Unconvo

July 2022

As a product design intern at Unconvo, I designed a mobile app to compliment their original desktop-based social media platform for readers.

The user research I conducted led the company to pivot from a social media platform to a note-taking app for readers.

Unconvo then hired me to continue working on the first version of the note-taking app, which is now live on TestFlight.

This case study focuses on the original mobile app, the end result was a high-fidelity prototype.

Team

Ivan Jacobson - UX Researcher, UX Designer, and UI Designer (Intern, Unconvo)

Amy Lima - Design Advisor (Product Designer, Unconvo)

Liz Wells - Design Advisor (Design Advisor, Unconvo)

Research Results

I interviewed five frequent readers who have participated in online book communities including a direct competitor, GoodReads. I identified two broader challenges users faced and found out about three problems they had. The two broader challenges are, first, that users can’t find their reading community because the products they use aren’t conducive to back-and-forth conversations, and secondly, that reading is a fragmented space: recommendations, purchases, discussions, note-taking, and reading are done on a multitude of platforms and through in-person interactions.

In each interview, users came back to three problems they faced when discussing books:

  1. Users have been unable to start bookclubs. They have attempted to start bookclubs with their friends, but haven’t been able to because participants either can’t make the necessary time commitment or feel too pressured by the reading deadlines of a bookclub.

  1. Users have felt self-conscious when they discuss books. They feel too self-conscious to post their thoughts on books to social media because they don’t want to seem pretentious..

  1. Book recommendations users have received from existing products aren’t helpful. Recommendations users have received from Goodreads and Storygraph aren’t relevant to their interests. Users want to receive recommendations from other people, preferably people who know their taste, because they’ve found those recommendations to be more accurate. They also had difficulty sharing books with their friends on Goodreads.

User Narratives

To better understand users, empathize with their problems, and ideate on possible solutions, I wrote two user narratives. One explains the situation as-is and the other explains what the user’s experience would be if my proposed solution is implemented. The new user narrative was a living document that was updated as my design progressed.

Existing User Narrative

Sarah is at home, reading “My Year Abroad” by Chang-Rae Lee. The passage she just read is striking, but she thinks her friends won’t be interested in it. She wants to write down something she just read so she opens up her reading notes in Notion and writes down the quote. Sarah’s friend Jake texts her about the bookclub they just started with their friends - unfortunately he won’t be able to make Saturday’s bookclub meeting. Theresa also texts the bookclub group chat - she’s been slammed at work and hasn’t been able to read the chapters they planned on discussing. For the second time, Sarah decides to reschedule the meeting for the following Saturday. Disenheartened, she opens up GoodReads to see that it recommended her “A Visit from the Goon Squad” by Jennifer Egan. She read the book last year, but didn’t add it to her Read shelf on GoodReads.

New User Narrative

Sarah is at home, reading “My Year Abroad” by Chang-Rae Lee. The passage she just read is striking, but she thinks her friends won’t be interested in it. She wants to write down something she just read so she opens up the Unconvo app and taps the new post button. She writes down the quote, tags the book, and adds the page number. She doesn’t really want to share it, so she chooses to post the quote to her notebook. When she finishes the post she heads back to the feed, where she sees that Unconvo posted that they launched a new Journey: Obama’s Favorite Books of 2021. Sarah taps through and looks at the Journey, reading the description and looking at the books in it. She is excited to see that “Matrix” by Lauren Groff is on the list. Sarah navigates to the chat page for the Journey and goes to introduce herself in the introduction chat. She sees that Jasmine Barry is also excited that “Matrix” is included and comments on her post. When she’s done in the chat, she goes home to check if she missed anything from her friends. She sees that her friend Jake posted that he finished his book and is looking for a recommendation for his next book. Sarah thinks that Jake would like “My Year Abroad” so she navigates to the book’s page and shares it with him, writing a message to accompany it.

Reflecting on these problems through user narratives, user flows, and wireframes led to the following three solutions:

Journeys

Research indicated that there was user interest in book clubs but that friction around reading deadlines and scheduled meetings prevented readers from participating. I wanted to figure out a way to have a flexible book club. This line of thinking lead me to the Journeys feature.   

Journeys are book playlists with a community. Curated by authors, critics, or influencers, Journeys serve as a catalyst to create community. They are thematic lists of three to five books that provide a framework for reading and for forming community within Unconvo. Journeys offer an alternative to the structure of a bookclub by allowing users to read at their own pace while still being able to engage with the community as much (or as little) as they want. Users can dip their toes into chapter-by-chapter chats or message everybody in the Journey in the general chat.

Notebook

I wanted to provide a place for users to write things down privately because users feel self-conscious when discussing books. The notebook is a private place to for users to record their thoughts. The notebook is one of the audiences users can choose from when composing a new post. Users can then access their notebook from their profile.

When users post they will be able to choose the audience they send the post to. Audiences range from all of Unconvo to the users’ notebook, where they can privately record their thoughts. Users can then access their notebook by tapping on the note icon in their profile.

Other audiences include the users’ close friends, recent direct messages, and any joined nook, journey or chapter chats. Audiences are selected on a bottom sheet modal that opens at the end of the posting flow.

Recommendation

This is a simple feature which allows users to share a book’s Unconvo page with one another and add an optional message.

The most important thing I learned while working on this project is that all of the UX deliverables I had learned to create in a fixed order can in fact be made in any order and can also be worked on at the same time. I alternated between developing the proposed solutions, user flow, user narrative, and wireframes at the same time and treated them as living documents. When I made changes to one of them, I updated the other documents to line up, a process that often led to new developments.

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