Designing a better app for book lovers
Background
Bhuku is a concept for a book/reading mobile application. The goal was to design an entire application from start to finish, including research, branding, and high fidelity designs, in order to compete with other similar book apps and tools like GoodReads.
Role
Product Designer
Timeline
2 weeks
The Problem
Inspired by goodreads.com, Bhuku wants to give a more user-centric approach to their app, adding features and flows that make it delightful for people to use. Bhuku is an app for book lovers that will help users track everything they own, books they have read, what they will read next, and also everything they have loved so far.
The challenge
Goodreads is archaic and centers around reviews and lists, while Bhuku aims to be a place where users can catalog their own libraries while still connecting with other readers. The challenge is to validate Bhuku’s feature ideas through primary and secondary research methods, and design high-fidelity mockups, and validate these final designs through user testing.
Books for you
Users can browse personal recommendations based on their existing reading habits. Introducing cards allows for more information to be presented in a bite-sized format.
Personal library
Users can add books they’ve read and want to read, in addition to books they own to build out their virtual library. Users can also create custom lists of books.
Adding new books
Users can add books to their library by scanning barcodes (great for that giant shelf of books at home) or by searching for a book. If the user still can’t find their book, they can add all of the information manually.
Easy browsing
Users can browse through featured books, based on what they like to read. They can also browse by genre. A book’s detail page will feature a synopsis and related book reviews by users or publications.
Lending books to friends
From any book in the users library, users can add this book to a list, mark a book in their library as borrowed, or share a link to the book with a friend.
Thoughts & next steps
Though there are comparable apps to Bhuku, I feel that none currently meet a high standard of both functionality and delight. I aimed to create an experience for users that provided them with all of the features they wanted most while ensuring a visual design that was delightful and intriguing without become a distraction for all of the visually stunning book covers the user might see on the app.