Canopy Reading
For my Master’s major project, I researched how readers interact with books.
The preliminary research phase did not have a specific end-goal in mind, rather it was solely exploratory to understand readers’ behaviors, particularly among different groups of readers and reading groups.
This was an individual project and followed the Double Diamond process developed by the British Design Council that consists of a research and development phase.
The Research Phase of this project began in 2017 February and the Development Phase began in June, ending in early September.
Hunt Statement
How has the recent movement to electronic books affected the way people buy, sell and share books?
Amazon released the Kindle in 2007, roughly a decade ago. During this period, e-books grew to represent 20% of the total books purchased and new methods of distribution have simplified, expanded and accelerated the book buying process allowing for less popular genres to sell to a wider audience.
In the move to this new medium, I wanted to understand how the behaviors of readers have adapted and what pain points, or barriers, have arisen in this transition.
Research Phase
Research Group
One of the key focus areas for the project was to study social interactions around books. The only requirements for participation in the study were involvement with a type of book club and enjoyment of reading.
The specific requirement for participants that enjoy reading is important, since many companies and products vie for our attention and interest, spanning TV, books, news, games and hobbies. Our idle time represents a target market for many products and organizations.
Many people don’t read as much as they’d like to, but I still value their input and to understand the reasons they choose to read despite this competition for their time.
Research Process
Research was segmented into two activities: an interview and a Book Tour of their homes.
The Book Tour was an activity intended to be an ice-breaker for the interviews, and a way for the interviewee to talk about the books they like to read. For this activity, I asked participants to spend a few minutes taking photos of places they store books in their homes, which could be bookshelves, coffee tables, bedside tables and closets.
The book tour gave insights into the participants’ views of books in their lives. For example, they could be stored as memorials to see their accomplishments, decorations, ways to start conversations or they could have chosen not to store them. Participants would finally be asked to name some of their favorite books along with where they choose to keep them.
The interview needed to be a social open conversation to help participants and their habits feel welcomed rather than judged. The questions would be open ended to understand the reasons participants joined a book club, their interests in books, reading habits and any positive emotions or frustrations they face.
Data Analysis
The data suggested two primary reading personas: binge readers and daily readers
Binge Readers
Binge readers tend to do most of their reading in a large time slot allocated solely to reading. The most common time for reading books is during holidays, although they many read at night or during weekends.
Daily Readers
The second persona is daily readers. The proliferation of e-readers has greatly benefited this group since they tend to read in small time chunks during the day, when they are waiting in line, eating lunch, or picking up their kids from school.
Miscellaneous
Other findings suggested book clubs had largely been formed for social interactions and consisted of friend groups. These clubs offered a way for them to meet together as a group more often than they would otherwise. Surprisingly, two of the groups had members that would attend meetings without reading the books.
A recurring theme that emerged from the research was the challenge of members to find new books or authors. Netflix and other entertainment delivery services also encounter this issue. Participants feel that computer-generated recommendations are often inaccurate and many readers prefer recommendations from friends who share similar or unique tastes from them, contributing to their interest in joining a book club.
Two of the participants in the study were leaders of their respective book clubs and managed the scheduling and book selections. I was not convinced scheduling was an area worth investigating. One leader had concerns in managing her club, partially due to the club being tied to a local public library with recently limited services. The other leaders had found effective ways to manage their club and demonstrated limited interest in additional aid that would have benefitted them.
Design Direction
At the end of the research and data analysis phase, the academic advisor on the project had changed. At this point we were encouraged to brainstorm various additional features to include in our final designs.
Out of the two major types of readers, binge and daily, I opted to focus on creating a solution for binge readers. Recent proliferation of e-readers and mobile apps enables readers quick and simple access to books through increased portability, which is the primary pain-point for binge readers.
Binge readers typically don’t change their reading habits, and tend to be reluctant in incorporating technological solutions, preferring instead simplicity and austerity for their reading environments.
At this point I was encouraged to brainstorm how Augmented Reality (AR) could be used in this context and developed a Hunt Statement for the development phase.
