Reading Circle website app
Case Study
Looking for a rare or an out of print book? Or maybe you are looking to make space on your shelves and you want to find a good home for your books.
Reading Circle is a web-based classifieds app where users can buy, sell, and trade their books with other users through the Reading Circle marketplace. Sellers can ship books to buyers or arrange for pick up in safe public spaces or at local independent bookstores.
Users need a way to buy, sell, and trade rare and out of print books on a local level because there are not many online sites that allow for this niche of
e-commerce.
Create a web based P2P marketplace app that facilitates e-commerce at the local level allowing goods to be shipped in various methods that is intuitive and creates a sense of community.
As with any project I begin with research and I especially love a good competitive analysis. By researching the competition, I was able to glean insights from the data I collect and make informed design decisions. This allows me to find any gaps in the market or the competitor's product.
For example, I may discover a feature that the competition is lacking and by implementing said feature I can target a different user demographic. However, in this case I discovered that people like a community they can trust and they can interact with online. The general feeling is that they feel more connected and can trust each other when making transactions.
Competitive Analysis Summary:
Based off of what I am trying to accomplish with the product, I targeted and reviewed 5 competitors with similar services. I was looking for pros and cons and from this information synthesized above I developed a strategy that will allow the product to accel where some of the competitors failed.
I conducted some surveys and interviews looking for common themes and patterns to further help me understand my potential users. Not only does listening to potential users help design better products but it helps mitigate the risk of designing the wrong solution for users. Afterwards, I began sorting out the data to create an affinity diagram that allows me to identify key elements and themes. From these findings I was able to develop insights that help me identify pain points
One of the most important aspects of UX design is understanding the people using your product. I created a few user personas based on the information synthesized from my previous findings to help me understand my users. I only chose these two because I felt they more closely represent the direction that the product is moving towards. These personas represent potential users and possible scenarios they may encounter while using the product.
A journey map is a visualization that helps us understand the process that a person using the product may go through to accomplish their goal. This allows me to create a visualization of a person's relationship with the product. From this I can gain insights of the whole experience from that person's perspective. This in turn, fosters a more user centric approach to the overall design which leads to a better user experience.
Using all the data and the insights synthesized from the research, I constructed a site map to help further imagine the user's experience and help me with my wireframes and the structure of the site.
Based on feedback and insights gathered from the generative research, I began designing my initial wireframes with Adobe XD. I based the wireframes off of features that would best address the needs of the target user audience with the help of user journey maps and information architecture.
One of the main purposes of creating a prototype is to test the design decisions and save resources, I began to outline desired insights in a usability testing plan prioritizing the test goals for the primary user actions. Overall, participants were happy with the design and the ease of use. There were, of course, both positive and negative feedback that helped me explore opportunities that could improve the design and experience of the site.
This project taught me that it is better to build smaller features that lead toward the bigger version of the product. By creating smaller deliverables more frequently, I have more chances to get user feedback on my ideas and then execute changes without spending time possibly going in the wrong direction. Future iterations would largely depend on the results from more robust user testing in a semi-structured setting to not skew any outcomes with bias or assumptions as to what the user's want vs need from the site.
If you are looking to connect to a creative and driven UX Designer then you have come to the right place. I'm always open for discussion.
© Kristofer Todd, 2023