Kindle
Case Study
Long Story Short
6 min read
Challenge
Kindle aims to capitalise on the growing trend of social media book clubs and become the main platform for book lovers to share, discuss and connect.
However, research indicated 0% users saw the app as a social platform, due to a lack of collaborative functionality and 1/5 knew how to send book recommendations, seen as a core element of connecting.
Process
Our 2-part solution was introducing a live chat function and enhancing the book recommendation feature (which I led). By strategically combining Service, Interaction and UX Design, I redesigned the task flow to prioritise emotion impact and incorporate real world interactions.
Impact
To measure the business impact once live, I would compare the number of recommended books, reciprocated chats, and number of new/returning users per month.
+4 Company growth avenues
By accessing the recommendation flow holistically and leveraging 3 UX Pillars to increase user retention adoption and engagement.
+80% Task success rate
By making the recommendation flow intuitive, keeping traffic in-app and increasing share visibility.
(1/5 to 5/5 users)
+80% Social perception
By adding a live chat and improving usability and engagement on the recommendation's flow through an emotion lead USP.
(Team impact)
Responsibility
Enhancement of the full book recommendations user flow.
Joint research to ideation of live chat feature.
UX / Product Designer
Project Manager
Logistics
Concept
Figma
2 Weeks
2 People
Maze
Notion
Tags
HEART Framework
User Flows
Animation
Strategic Thinking
Existing Design Library
Usability Testing
Full Case Study
Investigation
What do we want to find out?
Identifying key questions early on, we focused our research on meaningful methods and planned a clear path forward.
Users
How do readers think / feel about book clubs and connecting on or off the app?
App Functionality
What does the app currently offer for community or sharing?
Competitors
Can competitors collaborative experiences inspire us?
Empathising with users
To understand how people felt about book clubs and community engagement both on and off the app, we conducted a mixed-method research approach. This included a Subreddit Kindle questionnaire with 8 random participants and 5 in-depth Zoom interviews to observe body language and emotional responses.
Insights
Flexible socialisation
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Want to connect with like-minded people in small groups.
-
Dislike traditional bookclub's reading deadlines and fixed locations.
Kindle isn't a social place, I'd use other apps for that and I'd worry about the constant notifications.
_________
100% Users
Book recommendations are key
-
Is a key, emotive part of community and viewed as a gifting experience.
Book recommendations are like someone presenting you a gift.
_________
77% Users
Social Behaviour
-
All users do not see Kindle as a social platform.
Sharing books online can be cold and disconnected, I miss the social interactions of a physical exchange .
_________
53% Users
Influence
This told us we needed to focus on growing Kindle's perception as a social platform, and design a responsive solution in the Kindle app on a mobile.
Exploring Kindle's current social functionality
With the synthesised user data in mind, we explored what social features the app currently offers and found it surprisingly hard to send a book recommendation. We tested this to see if it was due to unfamiliarity and... we were wrong.
It’s easier to set up an actual book club, than do this!
1/5
Users can successfully share a book recommendation.
Influence
As 80% users expressed sharing book recommendations was a core part of connecting, this showed us that improving this task flow is an area to be considered.
Focusing on the user
Who are we designing for?
Synthesising the data, we identified the average user we will be focusing our design towards - our persona: Janice.
Janice
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Likes to informally connect with like-minded readers.
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Likes building relationships by sharing and receiving book recommendations with valued connections.
-
Dislikes reading deadlines and large, impersonal groups.
"Sharing is an act of kindness, I want to share my thoughts with small groups of like minded people."
Defining the problems
1
Meeting with others
Janice wants flexibility to read at her own pace and decided when/where to chat to others, in order to build relationships without traditional book club constraints.
2
Connecting with others
Janice wants to easily share book recommendations with people she values, to connect and build relationships.
Our hypothesis
By designing a flexible and easy way to connect with others, we can increase Kindle's social perception among book lovers.
KPIs
Using the HEART framework, we prioritised two clear user-centred goals for ideation, and identified which metrics will measure success.
Users must successfully connect with others easily and unaided.
Signal: Increase in successfully completed tasks.
Metric: Task completion and error rate per user.
Users must find it easy and enjoyable
to connect with others on the app.
Signal: Increase satisfaction ratings and good feedback.
Metric: Avg. satisfaction and ease of use rating per task.
