Book Swap - Case Study
a responsive website for people to give and get books
Overview
Goal
Uncover pain points and goals amongst avid readers in order to design a helpful book-exchange platform.
Project Details
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Timeline: 3 Week Project
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My Roles: UX Designer, UX Researcher
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My Process: Who, What, How, Why
Who are the users?
User Research
How many times do you re-read a book?
Screener Survey:
My screener survey helped me find research participants that consider themselves avid readers, and buy, rent, or borrow books. In my research, I centered marginalized readers including women, people of color, people who have disabilities including Dyslexia, ADHD, and Autism, and identify as LGBTQIA+.
Quantitative Research Findings:
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Most avid readers only re-read a book once or twice.
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Most avid readers are happy giving away a used book.
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Almost all avid readers are happy reading a used book.
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Almost all avid readers are unhappy spending money on a book they end up not liking.
Qualitative Research Findings:
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I was surprised to find that there was more than one reason users would want to give or get books for free. Common reasons included saving money, trying out new books, de-cluttering, and saving the environment.
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I also found an unexpected user group in parents who read to their children and want to update their bookshelf while their children grow.
Personas & User Stories
Victoria Bedi
The Money Saver
Background: I'm a 24 year old freelance writer in Delaware, and I read about one book every week.
Goals: I want to be able to get a new book every week without spending so much money.
Frustrations: I can't afford the amount of books I want to read, and I don't have a library close to me.
User Story: As an avid reader who doesn't live near a library, I want an affordable way to get books, so that I can read as much as I want.
What do users need?
Pain Points
Money
Users don't have enough money to buy all the books they want.
We can help by creating a product that helps users get free books.
Space
Users don't have enough space to keep all the books they read
We can help by creating a product that helps users give away old books.
Waste
Users don't want to create waste by throwing away their old books.
We can help by creating a product that helps users give away old books.
Flexability
Libraries and bookstores don't provide users with enough flexibility to try books for free on their own time.
We can help users by creating a product that lets users get books for free to try them out, and give away books they don't want.
How do we create solutions?
How Might We Questions
Crazy Eights / Rapid Sketching
Sitemap
Paper Wireframes
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Sticker Sheet
Why do our solutions help users?
Usability Testing
First Usability Test Insights:
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Users would like to be able to adjust their location on the home page to see nearby books, without going back to their account page.
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To do this, I added an icon next to "nearby books" that when clicked allows the user to adjust their radius on the homepage.
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Users expect to be able to click on the name of a category of books, such as a genre, and be taken to a page of books in only that category.
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To do this, I added an interaction to the title of each category so users can search the listed categories without having to type them in.
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Second Usability Test Insights:
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Users would like to be able to conveniently adjust their location at more points in the user flow, to keep them from having to return to the home or account page.
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To do this, I repeated the use of the map icon next to "nearby books" so the users can adjust their location when browsing, requesting, or offering books.
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Users would like to be able to browse more books directly on the home page.
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To do this, I added more categories on the home page so the user can browse sections without having to type them in the search bar.
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Takeaways
Addressing Pain Points
Our responsive website allows users to...
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get books for free
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track money saved
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give away old books
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track books saved from waste
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browse and find books
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try books on their own time.
Challenges / Surprises
A challenge I faced was figuring out how to draw focus to where users should start their path on the site when I knew that different types of users would have completely different goals and happy paths. While some would want to use the site to get rid of old books, others would be in search of new books, and others would want to both get rid of books and get new books. I learned that I could help users find their happy paths by drawing attention to two main actions (give and get,) and providing easy navigation in many forms. I used icons and links to allow users to jump around the site, and breadcrumbs to save users from getting lost. I also added a search bar so users could immediately find a book title and then give away or request it.
I was surprised to find an unexpected user group: parents who read to their children and want to update their bookshelf while their children grow.
Personal Growth
One thing I could have done better in this project is spent more time considering the first round of usability testing insights. I think if I had given it more time and attention, I would’ve noticed the first insight that called for adding a way to adjust location on the home page could’ve been applied to other pages as well. This would have saved me time later on, because the second round of usability testing proved that other pages needed to have the same feature. On my next project, I’ll be sure to spend more time processing insights from usability testing, and ask myself questions like “why is this a pain point for users?” and “is there anywhere else a similar problem may exist?”
During this project, I had a glimpse of another possible pain point for users that I would love to address in the future - finding a "good" book. I would love to figure out what types of users may want help finding a book they like, and consider adding features that would benefit these users. I would start this process by interviewing users to discover whether or not this pain point exists, and surveying users to see general interest in features like adding reviews to books, posting recommendations for books, and developing a personal book taste as part of a profile to guide automatic site recommendations.