Readly
Product Design
Mobile
Design Challenge
Overview
Given a design challenge, I had one week to design a product with five hi-fi screens that would give users random story recommendations.
Design Challenge
The Department of Literature is building an app to encourage people to read more for fun. This app will randomly push micro-novels according to users’ chosen mood, types of interests and estimated reading time.
User Research
Defining the Problem Space
Since this was a design challenge, I had to make some assumptions on the problem space:
- All stories on the platform will be free to read.
- I will be solely focusing on the reader side, not the publisher side.
- I will be creating mobile app mockups and users will have an account that saves their preferences and past information.
Who is the user?
In order to help guide my design process and narrow down my user base, I created a target persona Lonie, who would be using the app to find short stories on the go.
Branding
Moodboard
I wanted the platform to be vibrant and fun in order to associate reading with something lighthearted and easy. These were some reference images I used when deciding colors and design style.
Typography
I chose to go with one font for the whole platform. DM Sans has a variety of font weights that works well for headings and text. Versatile, clean, and fun.
Color & Graphics
Originally, I wanted to create 3D mascots to go with each of the emotions but after considering the time constraint and scalability, I decided to go with flat graphics to accompany each of the stories and moods.
Final Designs
Conclusion
Takeaways
- The time and context of the project greatly affected the scope and visual direction of the project.
- I decided to stick with flat, geometric graphics and only prototyped the essential screens - although there were many micro interactions that I wanted to flesh out but didn’t have the time to.
- Even the simplest concepts are not easy to execute. Designing for intuition always requires iteration and planning!