Solving the problem
Prioritising ideas
With problem statements and HEART framework goals in mind, we sketched solutions and shortlisted 5 ideas which aligned with research data. Later, prioritising them against impact to brief and time scope feasibility, to agree a design direction.
High
2
Brief
3
4
5
1
Low
High
Time
Ideas around meeting and connecting:
1. Events-by-genre meet up page with multiple dates.
2. Sendings book recommendations as a gift to align with senders emotions/intentions.
3. Tracking a book recommendation impact and see where it travels onto.
4. Badges on books for recommendation count.
5. Publishing book thoughts publicly or privately.
Our design direction
Primary Flow
How Janice finds and attends genre-based events with like-minded people.
-
Show group sizes
-
Offer various dates
-
Offer multiple locations
Secondary Flow
How Janice gives and receives book recommendations that align with her emotions around the act.
-
Increasing findability
-
Add personal message
-
Emotional language
The U-Turn
Our primary flow solution was doomed to fail
Inspired by in-person dating apps, our original solution was to design an events-by-genre meetup page, offering 3 different dates and locations, highlighting mutual friends and group size.
"The date and location options give me the flexibility I want, but I’ll likely choose the events with small groups."
- Janice
How Janice finds and attends an event
However, during low fed wireframing, as if by universal alignment, both myself and my design partner realised our initial Primary Flow solution didn't meet company and user needs.
Business Needs
User Needs
Event solution
👎🏼
Reading deadlines
3 dates a month still confines Janice to a fixed time, location and large groups.
Success will be failure
Gaining traction will lead to larger groups, which is counterintuitive to goal.
A new solution to meet company and user needs
With this in mind, we decided to go back to the ideation phase and reformat it as a live chat solution. This approach offers Janice greater flexibility in when to chat, reduces Kindle's logistical costs and keeps users on the platform. A high level task flow of the new solution is shown below.
Scenario: How Janice would discuss a book with a friend on the app.
Context: Janice is an existing member of Kindle Social and already has their profile set up.
Data backed design decisions
See how the designs were impacted from Janice's research insights below.
"I'm worried about distracting notifications if Kindle gets social."
Solution
Creating a separate feature called ‘Kindle Social’, mutes notifications and hides social content when off the page, reducing distractions.
Kindle Homepage
'Kindle Social' Page
"I don't like constraints from reading deadlines to locations / dates."
Solution
See 'online' friends for a live chat or video call.
"I want to connect with like- minded people in small groups."
See 'online' groups of similar interests and their group size.
Solution
Divide and Conquer
Taking ownership of the secondary flow
As the primary flow solidified, we adopted an agile approach to manage our time effectively. While my design partner iterated on the primary flow (Live chatting with the community), I focused on the secondary flow (Sending and Receiving book recommendations).
For the remainder of this case study, I will be guiding you through my particular contributions to the brief and resulting impact.
What we knew so far:
It’s easier to set up an actual book club, than do this!
80%
Feel recommendations are a core part of the community
20%
Users can successfully send a recommendation.
Influence
This was a core task to be evaluated via task competition rate, error rate, user satisfaction and ease of use, as per our HEART framework.
Missed opportunities to build connections
Reviewing the current book recommendation journeys both, sending and receiving flows are solitary experiences and 75% of time is spent off the app. Switching between 3 platforms is ineffective and a competitive weakness against others fostering interpersonal experiences on their platforms, Kindle are missing an opportunity to build a community here.
By streamlining this process, we could improve the user experience and strengthen Kindle's position as a social platform.
Sender Flow
Sender selects recommend
1/5 users (25%) can identify how to recommend a book.
Findable
Shares with message
Text-heavy sharing off app, with uninspiring display.
Engaging
Off Kindle
Friend opens link
When link clicked, user is led to Amazon web store.
Engaging
Off Kindle
Recipient Flow
Downloads book
User is instructed to switch to Kindle app to view download.
Off Kindle
Identifying strategic company growth opportunities
Strategically thinking, if we took a holistic approach and combined the sending and receiving flows, there was an exciting opportunity to introduce elements that could increase both the number of new users and platform engagement, as demonstrated by the flow below.
As the solution requires a redesign of the feature's flow, I am designing within Kindles existing Design Library.
1. Sending a recommendation
Usability
Remaining in the library tab, 'Share' buttons have increased visibility.
