Bookmark Buddy
A Smart Bookmark Device for Enhanced Reading Engagement and Recall.
Project
IUB HCI/d
Timeline
Jan - May 2023
Role
UI/UX Design
UX Research
Team
1 UI Designer
1 UX Researcher
Tool
Figma
FigJam
Overview
Why aren't we reading as much as we used to? This question resonates with all of us in our group, particularly as young adults. To tackle this issue, we've designed a smart bookmark device specifically for young adults who want to maintain a reading habit. Our goal is to help them cultivate a consistent reading routine and stay engaged with it.
What Is the Problem?
Young adults who like reading often struggle to maintain a consistent reading habit.
How might we enable young adults to read at their desired pace while reducing the gaps between their reading intervals?
Introducing Bookmark Buddy
We ackle the problem by enhancing reading engagement with interactions.
Empowering users to stay enageged and recall their reading journey through interactive features while enjoying physical books, thus fostering and maintaining a healthy reading habit.
Feature 1
EmoMarks
Stay Engaged with Your Reading
Provide visual cues and emotional connections tailored to users' reading habits. These subtle nudges keep them engaged without feeling pressured by tracking your reading frequency and adjusting accordingly.
Feature 2
StorySnap
Enhance Your Memory of Storylines
Offer story snippets and chapter images to refresh users' memories and keep them engaged with captivating storylines. Recap the text and monitor their reading progress effortlessly with this interactive feature.
What Led Us to Identify the Problem?
We discovered that three of us are currently struggling with maintaing reading habits, making us wonder how many others are facing this problem.
Comprehensive Research
Why Maintaining a Reading Habit Matter?
It is crucial because it enhances cognitive function, reduces stress, and improves focus and comprehension. It also fosters continuous learning, broadens perspectives, and cultivates empathy and creativity.
User Group
Why We Target Young Adults (18-24)?
We've noticed that this issue is most prevalent among Gen Z. However, there's a significant gap in technology usage and adoption within this group. Therefore, we've identified young adults as our target users.
Negative Impact
Why Young Adult Should Care?
While young adults are aware of the many benefits of reading, they may not realize the negative impact of not reading.
Inability to comprehend large texts
Reduced attention span
Hindering Imagination
Interviews, Synthesis, and Insights
What We Found Interesting?
We interviewed 7 young adults and used the Affinity Map method to synthesize the data from our primary research. This allowed us to identify the challenges they face and understand why they lack motivation.
I buy them but never get to reading them
I get distracted easily...
It’s easier to watch Netflix!!!
It’s been a while. I can barely remember the context of book
Opportunities
What Are Their Potential Needs?
We delved deeper into their feedback to uncover and understand the underlying needs of our user group.
Visual cues to initiate reading
Keep leisure reading flexible
Reduce gaps between their reading sessions
Derive more value
How Did We Turn Opportunities into Ideas?
Ideation
Initially, we were unsure how to create a single product or solution that addresses all these needs. To resolve this, we used the following ideation methods to guide our decision-making.
Crazy 8s
Ideated and came up with 20 rough ideas around all our needs.
Collaborative
Collective voting helped us understand what people thought of our ideas.
Synthesis
We took the ideas that were highly voted on and refined it further.
SCAMPER
We rethought our current ideas and explored different perspectives to generate solutions.
Design Strategy
We developed an ideal design strategy for implementing our product, taking into account real-world situations users may encounter. This strategy focuses on how the device can effectively capture data from books and deliver a personalized user experience.
Initial Concept
We narrowed out of 20 Ideas down to initial concept, and I sketched out the concept with several features.
System Scenarios
I created system scenarios to distinguish between two different types of reading: books with storylines and books without storylines. This was done to ensure our product can serve young adults with various reading purposes.
Prototypes and User Flow
We created high-fidelity prototypes and 4 user flows to visualize the steps users take when interacting with our product. This helps us understand their journey and the tasks they complete within the product.
We invited 4 young adults to test our design. The physical prototypes included a paper-made device and screens representing 4 different flows. Our goal was to observe their interactions with the device in various reading situations involving physical books and to make necessary iterations based on the insights gained.
Testing and Insights
Outcome
Impact and Future Scope
4/5
of CSAT score
indicating that the responses fall within the "satisfied" range on the Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT).
1.
Make the user experience more intuitive by reducing the number of operational actions and the time it takes for users to understand the process.
2.
Consider using audio cues as different users may have different preferences. This could allow users to choose their preferred type of cue.
3.
Consider the possibility of simultaneously reading multiple books. It may be possible to integrate the content of several books into a single digital bookmark.
Learnings
This project marked my first experience conducting user testing with hand-made physical prototypes, necessitated by device constraints and the requirement for interaction with a physical book. Typically, my designs have focused on apps or websites that interact with existing devices, so this presented a unique challenge.