described through this case study.
I love AnyBooks, this case study is just simply a try what could make the application and user experience better.

There are many reading application present in the market place with discrete features. But there are very few applications which have such large active user base, popularity and appreciation as AnyBooks. That is why, I considered applications like is Kindle, Wattpad, Nook and Kobo for market research.

Insights from Competitive Analysis

For this research, I jumped to app reviews straight away. After all, who knows what a user wants more than the user himself. Below are some of the many critical reviews I came across in the Rating and Review section. I have grouped the reviews according to their types.

Insights from User Research

• Users are frustrated by the AnyGames feature of the app and I guess it is comprehensible because usually, the one who reads is not the one who plays.
• Users want to track their reading activity status.
• There are too many things going on in the application.
• Users requests are left unanswered and unnotified.
• The recommendation section always recommends the same types of books.

I conducted a small survey with 10 users about their usual activities in reading applications. This survey was generalized with very general questions. The aim was to explore all the cases and understand the ideology of all the types of users and also to derive how the existing circumstances can be refined.

The main purpose of performing this activity was to organize all the collected insights from the researches and arrange them in such a way that they could generate some valuable information which could lead to a possible solution. And who doesn’t love to play around with sticky notes? Moreover, I also asked other users their views on audiobooks as many users thought reading and listening to books at the same place will be useful.

Summarizing Affinity Mapping

• Users want free books
• Users do not want Games
• The interface should be simple
• Users want to be aware of what’s happening to their requests
• Users want recommendations according to them, not the app
• The interface should be simple
• Would love to listen to books
• sers want to know the meaning of the words and take notes
• Users want to talk to people about books
• Users want to receive recommendations from their friends

EAccording to the affinity mapping and insights, I made four personas of the potential users. Here I tried to cover every type of users. Every persona has different characters, wants, and frustrations. These personas helped in understanding the user needs and therefore improving their reading experience. Note that each colour represents a user.

Rehan: “I am a young working professional trying to absorb knowledge from my surroundings and people & books are my major source. When I was a student I used to read for long hours and go out with my friends but after stepping into corporate life I don’t get that much time so I usually try to find a book and go through the book and see if there is something I take away from it. While I also try to interact with people in my office but everyone is just always busy or they don’t have a similar mindset as me. It frustrates me that I cannot do what I used to.”

The possible solution to this could be to provide Rehan with the discoveries or the important part or chapters of the book or to provide the aspect of listening instead of reading which he can do with other tasks to save his time. For connecting with people Rehan could join a book club or book community where he can find people of a similar mindset who are willing to share their knowledge.

• Personalized Recommendations: Users will not have to look up or waste their time in finding a book. This contents our persona — “The Classic Bookworm”, Anastasia
• Declutter App: To not irritate the user with an unfriendly interface which may they find difficult to use. This was a general problem faced by every persona
• Audio Books: This can serve users who are fond of listening and don’t have time to read or doesn't like to read. This feature satisfies the needs of our persona — “The Screen Contempt”, Jaydon
• Connect People: The feature where people with a similar psyche can connect to share their daily lives or books or whatever they want. This feature satisfies the need of our persona — “The Social Bee”, Ester
• Keep Users Updated: To keep users aware of what’s happening with their requests. This was again a general problem faced by — every user
• Provide Insights: This features would provide the opportunity to only read what’s valuable in the book. It contents the needs of our persona — “The Knowledge Absorber”, Harvey
• Rating Books: Users will we allowed to rate the books. This was probably ignored by the people and makers.

In this phase of development, all the possible solutions are checked, and that is exactly what I have done. The features which are required are clear but the questions which were still bugging me was, what is more important? How do I define what has to be there and what not? To determine the answer, I used the MOSCOW method. This method helped me prioritize the features and what is needed to be served. I tried to serve every type of user persona for Anybooks app.

Must

• Free Audio Books and E-Books
• Rating these books
• Number of views of a book
• A place to find offline downloaded books
• Notifications of what’s happening to request
• A place to connect people. — Community
• Reading activity tracker
• Arrange books according to the user

Should

• Users own place and people to connect. — Community
• Invite friends in the community
• A notification alert for accepting or rejecting people from the community
• Request to join a community
• Creating and editing thier library
• Resuming their E-book or audio book

Could

• Provide a weekly recommendation to keep users coming back
• Right to remove people from the communities
• Indication of whether a book is an audiobook or e-book
• Share the books within communities
• Let users listen at their own pace
• Allowance to create, edit and organize books using reading lists
• Add books into favourites

Won't

• Cluttered UI for home page
• Gaming feature
• Ads at distracting places
• Inaccessible features
• Complicated Interface

Pen and Paper — Yay! Everything seemed real at this point. This the most important part, it allowed me to organize my ideas on paper. After a lot of iterations, these are the results I deduced. These played the part of low-fi wireframes.

Building wireframes a different experience in itself. They made the process of design more easy and flexible. Below are the final Hi-Fi Wireframes of the application. Wireframes gave me a better understanding of what to put where to access effortlessly and easily. Note: Everything was iterative hence things kept changing with discoveries. The Search Result and Menu were then kept as it is and Rating Page was added.

Design system is a set of standards for design and code along with components that unify both these practices helping them complement one another and producing the exact result which is conceptualised. Here I have included colors, typography & iconographt

Colouring the design! The most fun part. My goal in this phase was to make everything look attractive and let the user focus on the important parts while also keeping everything functional.

Home and Library I have changed AnyBooks’s standard form of library and bookshelf to Home and Library as it would confuse users and they thought of both of them as same. Also doing this made the app consistent with other application and thus the user will know where to find what. Moreover, now the app launches with a home page rather than the library.

The library here is divided into two sections: Book and Reading List. The Books part consist of the offline downloaded books and the Reading List is what a user can create to organize his books. The top of the library section consists of the books which the user adds into favourites so it could be accessed easily. Above it is the sorting and searching options. And also, every book has a tracking activity status below it.

Audio Books


Community


Notifications


Anybooks

Click here to view clickable prototype

I have divided this into two subparts. First is the “Comparing Objective and Goals” second is “Comparing Case Study with Actual Application.”

(1) Comparing Objective and Goals I checked whether the objective meets the outcome or not. For this, I made a list of objectives with its outcome.

(2) Comparing Case Study with current design