User Adoption
Janice can either share recommendations on app within the Kindle community, or share externally showing senders platform to increase app visibility and possibility of adoption.
2. Receiving a recommendation
User Retention
Push notifications notify friend of recommendation but omits senders name, generating excitement and increases app return rate.
3. Downloads the book
User Engagement
Recommendations are revealed and downloaded directly in the app and presented more visually, highlighting Janice's personal message and delving a more emotionally impacting experience.
4. Saying thank you
User Retention
"I miss the social interactions of a physical book exchange." - Janice
It's instinctive human behaviour to thank someone after giving a book recommendation.
Offering a unique 'Thank you' option, personalises the experience, encourages engagement and retention; when paired with a 'connect' link in senders notification.
Testing the concept
Once the concept was mapped out, as a team we tested the prototype against our previously agreed HEART success indicators, related to usability and user satisfaction to measure. After 5 rounds of usability tests with book lovers, 3 key areas were highlighted for development; navigation, findability and the natural resistance to adopt the platform over more familiar channels.
Reducing platform adoption resistance
Using the platform: “Easy but boring, why wouldn't I just share the link on Whatsapp? ” - Test quote
Problem
Avg. 1.5/5 (30%) User Satisfaction rating.
Solution
To create a unique reason to share on Kindle.
As Janice feels giving book recommendations are like sending gifts, then through animation we can replicate the emotional sentiment.
"Sharing a book recommendation is like someone is giving you a gift." - Janice
Outcome
📈100% Users Satisfaction +70%
"It's like they sent me an e-gift present!"
Adding more navigational paths
Sending a recommendation: “Simple once you find the page, but it’s social, so I’d go to Kindle Social." - Test quote
Problem
40% Success rate.
3/5 users tried to navigate through Kindle Social not their Library page.
Solution
Create a second navigational route via Kindle Social by embedding a ‘recommendation’ carousel.
Outcome
📈100% Navigational Success +60%
Improving findability
Opening the book recommendation. “There’s a lot going on underneath, I completely overlooked it." - Test quote
Problem
60% Error Rate
2/5 Users overlooked the reveal recommendation button, due to the distracting UI.
Solution
Limited by existing UI, create an animated focal point limited to 3 seconds for accessibility considerations, and remove unnecessary Kindle Social Button at this stage.
Outcome
📉40% Error rate -20%
2/5 Users clicked the notification bell.
"I saw the notification, I instinctively went for it.”
Result and Impact
Based on my redesign of the book recommendations flow.
80% of users saw this as a core aspect of the bookclub community.
By strategically combining Service Design, Interaction Design and UX Design, I redesigned the task flow to prioritise emotion impact. Increasing task success rate by 80%, user satisfaction by 100% and identifying 4 new growth opportunities for user adaptation and engagement.
To measure the business impact I would compare the number of recommended books, reciprocated chats and number of new/returning users per month.
Overall, this contributed to an 80% increase in Kindle's brand perception as a social platform, in line with company goals.
Team Impact
Based of the combined impact of my book recommendation flow and partner's live chat function.
Curious? You can try the Kindle Social
+80%
Social perception of brand
4/5 Users would consider it a social platform, in line with company goal.
Retrospective
Getting to collaborate with others of complementary strengths was really exciting. I was fortunate to facilitate the process as Product Designer, from strategy and research to implementation and measuring impact.
Special thanks to Anthony, Sinem, and Leti for their support and feedback.
Next steps
Testing the banner
Investigate if the recommendation banner is needed, now we have the realisation of the notification bell being used.
Available real estate
White space in the Library tab is an opportunity to explore.
Learnings
Design Distractions
It was tempting to redesign Kindle's UI, however, prioritising the brief and interview insights we practised self-control and focused on social features.
Multiple paths are ok
I thought delivering intuitive, clean designs meant offering one path of navigation to complete a task, this project showed me the opposite.
Recommendations to Kindle
Possible influences
Consider whether the site-wide UI and usability, hinders the goal of being the preferred sharing platform.
Accessibility
Darkening Kindle's Primary Button's blue can improve accessibility, reducing liability and enhancing user experience.
Testimony
"Working with Caroline was a pleasure, she's a passionate designer who tackles projects in a structured, metric driven approach. I have seen her create innovative, strategic solutions that deliver positive business impact. She's not afraid to reflect and change directions if needed - focusing on user needs."
Design Partner