Case Study: Designing a book reading app using GV’s design sprint process.
This case study was an assignment project I did as part of springboard’s UI/UX program using a modified version of GV’s design sprint process
Platform: IOS application
Role: Bitesize UX provided the prompt for this project; my role was to synthesize the research data, brainstorm, design, and test the solutions.
What is Tiny Tales?
Tiny Tales is an app that helps parents find great books and short stories to read to their young children.
Scroll down to know more ⬇⬇⬇
🪖Problem statement-
- Finding the right book to read for children can be a frustrating experience, parents have to look out for things like time, children’s interests and comprehension level.
- Finding the right book can eat up a lot of time. and leave the parents frustrated who are already tired from a long day of work.
Let me explain this scenario with a little comic strip I sketched….
Process
I used a modified version of Google Venture’s Design Sprint, on the account that this was a solo project.
Day 1 (Understand)
I synthesized all the available research data to find common issues among the target users. Data that I analyzed included interviews, scripts, quotes, etc.
💁🏽 How Might We?
I re-framed my insight statements as How Might We questions to turn those challenges into opportunities for design.
‘’How might we questions’’ give you the the perfect frame for innovative thinking.
- How might we help the users in finding the right book to read in the least possible time?
- How might we make the experience of browsing books delightful and intuitive?
Flow map
In the map, I highlighted all the steps the user will need to take to achieve their goal.
Day 2 (Sketch) and Day 3 (decide)
Lightning demos
In lightning demos, the team looks at different competitors’ products that are solving similar problems.
I took inspiration from a variety of products like Netflix, Kindle, Wattpad and Amazon Prime
All these products share a common goal.
- Help users pick the best content based on their interests.
- Provide a delightful and intuitive browsing experience.
Fun Fact: Netflix’s recommendation engine saves them over $ 1 Billion per year.
Crazy 8’s Exercise
Crazy 8 is a fun and fast exercise which challenges people to sketch eight distinct ideas in eight minutes.
I selected the most critical screen from the experience map and tried sketching it in 8 different ways within 8 minutes.
Sketches for other main screens
I sketched out various solutions for other main screens, including the onboarding flow and book detail screen.
Day 4 (Prototype and Design)
In an ideal sprint scenario, the team is supposed to make a Lo-Fi prototype of the product, but seeing I had more time, I proceeded to make a fully functional Hi-fi prototype.
Onboarding
The onboarding flow is the key to a personalized experience; users can choose their child’s interests based on their age, allowing them to get personalized recommendations and reducing their frustration when trying to find new books to read.
A delightful and Intuitive Home page
Day 5 (Test)
I conducted usability test sessions with 5 participants that fit into the target demographic of the app.
Task Scenarios-
1.Browse through the book collection and find something to read that you might interest you.
2.You liked a book, find a way to recommend it to your friends.
Issue #1
Users did not read description
After users performed task one, I asked them how they went about deciding which book to read. 4 out of 5 participants did not read the description provided on each card; they just glanced through different book covers and reading a line or two of description at most.
Solution #1
I shortened the description and added content tags for the user to quickly scan through the content.
This reminded me of Steve Krug’s quote from the book “Don’t make me think”
We don’t read pages, we scan them.
‘’One of the very few well-documented facts about Web use is that people tend to spend very little time reading most Web pages. Instead, we scan (or skim) them,looking for words or phrases that catch our eye’’
Key Learnings
Completing this project using GV’s design sprint process allowed me to get hands-on experience working in an agile setup where deadlines and short turn-around times are very common. While also allowing me to demonstrate my ability to work on agile projects.
If you liked this case study, please make sure to 👏 clap a few times, if you have any feedback please do share it in the comments section below.
A special thanks to my mentor Agam Arora.
