Book Overview and Reader’s Status

Starting point

Since reading books is a common interest for people, I thought that there are features we could implement easily that can contribute to the way people observe the book, whether as a reader or as someone sitting opposite to the reader. “What if?” is a question I ask myself as a starting point. “What if the book could answer my questions?” “What if people can know where my mind is when I’m interacting with my book? Which universe? What characters? Fictional? Real?”. Questions keep adding and a new idea keeps popping.

User journey

Shopping for books can be fun yet frustrating at the same time. As an individual who regularly visits book stores during my travels. I always took my time inspecting the books before switching to one another which keeps me hanging in my spot for too long thinking which book should I go for. For that reason, I usually use two methods to examine the books, first is an online research as a tool to help me access users’ reviews and comments, know what genre it is and check the price comparison. The other method would be using the book itself to check the content inside it to experience the feeling of reading the book in terms of quotes, paper texture, story style, numbers of pages, etc.

(Quick and dirty) Prototype 1

I came up with the idea of highlighting only the parts I personally look for when checking a new book by redesigning the book cover as a general overview for consumers. I created a book cover prototype and gave each content its space on it according to what I mostly looked at (the contents that I focus on more, the bigger they are).

I thought of the content that I normally would look for while shopping for a book. The prototype cover for a book I created was from my imagination. I added the content I mentioned before which I usually search for. That includes:

• Book summary.
• Quotes from the book.
• Price tags (biggest as it plays a big role in people’s decision in buying the book).
• Age range and reading level.

First prototype of a back and front book cover using cardboard.

Books can be personal and can be used to advertise ourselves while reading it. For example, there are books that we proudly hold up high while reading and advertise our interest and taste in a way for people. I extended my view about not only the consumer’s aspect but their surroundings too. Therefore, I enlarged and extended the title of the book in my prototype to test it out.

First prototype: Extending the title from a side to another.

Expert Evaluation

The prototyped book looked like it was going somewhere but not satisfying enough to be done with the idea. I felt there were much more missing things in terms of information, visual and communication. As the idea of extending the title from the back to the front cover was not very appealing and convincing, especially when the book is closed, the title would only be read half-way through.

(Mock-up) Prototype 2

As a second prototype, I thought on what features I could use in the book. This time I took the idea much further, more towards something futuristic, a tool in the book that could be useful for readers. Enlarging the text of where your eyes are directed at on the text book. However, I crossed this idea out afterwards as I came to terms that when designing such feature, it will get me involved in creating another tool which is totally separated from the book. So I wanted to keep my concept classic yet achievable!

Second prototype: Enlarging text that the eyes are directed at. Using Adobe After Effects.

(Hi-Fi) prototype 3

The idea of enlarging the book title (back to prototype 1) would work quite well, however, I had to think twice about it when I was in the place of a viewer. As I was in the metro station, I saw a lady holding her book horizontally as she was rushing through the crowd. Since I was already working on this project, it got me curious to know what kind of book was she reading, but it was almost impossible to see the back cover of the book from the way she was holding it horizontally and all I could see was the side of the book and its pages. And that’s when I got the idea of adding a layer to the book that can display some content to the viewers while the reader is holding the book horizontally. For my third prototype, as a replacement for the enlarged title, I decided to add a folded paper layer on the front side of the book that displays the title of the book and the author as an advertisement.

(Real) User test

At this stage, I wanted to test the book whether to see if it’s ready to be used as a final outcome or if it needs to be altered again.

First test was to get someone to hold the book and read it in the metro while I observe the opposing people reacting to it. The reaction from people wasn’t very surprising but I did notice the gaze at the book was longer than it should take as it’s something uncommon to see such feature on a book.

Second test was using my colleagues to check my idea as I hold the book horizontally facing them. They did find it interesting and they could read what book I was reading along with its author, but still I felt it wasn’t enough for the this gadget.

Final Prototype

As I was approaching towards the end. For the final prototype, I decided to implement fun for the book users.

Information on the back cover part:

People are curious by nature and love simplicity. Going through the whole book overview information can be boring and we are more interested in visual than in only text (probably that’s why book cover designs are mainly focused on aesthetics rather than informative. In order to combine these two, info graphic was what I thought I could apply on the book. I tried to provide almost all information that consumers look for when analyzing a book in terms of:

• Summary
• Quotes
• Genre
• Feeling
• Page number
• Dimension and weight
• Ratings by websites
• Content inside the book (as icons)
• Info about the author
• Price range

and few other more things…

Final prototype look containing all information that consumers usually search for.

Book fold part:

As implementing fun for the viewer’s aspect, I changed the folded paper layer from displaying the title of the book and its author to the reader’s status. For example, if a reader was reading a book about Sherlock Holmes, the status would be something such as “I’m busy solving a murder” or “Don’t interrupt a detective on duty”. This would add humor to the viewers and makes them curious to know what the person is reading and what is going on in his/her mind.

Below is a short film I created to show the concept for the final outcome of my idea. Hope you enjoy it!

MA Communication Design, Module User Centered Design, Prof. Dr. Jan-Henning Raff