Overview
Role
Duration
UX Research, UX/UI Design, Usability Testing
2 weeks
Audiobooks.com is a solid choice among the best audiobook platforms. While the web design looks up to date, the responsive mobile Application is problematic. The hidden navigation and search bar lead to difficult user flows, which direct users to confusion rather than correct destinations.
Storyboard
Sarah, like most people live in the New York City, who would spend 30 minutes on commute everyday, and wants to fully use the 30 minutes on something meaningful like reading. Instead of carrying a book which is too much of a burden, she's searching for an audiobook app that's easy to navigate using one hand while she's on the subway. After a bit of research, she downloaded the Audiobooks.com App because it offers 3 free books for her to start with.
Primary Research
While Audiobooks.com is a solid choice among the best audiobook platforms, it provides users with easy access to 300,000+ audiobooks and 100+ million podcast episodes through both their website and the app. Sarah only uses the App on a daily bases, but she found the navigation of the App extremely bothering for her to use on the subway.
I summarised and extracted the current Application Map as per below. The upper right bread tab is not one hand mobility friendly. The hidden navigation and search bar, as well as the vague names causes problematic user flow, which lead Sarah to confusion rather than correct destinations.
Sarah's user journey can be categorised into 4 stages: Awareness, Consideration, Onboarding and Loyalty. While various changes can be reconsidered for the current user journey, the most impactful and urgent one needs to be done is to provide a clearer navigation system, and then we can update more details along this major alteration.
Strategy
From competitive research, I found all the other direct competitors have a clear navigation system. Based on my survey (84 participants), 75% of the people said they downloaded the app because they want to read a book that they already know, so searching function is vital.
Also from the in person interviews (5 participants), I validated four of my assumptions. The first one, while the website advertised about the Podcast it offers, the app design made it hard to find. 5 out of 5 participants find this is a good feature to know about. All 5 of them also mentioned the incentive for them to download this app is to find the book they want to read. The average time for a user to find the target book on competitors' apps only took about 10 seconds, but Audiobooks.com App can take them up to 17 seconds for a first time user.
Design
Extracted from the current application map, I have added a new navigation system on top of the bread tab based on user interviews and researches. Some other related small changes were also redesigned on each main pages to adapt to the new system.
