Published in · 5 min read · 21 hours ago
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Case study about a platform for book enthusiasts to compare prices, find discounts and purchase books from multiple online stores, all in one place.
As a college student and a book enthusiast with a limited budget, I often found myself overwhelmed trying to compare book prices and discounts across various online stores and thrift shops. Searching through different sites to find the best deals was time-consuming and frustrating.
This experience inspired me to create a platform designed to offer a better book-purchasing experience.
BookU is revolutionizing the book-purchasing experience. In a world filled with various purchasing apps, e-commerce platforms, and scattered bookstores, BookU stands out as the ultimate solution. This visionary platform allows book enthusiasts to effortlessly discover, compare, and indulge in their favourite reads, all in one convenient place.
My role
I brought out this project as a personal project in which I took the responsibility of both the dreamer and the architect as the sole UI/UX designer. The conceptualized idea for the project was based on my vision of an ideal book-purchasing experience. Even though the project didn’t have any cooperative background I tried to match the design thinking process with real-world standards through thorough research and surveys.
My intention was to create a revolutionary book-purchasing experience, so it was crucial to understand the challenges users face when buying books online.
To achieve this, I conducted a survey involving both avid readers and online shopping enthusiasts. This helped me understand the behavioural patterns of book purchasing as well as online shopping in general.
Insights gained from the survey
The survey provided valuable insights into users’ book-purchasing behaviours
- 57% of participants check multiple online bookstores individually to compare book prices, often feeling overwhelmed in the process.
- 72% of participants prefer purchasing used books.
- 51% of participants believe that the price significantly influences their book choices.
These findings highlighted the necessity of enhancing user convenience and streamlining the book-purchasing process. They also underscored the impact of book prices on purchasing patterns.
The project addresses the challenges users face while navigating through multiple websites, searching for, comparing and purchasing books. By creating a centralized app, the goal was to eliminate the need to hop between different websites simplifying the user journey. On the other hand, the issues the users face when they need to be informed about promotions, sales and recently launched books will be addressed in this proposed app.
The primary goals were to enhance user convenience and streamline the book-purchasing process. On the other hand, specific objectives include creating a search functionality, implementing real-time price comparisons and integrating personalized features allowing individual reading preferences. Additionally, I provide the facility to read the sample of the book prior to purchasing.
User journey
The way how users navigate through different interfaces and interact with buttons in order to reach a destinated goal completing an action is explained using data flow diagrams. This creates a clear big picture of the app functionality and user interactions.
Wireframing and early sketches
The ideations generated from the insights gained were transformed into low-fidelity wireframes. Here, the focus was on various layouts, content placement, and interaction styles. Wireframing allowed for concentration on core functionalities without the distraction of visual designs and colours.
Initial design
Overview
The first design I came up with amied to create a centralized platform for book enthusiasts to effortlessly discover and compare prices.
Key features included:
- Dynamic price comparing functionality
- Advanced search functionality
- Preview before purchase
Challenges identified
- While the primary functionality of the app was solid, issues were identified with the visual design and UI components.
- The main UI component of the app, the price chart, wasn’t user-friendly and did not follow design guidelines. Additionally, the overall design of the app was not visually compelling.
- Dedicating a separate screen with three different tabs for advanced search was not aligned with the primary purpose of the app and instead complicated the user flow.
- Since the user experience aimed to be simple and minimalistic, the onboarding screen was cluttered with unnecessary information, detracting from the intended simplicity.
- Problems included colours, styles, lack of consistency and UI components that were not user-friendly.
Redesign phase
Based on the feedback, I conducted research to understand how design principles are used in similar apps.
I analyzed common pain points and matched them with better design patterns, integrating Jakob’s Law.
New design approach
I improved the design system and colour scheme based on Google’s Material Design 3 to ensure consistency.
UI components were redesigned and updated with a focus on the app’s primary goal.
Cluttered illustrations were removed to maintain a simple and clean design.
1. Real-time price comparison
To help readers discover and compare prices, ultimately finding the best offers, I introduced a price comparison chart for each book.
i) Quick view of the top 3 lowest prices
ii) Detailed price chart
2. Preview before purchasing
3. Promotional offers, discounts, and sales notifications
Even though the BookU app was not launched as a commercial product, this project gave me hands-on experience in research, the design process, and turning a conceptualized idea into a live product.
Additionally, it made me realize that designing a product is all about developing solutions into a user-centric and community-driven experience.