Hunt Statement
To connect readers and enhance the reading experience of physical books.
Books vary enormously by genre and author, which proves difficult to enhance books in a universal manner. Focusing on a specific genre can be helpful in understanding what issues or confusion may arise in the reading process which allows the possibility of focusing on unique areas that can be improved to create a novel and personal experience for each book.
Prototype Development
The prototype focused on interacting with the whodunit mystery novel Murder on the Orient Express. Whodunit novels are beneficial for testing because they allow interactions with the text in a large variety of ways. They tend to have large casts that readers will sift through to identify the murderer. These stories tend to take place in unique places that may be unfamiliar to readers. Additionally, this experience could be tied together with friends reading the book. A social dimension could enable friends to piece together the culprit by sharing notes.
It was important to have a level of fidelity where participants could buy into the vision of what an augmented book may look like. Lo-fi testing was a place of exploration to create a backbone for the device. However, a greater level of detail brings increased clarity to the end user, and demonstrates the possibility of the end goal.
A benefit of the potential implications of AR solutions on reading is simplifying the users’ journeys while reading. If the app could understand the context of what a user is looking at, the app could serve the user for relevant context at the time of discovery.
The prototype’s initial features spanned character profiles, information on key pieces of evidence and messaging with friends. These items could be interacted through a phone’s camera. The app could highlight text seen on the camera, such as where a friend made an observation or bring forward character profiles.
Usability was the primary concern in the first stage of design since users would be reading and handling a smartphone simultaneously.
Focusing primarily on the usability prototype was fundamental to understanding the user’s point of view and how they might juggle the different devices. The final concept is abstract and without the physical component, a few of the participants did not fully understand the potential benefits. The prototype gave physical credence to the idea and helped the participants buy into that idea to give earnest feedback on their opinions and suggestions for improvement.
Usability Research
There were 5 participants in total spanning a wide age dispersion; a teenager, two people in their 30s and two in their late 50s.
The usability prototype could not access the phone’s camera. To compensate for this, the prototype used still photos with interactive text highlighted.
The participants read two passages that spanned 8 pages. Notes were taken on how they held the book and phone in conjunction with one another. At the end of the passages they were asked how it affected their normal reading habits, the different functions of the app, what changes they would make, and what they would keep the same.
Usability Analysis
The concept was largely altered after the initial usability testing. Participants tended to enjoy the character profiles and the integration of the application with a physical book although there were drawbacks.
Handling a physical book and phone simultaneously was awkward for participants. One focus in the beginning state was to provide images and detailed descriptions of evidence. However, this was uninteresting to readers who would have preferred information on the locations in the book.
Surprisingly, many participants disliked integrating conversations into the reading experience. This section may have been too close to reading and caused participants some worry about potential spoilers. This functionality was altered so readers could send direct messages to one another and create a message group among friends.
Final Version
In the final version, the application received more visual fidelity in line with iOS 10. Branding icons were added for brand identity and color. However, this layout would not be a final design since it still has too much white space. I would like a more sophisticated app, and at this stage it’s aesthetics resembles a normal application rather taking full advantage of AR. I would like to further explore how an AR app could enhance the reading experience.
The application has two aspects: navigation and AR. The AR portion does navigation without handling the phone. By scanning text, the user can search words in a dictionary, make notes on passages to save with commentary, and find information about various locations.
The navigation portion functions similarly to a normal app, allowing the user to find information and messages without a physical book present.
Final Concept Critique
I was not fully content with the final designs of this application, partially due to the limitations of my graphic design experience.
This was an interesting project to work on, particularly related to testing the usability of the AR app. It was fascinating to see the different ways people view and read books. My biggest disappointment was the visual aesthetic although the participants tended to enjoy it since the colors had earthy tones that evoked positive emotions about books.
The scope of the project was on mystery novels so more research would need to be conducted to understand how interactions could aide the reader for history, literature or nonfiction texts. The final features of Canopy are largely consistent with current offerings in e-books so it is unlikely to lead to drastic changes. Conversely, I also hope Canopy had more unique offerings than what is currently found in e-books.