readerhub

ReaderHub

ReaderHub is mainly a platform that aims to connect readers all around the world, allowing them to interact and share opinions about books on top of being able to create their own online library, write reviews, remain updated about the latest news in the publishing scene and receive recommendations based on past interactions. It is important to understand though that the focus of ReaderHub is the social media aspect. This is because this aspect is completely lacking in every one of the competitors that we analyzed, and readers usually turn to more traditional social media apps to talk about their interests. Therefore, ReaderHub wants to provide a platform that would give readers what they don’t have right now, a space dedicated only to them.

UX Team Members

• Anna Di Iulio
  • Executive summary
  • Introduction
  • Report I
  • Wireframes text and artboards
  • Introduction, Conclusions and Caveats Report II
  • Introduction, Findings, Conclusion Report III
  • Executive summary

• Max Hibbard

  • Personas and Scenarios Page
  • Sketch and Diagram Page
  • Heuristic Evaluation Report I
  • Wireframes revision and artboard
  • Report II
  • Executive summary
  • Methods and Caveats Report III
  • Pictures and graphs Report III

User-Centered Design Artifacts

• Personas and Scenarios
• Sketches and Diagrams
• Wireframes
• Prototype

Phase I: Analyzing Users, Competitors, and Initial Designs

Executive Summary

• Competitive analysis showed what was lacking on the main websites and apps used by readers [social media platform] : readers do not have a dedicated place for them to connect directly to people who share their interests.
• Heuristic Evaluation of competitors found many websites cluttered with advertisements and overall the design was not simple. Language of shortcuts might pose a problem to non-English speakers. Lots of steps to be taken to add or remove books.
• Personas and scenarios underlined the users’ most important needs
  • desire to connect with other people who share interests
  • need to discover new books, and to know what other people thought of those books
• Sketches and Diagrams show initial design concepts
  • Simple designs to only show you what you want while being intuitive to use
  • Focus on the social aspect like messaging
  • The flow Diagram shows the initial concept of user interaction

Full phase I report

Phase II: Refining interaction and designing wireframes

Executive Summary

During this phase, the tools of wireframes and cognitive walkthroughs were used to further push the project forward. The work done was also informally reviewed by peers.

Wireframes show all possible interactions between the user and the program.

• It was found that social media workflows are complicated with a lot of interaction.
• It became clear that designing every function that a platform like readerhub can be complicated to design since many actions can be performed on a single page.

Cognitive Walkthroughs let you get some user interaction and feedback on how to accomplish tasks.

• It was found that our wireframe needed to make our buttons clearer to the user.
• The features designed may or may not be used by users as they have different needs.
• Going forward the interactions between the user and the wireframe will be more clear.

During the next phase, the focus will be on making the user interaction smoother than it is now with minimal visual design.

Full phase II report

Phase III: Prototypes and User Testing

Executive Summary

During this final phase we tested our prototype. Five people performed a series of tasks which allowed us to evaluate the ease of use of the prototype we developed. Furthemore, the participants were asked a few questions both to evaluate previous experience with similar apps and websites, as well as opinions about the interactions with out own. There were both negative and positive findings:

Negative

• Some features were found to not be visible enough.
• The “log out” button was not prominent enough and the vast majority of our participants was unable to find it.
• Some participants expressed dislike for the icons that were used on the prototype as they didn’t match their mental model.

Positive

• The majority of the participants liked the idea and were willing to use that application in the future.
• Some liked the features that were implemented and they felt like there were no missing features.

Overall, there was valuable insight gained from the user testing that will help improve our website and user interaction.

Full phase III report