Project: Redesigning Goodreads
Role
UX Designer
Timeline
Jan - Mar 2025
7 weeks
Skills
Responsive Design
User Testing
CONTEXT
Goodreads is a social, categorizing website for book lovers. As a long-time user, I enjoyed its personalized recommendations and reading challenges, but noticed how outdated and unintuitive the mobile app felt, especially for engaging with reading communities.
Over the course of 2-3 months, I redesigned the Goodreads mobile app experience with a focus on improved discoverability, modern UI, and community connection.
PROBLEM & CONSTRAINTS
Readers are migrating to other book platforms
Competing book platforms offer more modern interfaces, as well as a variety of features. A redesign must provide enough value to retain current users while attracting back those who have migrated to alternatives.
Striking a balance between user-friendly design and sponsored content
Currently, Goodreads primarily generates revenue through affiliate partnerships (e.g. links to purchase books) and advertisements. A redesign must ensure that these monetization strategies remain effective without negatively impacting user experience (e.g. ads popping up everywhere), but since this is well done in both the website and mobile app, the redesign must maintain this balance.
To Keep
Monetization Strategies
Advertisement placement is not intrusive.
To Change
Outdated User Interface
Users want an engaging, intuitive experience.
PROTOTYPES
Low-Fidelity
High-Fidelity
ASSUMPTIONS
Assumptions about user behavior
Users primarily access Goodreads through the mobile app, so a mobile-friendly experience is crucial.
Users prefer a visually appealing and modern UI similar to other book-tracking apps, such as StoryGraph or Fable.
Users find navigation on Goodreads unintuitive, making it difficult to discover new books and better connect with the book community.
Users are frustrated with the review system and want a more interactive way to engage with reviews (e.g. reacting to reviews, adding gifs, etc.)
Design decisions based on assumptions
Improved Navigation & Mobile-First UI
Introduce a bottom navigation bar with essential tabs. Use aesthetic, user-friendly card layouts instead of dense lists to improve readability.
Community & Social Features
Add a modernized community feed where users can see updates from friends, join book discussions, and follow favorite reviewers. Introduce book clubs and discussion threads with easier ways to join and interact. Enable direct messaging for users to chat about books and recommend titles to each other.
Enhanced Book Tracking & Organization
Allow custom shelf names, filters, and tags to categorize books more efficiently.
Streamlined Review System & Engagement
Improve commenting and engagement by allowing readers to react to reviews (e.g., "Helpful," "Agree," "Disagree") and upvote insightful ones.
USER TESTING
Reached out to the book community & here's what they said
Behavior
Users struggled to locate key features like personalized recommendations or direct messaging.
Feedback
“I wasn’t sure where to find personalized recommendations and messaging somebody could be faster rather than going to notifications.”
Solution
Improved navigation by restructuring the menu and adding clearer icons.
Behavior
Users often abandoned the search feature if they didn’t find a book quickly.
Feedback
“Sometimes I only remember a book’s plot, not the title, so I wish I could filter it better.”
Solution
Enhanced search functionality with filters like “Plot Keywords” and “Author Similar To.”
Behavior
Users didn’t use the “Want to Read” List as expected. Some users were adding books to their “Want to Read” list but forgetting about them entirely.
Feedback
“I wish there were reminders or a way to organize books into different categories, like ‘Read Soon’ or ‘For Later.’”
Solution
Introduced customizable reading lists to improve book tracking!
Behavior
Many users didn’t interact with friends' updates or reviews, even though Goodreads promotes social reading.
Feedback
“The social feed isn’t very engaging.”
Solution
Redesigned the feed with clearer interactions (like reactions, comments, and highlights on trending books).
ITERATIONS
Improved navigation by restructuring menu and adding clearer icons
BEFORE: V1
Similar task bar to current Goodreads UI & search bar is in 2 different places
AFTER: V2
Search moved to Bookshelf tab and DM is easier to spot and use
Enhanced search functionality with filters
BEFORE: V1
Unsophisticated search engine similar to what Goodreads features
AFTER: V2
Specified search options that reduces cognitive load when searching specifically
Introduced customizable reading lists to improve book tracking
BEFORE: V1
Simplified with more options, but still doesn't capture the range
AFTER: V2
Readers can sort their (too long) TBR list with ease and more organization
Redesigned the feed with clearer interactions
BEFORE: V1
Social feed did not give users a chance to engage immediately with a friend
AFTER: V2
Removed hassle of clicking into review to engage with community
REFLECTION
Key Learnings
Tiniest changes make an impact
Small design changes, like clearer labels and reorganized menus, significantly impacted usability.
Personalized taste is a focus
Users value personalization and expect AI-driven recommendations beyond generic bestsellers.
Connection made! Now what?
Social engagement isn’t automatic — users need clearer ways to interact with friends.
Future Iterations
More bookshelf options
Allow custom list organization beyond "Want to Read," such as "Favorites" or "For Reference."
Scheduling and more tracking
Add calendar integration for users who want to set reading goals or reminders.
Narrow searches down
Introduce a review filtering system (e.g., only see reviews from people with similar tastes, keyword search in reviews).
As an avid reader for over 10+ years,
this was a passion project from the start, and as much as I use other book tracking platforms and have my own book blog, Goodreads is the first and main platform many readers — including myself — still use despite its outdated UI and backend inefficiency. From this project, I'm inspired to brainstorm my own book tracking platform, but until then Goodreads will remain my go-to book tracking platform that I use to track my challenges and find new books.