About the Project
Athenaeum is an application that allows users to lend and borrow used (Second hand) books. It aims to create a community of readers who can use this platform as a decentralized library.
Duration
This project took me 2-3 weeks to complete in September 2021.
My Role
This is a self-initiated project, so I did everything from research, ideation to final implementation .
Scope
The scope is limited to identifying & addressing the basic needs of a lender and a borrower.
The Process
I followed google's sprint methodology to mimic a high intensity environment and focus on generating a lot of ideas and then iterate on it
SME Interview
Conducted a semi-structured interview with Dr Shrikant Kamatkar, an avid reader and the Secretary and Trustee of the Hirachand Nemchand Library, Solapur.
Relevant Findings
The system works on trust
Information like the users name, address and a government ID are used to verify the authenticity of the user. This is done to prevent misuse of the library and its resources.
The library needs to keep its catalogue updated
Avid readers like to explore various genres of books. They visit the library to search new books and also request them if the library doesn't have them.
It is hard to onboard new members
There has been a gradual decrease in the number of people who sign up for their service. The younger generation likes to read books on an electronic device like a kindle or a tablet.
No common communication channel
Even though the library records the borrower details like name and date of borrowing, they don't have any system in place to keep track of all the deadlines or send reminders to the borrowers.
Libraries aren't open 24x7
The library is open only for 3 hours in the morning and the evening. The rest of the time is needed to sort and maintain the books, keep the facility clean and dusted and also have inventory checks.
Readers need recommendations
Almost all libraries have a section on display which has all the recommended books and magazines. These are updated every week after analyzing the reading habits of their members.
Secondary Research
There are many people online who have listed down things they love and hate about the process of lending and borrowing books. Got multiple insights from discussions on online forums. I then grouped the similar ones, and then Affinity mapped them into the following categories.
How Might We
This is where I tried to generate ideas based on simple 'How might we' questions. This initiated the process of asking the right questions.
I decided to prioritize the How Might We's which helped me segregate the ones needed for making the Minimum Viable Product.
Decided to focus on the HMW's which were of High Value and Low Effort. This helped me limit the scope of the project.
Map
Then I created a map of an ideal user journey and mapped the how might we questions to decide the area of focus.
As you can see, almost all of the HMW's are in the 'Use' part of the map. This told me that I need to focus on the lending and borrowing experience on the app more than any other part of the process.
01
Trust
We need to incorporate a system that helps users trust the platform and the community
02
Delight
Providing delight to keep users on the platform
03
Connect Users
The process of choosing borrowers for lenders and vice versa needs to be figured out
04
Promote Lending
To develop a good database of books, we need to encourage people to lend their books
Competitive Analysis
This helped me set a benchmark for what the products in the market offer at this point in time.
Goals & Challenges
The main goal here was to understand the problem statement by defining the long term goals and the possible challenges we might face.
Long Term Goals
Have an active community of people who can borrow and lend books easily.
Grow the community so that it can work as a decentralised library system.
Scale the system and onboard people from all over the world.
Challenges
Convince people to choose our platform over physical libraries.
Generate and maintain trust within the community.
Retaining users and keeping the community active.
IDENTIFIED NEEDS
Requirements
After narrowing down the needs, I tried to come up with requirements that would help me implement the right features in the application.
Lightning Demos
I listed all the features I liked from the apps I have used. It gave me some ideas of features that I can use for my app.
I used these lightning demos to help me ideate better in the next phase. It helped me discard, remix and improve ideas while sketching concepts.
Crazy Eights
Based on the features listed above, I sketched various screens depicting how we could implement those features.
Overview of the Interface
Recommendations page
Lender page
The statistics page
Solution Sketches
I listed down some ideas that I would like to implement for prototyping. It helped me visualize and explain in words what the concept would look like if implemented.
Decision Matrix
I arranged all my ideas on a Graph of Impact vs Effort and then decided to work on those that were High Impact.
Hi fidelity screens
Over 40 high fidelity wireframes were made and reiterated on. These were the final screens I decided to go with for Athenaeum.
Onboarding
Home Page
Search
My Books
Book Details & Cart
Things I could have done better
- Conducted more primary research like talking to users. This can help me better identify touchpoints in the user journey.
- Worked on the onboarding process. Having a concrete solution to generate and maintain trust in the community could be explored in the future.
- Develop better ways to display statics relevant to the users. Showing graphs of the user's borrowing or lending history and information about their reading habits could make the platform more appealing.
- Usability Study could have been done to identify usability issues and determine user satisfaction with the product prototype.
