Goodreads
Role
UX/UI designer
Duration
Sept - Oct, 2024
Team
Context
Goodreads is the largest online community for book lovers to discover new books. As a user, I am often put off by its difficult and outdated interface. This inspired me to revamp the site with better user experience and a modern aesthetic.
Goal
This project aims to
Improve usability by enhancing navigation and streamlining user journey
Modernise visual styles to appeal to aesthetic-conscious users
Impact
Read ahead for my design process.
We conducted social listening on Reddit and App Store to gather information on user needs and frustration in an authentic and unmoderated environment.
The main reasons people use Goodreads are:
To discover new book
To track readings
To connect with other readers
Many users reported that the interface feels clunky, noisy and ugly.
Social Listening: Quotes from Reddit
We conducted a design audit on the website and identified following design limitations.
Poor navigation
Lack of visual hierarchy
Frequent need for scrolling
Text-heavy content
Design Audit on Goodreads Website
We discovered that users reported moving to StoryGraph as alternative to Goodreads. . Competitive analysis showed that StoryGraph has:
Better navigation
Clearer visual hierarchy
Modern UI
Design Audit on StoryGraph Website
Competitive Analysis
Navigation
Complicated
Hidden
Simple
Easy to find
Layout
Mixed
Consistent
Content
Different types on one page
One type of on one page
UI
Outdated
Inconsistent
Cluttered
Modern
Consistent
Minimalistic
User base
More established
140 million users
Smaller and newer
1.2 million users
User perception
Amazon-owned
Neglect user needs
No innovation
Independent
Created for reader
Growing users
UVP
Integration with Amazon & Kindle
Social features
Larger book catalogue
Non-amazon-affiliate
Personalised reading data & recommendation
Ads-free
Define
User persona was created based on user research and this report on average Goodreads user.
Persona
Sarah Thompson
29, Marketing Professional, New York
About
Sarah is a regular visitor of Goodreads. She is passionate about reading and enjoys exploring different genres. She loves discussing books and sharing opinions. Her favourite genres are Fiction, Romance, and Fantasy.
Quote
"I love losing myself in a good fantasy novel. Goodreads is my go-to place to track my reading and discover what I should pick up next. "
Goals
To discover new books
To track reading progress
To connect with other readers
Frustrations
Struggle to locate content on the website
Overwhelmed by too many types of content on one page
Problem Statement
Goodreads’ poorly designed interface hinders users' ability to easily browse and discover books. As a result, users often feel frustrated and increasingly turn to alternative book discovery platforms that offer a more streamlined and visually appealing experience.
Success Metric
(Net Promoter Score)
Ideate & Prototype
To find a new book to read, it takes six interactions on the original website, which suggests significant friction.
We identified 3 areas of improvement to reduce the number of steps:
Navigation
Layout
Scroll direction
User Flow: Discover a New Book to Read
We compared the pros and cons of different layouts. For example, we preferred the horizontal scroll to vertical scroll because it encouraged continuous exploration and felt more fluid and dynamic.
Sketches: Exploring Content Layout
We took design inspiration from other successful products. For example, the tab design was inspired by Youtube to group different type of content under tabs. This reduced clutters in one page and offerred a clearer organisation of content.
Design References
Evaluate
We tested our prototype with users and collected survey responses. They were asked to compare the original website and the new design on Figma prototype.
All 5 tested users preferred the new design and stated that the ease of navigation and visual appeal as the reasons for the preference.
User Survey Responses
What is your impression of the new landing page?
Which design do you prefer?
What influenced your choice between two designs?
Success Metric: Net Promoter Score (NPS)
How likely are you to recommend the new design to other Goodreads users if it gets implemented?
Final design
Next steps
Conduct user interviews/collect web analytics to understand other pain points and rank the issues by urgency
Redesign other pages on the website based on issues identified
Learnings
My first collaborative project with another designer was a fun experience, where we bounce off ideas and learn from each other's flows. We set clear weekly action steps and kept a consistent meeting schedule, which helped us stay aligned and moving forward smoothly in a remote working setting.
