Value proposition
A platform that offers combined purchase of Printed books, Ebooks & Audiobooks at a very competitive price and enables a seamless reading/listening and note-taking experience across all three formats.
Final prototype
Challenge
300M$ lost due to Ebooks piracy (US only). (Nielsen 2017)
Penguin Random House has had enough of playing the cat and mouse game with Ebook piracy platforms such as Z-library (now recently closed down). Now they want to double down in the creation of a new service/digital product that provides an incremental value in the experience of book content consumption. How might we increase the book content consumption experience in a way that people are willing to pay for it?
Discover
Desk research & Competitors benchmark
On one hand, on a macro level, I wanted to understand and compare what’s the role of the Book industry in the entertainment industry. Hence, I analysed major platforms on the streaming and music industries as Netflix, Disney +, Prime Video, HBO, Apple Music and Spotify. My findings were:
1. The book industry has higher prices as users usually pay per content & format. Also keeping in mind that printed is the favourite format of them all and the one leading in sales. 44,6% of US citizens bought a printed copy vs 23,4% an Ebook. (statista 2021
2. The cognitive load of reading is higher, hence adding another entry barrier. Although the audiobook format can be of some help here.
3. Books are less convenient than others in the entertainment industry (Netflix, Spotify…), you don’t have them always with you, or if you do you have to face many kinds of tradeoffs: Remembering to carry a printed book everywhere, or missing on the printed reading experience because you only have it on a digital format, or not being able to highlight a part of the book if you like it on an audiobook.
On the other hand, I wanted to understand the book content consumption experiences that competitors were offering nowadays to the users.The main finding was:
No one offers a combined reading/listening and note-taking experience of all the 3 formats (Book, Ebook & Audiobook). Hence, here we already see an opportunity.
Define
User personas
3 Main insights from the Research
- Users hardly imagine a combined reading experience due to the price barrier (buying all formats from a new book might add up to 50$-70$)
- People believe that they are buying a story, not a format.
- People would like formats to adapt to their way of life, rather than having to adapt their way of life to the formats.
Problem statements
- HMW create a price structure that it’s competitive with other content services?
- HMW seamlessly switch between formats Printed, E-book & audiobook?
- HMW make highlights & notes on the audiobook? HMW combine notes across formats?
Key features
To understand and prioritize the features that I needed to develop, I did a user story mapping and used an impact effort matrix to categorize which features will be developed. Also taking into account some bread and butter features as book store, search, and place to read and listen, and leaving out the payment process as it does not add value to making this case. The three main features are:
- New – combined purchase 29,97€ vs now 50€-70€
- Button to switch between digital formats
- Button to make a highlight + ad note saved on both formats
Develop
Information architecture and main Flows
To begin this phase, I analysed the architectures of Audible, iBooks and Script. Then All the flows of the app were developed. Nonetheless, find below the ones focusing on providing a combined purchase experience and a seamless reading experience across all three book formats, Printed, Ebook, and Audiobook.
Sketching wireframes
I used this technique combined with crazy 8’s to explore diverse concepts and lay out a solution to each of the main problems stated above. Thanks to this, I was able to identify complete no goes and select some solutions to explore further. Some of the ones that made it into the Figma were:
Brand identity
The brand identity was developed with 3 main concepts in mind.
- Boldness: As it’s something revolutionary. I chose a sanserif bold typeface and combined it with a serif one to maintain the reading heritage.
- Calmness: Books help us have a break from the world, hence this beige colour, the sunset, and sea gradients
- Seamless: The visual language has to represent that the reader will be able to flow between formats seamlessly. Thus, an open-end logo takes advantage of the closure principle.
Deliver
Test – Focusing on user testing
Since the Value proposition was already validated. In this case, I focused on doing a moderated User Experience tests. To do so, I asked 8 users if they would be able to complete the following 6 tasks, asking them to please think aloud anything that went through their minds.
1. Complete a sing in and letting me know what they understood from the onboarding? I asked this to validate if the value proposal was understood with the content design applied.
2. From the store, please complete a combined purchase of a book.
3. From search, please complete a combined purchase of a book.
4. From the library, please continue reading in the e-book format and switch to the audiobook.
5. Create a note in the audiobook, save it and find it in the e-book.
6. From the audiobook information that indicates where you are in the printed book.
Overall the 8 user test proved to be successful and validated the user experience and I received especial mentions on content design for its playfulness specially in the onboarding.
Ooops & learnings to add in the product backlog
Knowing how much I would save in a combined purchase would make me more prone to doing such a purchase (Victor 28 years old). This is a great user feedback, that combined with industry standards will of course make our PDP better in the future.
Final prototype