Curio

💡 APP DESIGN

Creating a digital bookshelf for curious minds. 🧠

Team:

Individual

(UI/UX Design Challenge for myself)

Roles:

User Research, Low-fi Wireframing, Design Systems, Hi-fi Prototyping, Information Architecture, Interaction Design

Tools:

Figma, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop

⚡️ The mission: Design a sleek, easy-to-use app for readers to discover, discuss, and track their latest reads.

✨ As an 📚 avid book-lover, I’ve always wanted a way to move my bookshelf into the digital space——where I can make notes, write reviews, and discover my next read.

🤔 Although some options already exist, such as Goodreads, there is currently no product out there that delivers an intuitive, beautiful design——so I set out to make my own.

THE PROCESS

💡 (abridged & illustrated)

To begin …

WHAT DO USERS WANT?

📚 User research & demographic context

Although I definitely knew what I myself wanted from an app like this, I needed to understand what other readers, or non-readers, valued most as well. I focused on gathering user insights from a variety of backgrounds by asking targeted questions and analyzing user personas.

💡 Question: What would you want from a digital bookshelf?

👥 User Personas:

Insights gathered from my friends on Goodreads

After analyzing the potentials of the product as well as conducting user research, I created user personas and worked through analysis to identify the most important pain points, needs, and goals.

MIND-MAPPING

To begin the problem exploration process, I started by allowing myself to think out loud and pouring all my ideas into a mind-map: thoughts about potential app functions, the user experience, problem definition, and solution implementation.

💡 Even in the digital age, nothing beats a good old handwritten brain dump…

Information Architecture:

🔗 What makes sense for the ideal user flow?

IDEATION & INITIAL DESIGNS

🍉 Time for the fun & juicy part——the heart of the process!

Follow along for a documentation of initial logo explorations, wireframing, theme conceptualization, and all that good design stuff…

Wireframes:

🩻 The initial bare bones structure of it all

VISUAL IDENTITY

🎨 Establishing a clean and user-friendly design language

Goals:

⚡️ A bright, welcoming, modern look

💭 Logos & colors fit for the curious

SOLUTIONS

🛳 Final ship

After iterating through the edits from user feedback gained in the testing stage, I arrived at the final high-fidelity prototypes.

Homepage:

🏠 An immediate welcome to the world of curious minds

  • Currently reading shelf

  • To read next shelf

  • Discover more: Popular with friends, What’s new this week, etc…

Explore:

🔍 Discover the newest books and the brightest people

  • Search for books (or friends!)

  • Reading Challenge and other pop-ups to encourage interaction

  • Popular this week

  • Discover more: New releases this month, Most-loved by friends, etc..

Diary:

📖 A rating & review tracker extraordinaire (public or private)

  • View your own or your friends’

  • Chronological ordered log

  • See ratings, write reviews

💡 Important: the option to rate with half stars! (For the indecisive at heart, like yours truly…)

Profile:

🗣 Your own online reading persona (like Instagram, but cooler)

  • Customize your information!

  • Have favorites on proud display

  • View updates of all Curio interactions

❣️ Do you see any of your own favorites on these pages?

Watch the basic prototype walk-through:

🔖 The Next Chapter:

Going forward, I want to expand the UI/UX interface to include more features and really evaluate the user flow to ensure the most streamlined experience possible.

I’d love to conduct further in-depth research to reach the fringe users who I might not have considered in this design. I’d like to revise my designs to be user-friendly to all age-groups and make it more welcoming toward non-readers too (to grow our global reading community!).

As for Curio’s next chapter, I'd like to actually implement my prototypes and get feedback from potential users, as well as analyze the ability to translate my designs from Figma into code. Of course, I’d also like to spend more time improving my prototyping skills——so I can add more books to my ever-expanding (virtual) bookshelves!

This case study might be coming to an end but the story of Curio isn’t finished yet! I’m glad that this project gave me the opportunity to incorporate my love for reading into passionately designing something that would fill a gaping hole in my own life.

FINAL THOUGHTS

On to the next page… ✨

💌 & finally, while you’re here — if you saw any of your own favorites on the shelves of this prototype, let’s be friends on Goodreads?