Mia Krysa

Tag: reading

  • Redesigning Goodreads: A UX Research Case Study

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    Goodreads is a well-known book-tracking platform for book lovers. It’s the most popular platform of its kind and serves as a place for organizing, book reviews, recommendations, and more. Despite its popularity, many users find it cluttered, unorganized, and hard to navigate. This case study explores the research conducted in evaluating Goodreads’ strengths and weaknesses to suggest a more user-friendly design. 

    At First Glance 

    The first step in the site evaluation process was simply to evaluate. It was important to take note of common issues and research the problems that users were having on a day-to-day basis. Upon immediate inspection, the website felt cluttered and disorganized and had an overwhelming navigation center. There were irrelevant pop-up ads and glitches with the reading challenge, a popular feature that many users like to participate in. Goodreads and its competitors were also researched in this step. Even though Goodreads is the most popular, it lacks up-to-date features that platforms like StoryGraph use: the ability to make ½ star ratings and book recommendations based on your mood, to name a few. 

    Photo by Yan Krukau on Pexels.com

    From the User’s Perspective

    Next, personas were created to imagine the different kinds of users that use Goodreads. Also, interviews and surveys were made to learn what users liked and disliked about Goodreads. Most often, users liked the book-tracking and organizational features but disliked its outdated design and lack of personalized recommendations. 

    Along with the interviews and surveys, a card-sorting test was conducted to help re-work the navigation center. Many of the pages listed in the Goodreads navigation center were repetitive, unclear, and just didn’t make sense. Users were given the freedom to sort the pages in categories where they saw fit, and patterns were recorded to then come up with a navigation center that would make sense to most people. 

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    Goodreads’ Usability 

    While the website seems like it’d be easy to navigate, a heuristic evaluation showed the opposite. The site is over-complicated, and the navigation center continues to disappoint. A usability test was also conducted, and results showed that users who were familiar with Goodreads had learned to navigate around the flaws, whereas users who weren’t so familiar with the platform struggled altogether. 

    Suggestions for Goodreads 

    After this 6-week evaluation, some suggestions are definitely in order. 

    • Goodreads needs a dedicated “Trending Now” section, instead of plopping new books on all kinds of pages, with no theme or organization 
    • Incorporate AI into their recommendations like other platforms to give a more personalized feel
    • Reduce ads (or completely get rid of them!) as they’re messy and distracting 
    • Put more time and effort into the back-end of the platform to reduce issues that users are experiencing with website glitches and their devices not syncing 
    • Review filtering should be improved so users can filter through the kinds of reviews they want to see and add a ½ star option for more accurate ratings 
    • Market less towards authors and more towards readers 
    • Combine pages where seen fit. There are too many pages that repeat the same information in a different way 
    • Friend activity tracking should be more accessible and designed less like a social media feed 
    • Updated design for a modern, cleaner feel 
    via Goodreads

    Conclusion 

    This project combined various UX research methods to suggest a complete website redesign of Goodreads. In the end, what matters most is that Goodreads prioritizes its readers. Users want to feel seen, heard, and listened to, and Goodreads is not doing that. With a better design, condensed navigation, and more updated and personalized features, it could become a platform that readers truly enjoy. 

    Below is the final report.

    ICM514 FINAL REPORT (FINAL)Download

  • The Audiobook Dilemma: Habit-Stacking, Retention, and the Future of Reading

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    I set a reading goal for the beginning of 2024 to read 52 books. I underestimated how hard it was going to be for me to stick to my goal. I’m ashamed to say that I’m now at about 9 books completed for this year. I’m so disappointed and have found myself scrambling to finish as many books as possible before the new year in attempt to make myself feel better.

    The problem is that I’ve found it hard to find books that hold my attention. I’ll start a book and make it a quarter of the way through (sometimes even half!) and I just get bored, and won’t finish it. After contemplating why I tend to do this, I think another reason was probably that I don’t have enough time. And I hate that excuse. But here’s what I’ve done to overcome that.

    Habit-Stacking to my advantage

    I came across this new thing called habit-stacking. It’s where you stack a few things you need to get done—and do them at the same time— to be as efficient as possible. In my case, I started listening to audiobooks while I was driving, cleaning, cooking, showering — you name it. I thought I could try to finish as many books as possible, while doing the things I’d already be doing.

    Writing for the ear

    I came across an article about writing for the ear. “When you are writing for print, ideas and stories are communicated in a visual-linear mode which engages logic and thought. The kind of writing you do for a listener is quite different than when writing for readers. When writing for the ear, follow the ABCs. Accurate. Brief. Clear.” (Swenson, 2017).

    This got me thinking if I was even absorbing any of the information I was listening to, rather than if I’d actually read it. Audiobooks aren’t necessarily written for the ear. Books are written to be psychically read, while cozied up on the couch. While I feel like I’m doing the right thing by listening to as many books as I can to read my goal, is it worth it if I don’t even retain the information?

    I wonder if at one point in the future, books will be written to be listened to. Podcasts are formatted to be listened to, as well as radio shows and news broadcasts. Will authors ever decide to write book in an audiobook format? Will it change the way we read? With AI on the rise, I’m curious to know what the future of books will look like.

    References

    Arnold, A. (2017, October 24). Writing for the Ear Instead of the Eye. Swenson Book Development. https://swensonbookdevelopment.com/blog/2017/writing-for-the-ear-instead-of-the-eye/

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  • Writing for Today’s Society

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    Writing has always been something I enjoyed. And I always felt like it came easy to me. I was never intimidated by essays or assignments where lots of writing was expected. The assignments I dreaded most were ones that involved math or science.

    I’ve never thought about how I write or why I write. I just write. And to ponder all of the logistics that come with writing online is a new feeling for me. I was thinking about “readability” and what makes one thing easier to read than others. It’s not just about the text– it’s about how the text looks on the screen and other elements, like photos, that draw in the reader.

    What makes online text easier to read?

    Anyone can write. But writing well is what makes you stand out. This day in age, everyone is moving fast. We all have things to do and places to be, and we rarely stop to read anymore. Less and less people can focus long enough to get through an article or read a chapter of a book. More of us are prone to scanning, where we scroll quickly and try to pick out the important pieces. It’s gotten to a point where we have to tailor the way we write to make the content more digestible.

    The Basics of Writing Well Online

    A few things I learned to keep in mind are below:

    1. Spacing between paragraphs is helpful to not overwhelm the reader.
    2. Bullets, lists, or numbers are great for skimming.
    3. Minimize the amount of words you use to keep readers engaged.
    4. Subheaders!
    5. Make sure your font is large enough.
    6. Use pictures throughout.
    7. The larger and cleaner the margin, the better (for the most part).

    Moving Forward

    As someone who writes for fun, and posts her work online, these are all important things that I never really considered in my own work. It’s an aspiration of mine to be someone who writes well. One day, I hope to write a book (maybe a memoir?), but for now, I think it’s important to know how to write online. When society is chronically online, it’s a crucial skill to have.