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Add a Feature: Apple Books

Add a Feature: Apple Books

Role: End-to-end UI/UX designer

Researching, research synthesis, wire framing, usability testing

Tools:

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Timeline: April - May 2025 (~3 weeks)

Background

Problem

Idea

Apple Books allows users to make purchases, read e-books, and listen to audiobooks.

Apple Books has no community or interaction with other users within the app.

A feature that allows users to create a profile to share their what they're reading with others, share their ratings and reviews, and follow other users and their favorite authors.

Researching

User Interviews

I conducted five interviews with participants in order to get a deeper understanding of the user’s needs with detailed, qualitative information.

Essential Questions

When you read e-books, what app or website do you use?

When you read e-books, what app or website do you use?

Where do you find book recommendations?

Where do you find book recommendations?

Do you share about what you read with friends and family? People on the internet?

Do you share about what you read with friends and family? People on the internet?

How often do you read e-books?

Any feature you enjoy that that app/website has?

Do you use multiple websites/apps for reading, cataloguing, sharing?

Affinity Map

Key Insights

Page customization, book progress trackers, reading goal trackers/reading streak, homepages with books displayed visually

Every interviewee shares about their books with others, whether via in person or online

4/5 interviewees mentioned that reviews and ratings of books factor in whether or not they decide to read a certain book

Every interviewee found recommendations from both people & stores offline and online. Amazon and Goodreads were popular mentions.

Competitor Analysis

Kindle - Direct

Google Play - Direct

Libby - Direct

Goodreads - Indirect

  • Can read books, magazines, and comics

  • Can view popular charts, customize page look, and annotate books

  • Displays reading insights, dictionary and lookup

  • One of the most popular book reading apps

  • Integrates with Audible and Goodreads

  • Multiple functionalities not available in the app directly

  • Poor genre labeling

  • Can read ebooks, comics, textbooks

  • Can listen to audio books

  • Can link notes to Google Drive

  • Create wishlists, view charts, annotate books

  • Can’t follow an author or view all their books

  • Poor genre labeling

  • Can't connect or sync with other apps for purchasing or cataloguing

  • Lacks a strong social community

  • Can borrow digital books and audiobooks from participating libraries for free

  • Can link your library card

  • Can explore books, contact libraries, see library events

  • Can view all author’s works, create labels for books, view loan history

  • Good genre labeling

  • Can integrate with other apps like Kindle

  • Little community interaction

  • Can’t purchase books

  • Can have a long wait for book availability

  • Can annotate books, make lists, and adjust the page look

  • Can track reading progress, write reviews, and share recommendations with others

  • Can make lists, set TBR/reading/read status, set reading goals, book awards, follow authors, follow friends, annotate books and share annotations from Kindle, find and like book quotes, ask authors questions

  • Large user community, thorough book tracking and profile

  • Linked directly to Amazon

  • Good genre labeling

Key Insights

Reading insights, reading progress, author pages and exploration are core features in competitor apps.

Defining

During this process, I used a linear approach, and iterated on wireframes.

Essential POV & HMW's

  1. I’d like to explore ways to help readers who enjoy being part of a book community to be able to find and follow others with similar interests because Apple Books competitors have strong communities with recommendations, public shelves/lists, ratings, and reviews that encourage app/website usage and generate more interest in reading.

    1. How might we allow users to manage what account they interact with?

    2. How might we allow the user to control what information is public and what information is private?

User Persona

Name

Cat Alvarez

Bio

Cat Alvarez is a college student who enjoys reading as a hobby. She is very familiar with technology, since she uses it during her classes. She currently uses Apple Books since she owns an iPhone and is familiar with other Apple services. She often buys books on the app to read. However, leaves a rating and review for a book she’s finished, she is never able to interact with other readers who have also left ratings and reviews. If someone enjoyed a book she also enjoyed, Cat also won’t be able to see what other books they’ve read. Recommendations are limited to the app’s algorithm, and not open to readers to share with each other.

Quote

“I love being a part of a community of readers where we can share our interests. I like being able to have somewhere I can discover new books and discuss what I’ve read with others.”

Needs and Goals

Frustrations and Pain Points

  • The ability to display books she wants to read, is currently reading, and has read in the past, and also statistics like her reading goals or reading streak

  • A way to follow and share with other readers on the app, and view what they read and what they’ve rated

  • A way to follow her favorite authors and receive updates about new books

  • An app that is consistent with other apps she is already familiar with

  • Not having a community on the app

  • Having to use another service to share her reading catalogue, goals, and book collections

  • Having to rely on the app’s algorithm or another service to get recommendations

User Flow

Designing

Mid-Fidelity Wireframes

High-Fidelity Wireframes (Version One)

My favorite part of the design process was creating the hi-fi wireframes in the style of Apple. I found it an interesting challenge to replicate a very detailed style while adding in my own features.

Testing

Evaluating the usability and usefulness of the wireframes. How effective is the design at helping the user achieve their goals?

Plan

Goal

Tasks

Success metrics

Evaluate the usability and usefulness of the wireframes. How effective is the design at helping the user achieve their goals?

  1. Create a profile

  2. Follow another user

  3. Follow an author and enable notifications

Time on task
Task success
Number of errors
Additional comments

Mid-Fidelity Testing Results

4 Testers (all moderated)

User Feedback

  • All managed to complete every task

  • Some disconnect between screens, confusing order of screens, or confusing wording

  • Need to clarify returning vs. new users

  • Need to clarify account vs. profile

High-Fidelity Testing Results

6 Testers (all unmoderated)
Testing software: Maze

Time on task

Task success

Number of errors

Task 1 avg.: 54.5s
Task 2 avg.: 39.6s
Task 3 avg.: 20.6s

Task 1: 66.7% success rate
Task 2: 100% success rate
Task 3: 100% success rate

Task 1: 33% of users ended on the wrong screen, 61% misclick rate
Task 2: 0% of users ended on the wrong screen, 50% misclick rate
Task 3: 0% of users ended on the wrong screen, 55% misclick rate

User Feedback

Overall: The look matches Apple’s design system

Task 1: Instruction prompt was confusing but actual flow was easy

Task 2: Flow was easy

Task 3: Include text to indicate the author’s name is the author, want to explore other books and find other authors to follow

Key Insights

  • The first task was the most confusing, including the instructions and the flow order itself.

  • More context needed to be clarified for new and existing features.

Added text indicating that the text refers to the author

Before

After

Removed chevron next to “Genres” since this section doesn't need to expand

Before

After

Added similar authors section since from Maze indicated wanting to explore more books and authors in this flow

Before

After

Changed author follower section, adjusted the look and added the author’s name for more clarification

Before

After

Hight-Fidelity Wireframes (Version Two)

Closing

Challenges

The main challenge was finding the right testers. Some testers I chose early on weren’t as familiar with how Apple’s apps look or work, and some confusion during testing came from that disconnect. This caused some time delay where I fell behind trying to find testers. During later interviews and later testing, I gave an overview of Apple Books to clarify how the app worked.

I also spent a little too much time on the mid-fidelity wireframes and testing those wireframes, which also set my schedule behind.

Growth

This project has given me experience working with an already existing product and adding on to it. I also gained experience in learning how to work with an existing design system, and learned the new challenges that come with trying to find appropriate testers familiar with that well established design system.

Next Steps

In future iterations, additional features could include:

  • Adding a messaging feature to message other users

  • Create pages for discussion boards for books or specific chapters

I really enjoyed designing the high fidelity wireframes. I liked figuring out how to make my screens look like an Apple product and making the pages seem realistic. The topic of the project was also very interesting to me since I enjoy reading as a hobby.