Lindsey Stowell

Goodreads - unsolicited UX review

project overview

Goodreads is a free service owned by Amazon that is used by millions to organize book collections, get reading recommendations, and socialize with likeminded people. Individuals can build reading lists, write reviews, and view book ratings from other readers.

Having the goal to build a library in my future house, I have used Goodreads to catalogue my books for many years. Despite going through the occasional update, the website has remained almost the same since I began using it in 2013 and most elements (navigation/design/copy) have never changed. Because I am but one user of this massive service, I was curious if the website maintained a positive user-experience for everyone and if there were any opportunities for improvement. Instead of reviewing the entire Goodreads website, I decided to focus on exploring the areas pertaining to reading/rating/viewing books and the statistics relating to an individual's reading habits.

I am in no way affiliated with Goodreads or Amazon. I simply used their service as a method of employing my knowledge of UX and practicing my skills in an area that I am interested in.

Key Research Areas:

What are notable behaviors and demographics of current users?
How does Goodreads compare to similar services?
Identify opportunities to improve usability and functionality

step 1: user research

I completed intensive searches for existing knowledge on users. I was able to locate current statistics from SimilarWeb.com that would help me build user personas. I also located past polls that were completed by people on Goodreads. These polls had at least 100,000 responses and represent important preferences of people that are active on the website.

A solid understanding of the preferences and behaviors of people currently using Goodreads can help provide valuable insights into the needs of the user.

Tools Used

SimilarWeb.com - User Demographics Tool
Goodreads Polls - Surveys Created By and For Users
AnswerThePublic.com - Search Listening Tool
Canva and PowerPoint - Graph Creation

Key Insights

Females are more likely to be active users and most users are younger in age
People either enjoy reading reviews about a book or never read a review - people may have their experience ruined if they do not like reviews and are faced with them
Rating a book that is completed is a critical task that brings people back to the platform
After reading a book, people like seeing what other books have been written by the author
Most people buy their books from a local bookstore despite Goodreads being owned by Amazon

Visualization of user research Insights

step 2: Competitive Analysis

I researched various competitors of Goodreads and compared features offered by each company in order to visualize strengths and weaknesses of the platform. After comparing which features were implemented in various websites, I identified distinguishing elements of each platform that stood out from the others.

I wanted to understand the features that competitors were offering and if there were opportunities to improve Goodreads using this knowledge.

Tools Used

Competitor Websites - Feature Exploration
Excel/PowerPoint - Graphics Creation

Key Insights

Goodreads lacked information about local events that other programs utilized
Book lists, quotes, and book giveaways are relatively unique features offered by Goodreads
Riffle's unique feature that shows book reviews only if people want to view them could improve the experience of Goodreads for people that do not like seeing ratings
Library Thing had an excellent onboarding process for new members that included a tour of the website's features - Goodreads could utilize something similar to prevent users from being overwhelmed at first visit

Competitive analysis results

step 3: user personas

Using the information I learned from research, I created four user personas that portrayed a few of the main goals and motivations that people have when using Goodreads. This helped me visualize key components that users need in the website and allowed me to represent members of the target audience. The user personas provided context and focus for my brainstorming to ensure a user-centric design.

Tools Used

Notion - User Persona Creation

step 4: journey building

I created user journeys portraying the experience of two users from my personas. In order to visualize the experience of people attempting a certain task, I included the touchpoints with the website, the emotional state of the individual at each step, a primary thought the user might have, and opportunities for improvement within the platform. These scenarios helped align my thinking with the needs of the user and enabled me to concentrate on pain-points that occur from various processes.

Tools Used

LucidChart - User Journey Creation

step 5: Brainstorming and Prioritization

In order to organize my thoughts and and generate ideas pertaining to me "how might we..." questions, I created an affinity diagram. I identified the main opportunities that I wanted to address with this project and generated a collection of ideas pertaining to each category. In a team setting, I prefer this step to be highly collaborative where members first generate ideas independently and then come together to analyze.

My next step was to organize my favorite ideas into a prioritization matrix in order to distinguish practical solutions that could be implemented. By weighing each solution by the value it offers to people using Goodreads and by the ease at which Goodreads could incorporate it into their existing website, I was able to identify the top three opportunities to capitalize on.

Tools Used

LucidChart - Affinity Diagram Creation
Figma - Prioritization Matrix Creation

Brainstorming using Affinity Diagram

Prioritization Matrix

Top 3 Opportunities

1) Update Reading Statistics

User research revealed that users love viewing personalized reading statistics. This being said, people struggle to locate the link to their reading statistics page and are often disappointed by the lack of information once the page is opened. The graphics are difficult to comprehend at first glance and do not offer the same amount of information as competitors (Library Thing ranked top in this category). People often turn to third-party software that requires exporting the Goodreads library in order to view more details about their reading habits.

Improving reading statistic metrics could increase loyalty in people using Goodreads and would reduce the need for third-party software. Having statistics based on people's reading habits is a distinguishable feature that could benefit from being more visible and detailed.

2) Make Reviews Visible Only if Selected

When organizing data from people who use Goodreads, it became clear that people either enjoyed reading a few reviews before selecting a book or avoided viewing them at any point. Currently, all books display their rating automatically in both the book snippet and the book page. Reviews by other viewers are also shown when you enter the book's page, although they require a decent amount of scrolling to view.

Book tags could be updated to remove the book's overall rating and instead include tags that pertain to the plot of the book. Implementing a feature similar to BookSloth's rating system (community votes on badges pertaining to book features like character development or worldbuilding) could help readers understand the best elements of a book without seeing any quantifying reviews.

Drawing from Riffle's characteristic of having automatically hidden reviews, Goodreads could have community book reviews hidden under a clickable panel. People who are interested in reading reviews from others could easily access existing posts while those that dislike seeing reviews would not have to worry about avoiding them or having their experience spoiled.

3) Streamline Access to an Author's Other Books

Majority of people reported that they return to Goodreads in order to review a book and that their first goal upon completion of a book is to view other books by the same author. Currently, a prompt appears once a book is marked completed that allows people to rate and review the book.

Adding an easily identifiable button that links to the author's page or including a scrollable list that contains other books by the author could help people locate this information faster.

Project OUtcome

Although I would have liked to interview users and conduct a few usability tests, my budget and my personal deadline forced me to pursue other avenues of research. I hold this project as an example of the flexibility of my design process and I am proud of the work I accomplished. Building the user personas and user journey maps were especially enjoyable as they were fun to create and helped unravel valuable insights pertaining to the user's experience while using certain features of the website.

What began as a method of satisfying my curiosity for the functionality of Goodreads' website quickly evolved into a UX Research project that I am proud to share.

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