SimplyE

Project Description

SimplyE is a mobile application that makes it easy to browse, borrow, and read any eBook in your library’s collection on your device. SimplyE was created by a partnership of libraries and library consortia across the country, with The New York Public Library currently serving as lead partner.

For this project we were given the task of creating a single feature that would help get more users to use this application. The feature we wanted to add was a reminder function that helps create reading consistency and eventually turn into a habit.

Role: UX Research and Design

Tools: Figma, Figjam, Google Docs

RESEARCH

User Interviews

To start our project, we needed to find users who are avid readers and use mobile applications to read books daily. We found 10 users to question

The data that we gathered from our interviews showed that our users are heavy readers and that they regular readers but would like reminders to keep the pattern consistent.

The second thing we noticed, was that mobile applications are favored more over paperback because they are able to store more books on a device, rather than carrying multiple books with them.

Apart from getting feedback from users, we also did a competitive & comparative analysis to see what features other applications have that stand out from SimplyE.

DEFINE

Persona

With all the information we gathered, we were able to create our main persona Kathryn.

User Flow

From our research we were able to come up with the current user flow

IDEATE

The hardest part of the ideation stage was that we had to keep the original layout but create something that fit well with what is already in place. Being able to see the bare bones of the app really helped in trying to pinpoint how everything is going to flow, as well as just being able to see where each item would go.

Wireframes

Project-3---Wireframe-LOW-FIDELITY

Project 3 - Final Wire Frame MID Fidelity w_ grid

Project3 Wireframe s Color (screenshot)2

Project-3---Wireframe-LOW-FIDELITY

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USABILITY TESTING

After we came up with the design for our idea, we created wireframes so that we could start doing usability testing. We were able to get three rounds of testing done and these were our findings:

First Round of Usability Testing

During the first round of usability testing we had four users test our mid fidelity prototype and from those tests we were able to gather these test results:

Didn't understand the priority button
Couldn't set reminder while reading/viewing book
Couldn't go back to viewing book after setting reminder
Notes to new page inconvenient
Would prefer drop down list to select a book instead of manually typing book title
No confirmation page after time set
Assumed reminders list was current set reminders (caused confusion on how to set a reminder)

Second Round of Usability Testing

From there, we ran a second and third round of testing with two users and the feedback we received was:

Reserve books that are unavailable for renting
Remove drop down accordion
Cancel button connections
Create New Reminder page : Book selection overlay with “my books”
Create set reminders button within my books page for convenience

Third Round of Usability Testing

For our 3rd round, we had one user test our high fidelity prototype and this is the feedback they gave us:

Have 2 separate pages
- 1 for reminder to reserve book
- We are asking the user to do too much on 1 page(reminder)

Change color of certain cancel buttons because they
Remove box around cancel on alarm page to distinguish from other icons
Stick with one flow but have multiple ways to get around it

PROTOTYPE

CONCLUSION

Next Steps

SimplyE is a great way to get readers using New York's public library system. The lack of updates and consistency between android and Apple can make it frustrating for their users. If given the chance to help develop the app, some updates I would like to make would be:

Create a layout for "Nite Mode" so that readers can choose which screen for reading
Remove the separate shades of blue for the tags under each book
Re-categorize each section on the home page
Have the colors be uniform with the branding

Reflection

I learned a lot while working on this project. In my journey as a UX Designer, this was the first time I worked in a group, collaborating on each step of the process. We all had great ideas on what parts of the app we could improve on. It helped that we all had strengths that helped our workflow as well helping each other whenever we had any questions.