Libby App

Rapid Mobile Redesign

“Having fun isn’t hard when you’ve got a library card!”

— Arthur Read (the Aardvark)

Libby is a mobile app where you can borrow ebooks & audiobooks from the catalog of your public library. But…things feel frustratingly difficult to search for books. I find myself mistakenly clicking tabs and icons and being led to a page I didn’t expect it to take me to.

In this redesign, I wanted to reimagine the experience to reflect one reminiscent of the real-life experience—searching for books, being recommended ones I may like, and checking out books with gentle reminders of my upcoming due date.

The Challenge

The app feels confusing and unexpecting

The app was full of tabs and icons that were ambiguous and not universally understood. Prioritization was very vague and difficult to understand what was of importance throughout the experience. Many things I expected to be together were scattered throughout the app.

High-Level Goals

Reduce the number of choices a user has to make
Personalize the experience
Consolidate content so users know what to expect

My Role

I wanted to tackle everyday problems that I have with apps I have a love-hate relationship with. Using prior design experience and knowledge, I came up with these solutions 50% on assumptions and 50% based on my personal frustrations as a frequent user.

Personal insights from the current app

Search Page

Library Page

Menu Page

Shelf Page

Timeline Page

• Personalized experience with book suggestions

• Filters and search within the same page to encourage exploring/discovering

• Relevant hierarchy within pages and sections

Insights from competitors

Addressing the goals

To understand the previous design choices of the current app, I created a sitemap to outline the high-level view of the app broken into pages. I then reorganized and grouped relevant information together to reduce the number of actions needed from users while emphasizing the main ideas of each page as outlined in the reimagined sitemap.

Ideate

The Evolution of The Home Page

Key takeaways between iterations:

• Station search bar at the top of the catalog page to create an experience users are used to seeing

• Having a personalized experience by having a welcome heading and name

• Group genres together to easily sort and filter through

Applying Visuals

• Integrated brand colors that users were familiar with

• Maintained a neutral tone to emulate the pages of a book with splashes of colors to tie in the brand colors

• Typography chosen was reminiscent of text used for physical bookcovers

Outcomes

After thrashing several ideas and iterations, a solution that became apparent with research is that less was more. I really wanted to emphasize the MVPs of the product and support them with content that was organized and ordered with relevant information.

Libby App Redesigned Prototype

Highlights:

• Consolidated contents to focus on the 3 main functions: searching for books, checking out, and returning

• Reduced the amount of actions and tasks needed from the user

• Implemented a consistent design system to emphasize hierarchies

If I had more time…

A majority of time continuing this project would consist of AB testing to get the product in front of real users to measure if the experience has improved and they are able to efficiently and effectively search for books with the least amount of friction.