left bank books: designing for the analytical user
project overview
Context: Left Bank Books, a small, independent Seattle bookstore.
Objective: Helping the “careful critic” buy books.
Role: Sole UX Researcher/Designer
Duration: 2 weeks
Tools: UX Tweak, Figma, Miro, Adobe InDesign
careful critic
This project explored how the “careful critic” would shop online at Left Bank Books, a collectively owned bookstore in Seattle’s, Pike Place Market.
First, I selected shoppers who met the criteria for the “careful critic” archetype for interviews.
Based on the interviews, I created a persona called “Renata”, an urban planner who likes to shop in-person at local, independent bookstores. Renata’s priority is supporting local, independent bookstores. Rather than shopping on Amazon, she emails her favorite small bookstore to place an order.
This June, Renata is disappointed that the annual Los Angeles Pride parade has been cancelled. She decides to pay tribute to Pride month by shopping for books about gay history.
renata likes details
The persona gave me a better picture of this shopper’s main needs. Renata is interested in finding books related to specific kinds of history - which means that classification is important. Working on information architecture is the best strategy for this persona.
To guide my redesign, I created two retrospective journey maps that follow my user’s path through a physical bookstore and reveal key design opportunities.
The first journey map shows that Renata is dissatisfied by the “Geography and History” subcategory. As a 30-year-old urban planner living in Los Angeles, she values cultural diversity. Filing a book about a Honduran activist under “Mexico”, for example, seems sloppy to Renata.
The second journey map illustrates that even the “careful critic” is more likely to make spontaneous choices when she sees themed display tables.
A “Pride month” table will attract readers like Renata.
improved categorization
Information Architecture on Left Bank Books needed an update. I recruited card-sort participants from diverse geographical locations to help reclassify the books in “Geography and History”.
Due to smaller cohort size (7), I analyzed card sort results qualitatively by looking at the most popular categories and combining some of the participants’ responses.
an overlay for subcategories
My wireframes show how I would reorganise that section of the bookstore’s site based on card sort results. The redesign invites the user to explore subcategories of books through two different clickable overlays. After choosing an option from the second overlay, containing book sub-categories, the user lands on a page with book images and synopses. Upon selecting and adding a book to the bag, the user can go to bag and checkout with Paypal.
Lastly, on the home page there is a seasonal “LGBT Pride table” with its own overlay, designed to mimic monthly themed-tables in a physical bookstore and geared specifically towards meeting Renata’s needs.
video of the prototype
limitations and next steps
User research showed that information architecture was the main area of growth for targeting the “careful critic”. This project was limited in scope and timeframe. If it were to continue, I would conduct additional card sorts to reorganize the subcategories “Health and Science”, “Literature”, and “Philosophy and Political Theory” to better appeal to a culturally diverse clientele.
Renata likes details. One idea would be to add product information, like an option to download a sample of an e-publication, similar to Amazon’s “Look inside” feature.