As we have been saying for quite a while on this blog now, it is vital that every user can understand and use this product instantaneously.
90% of the value for the user is in the interface, and by interface we mean ‘the way you accomplish tasks with a product – what you do and how it responds’ (cf. Jeff Raskin, The Humane Interface).
Today we will present in detail our app, developed in IBS di Padova’s IBS bookstore, Padova’s IBS bookstore, for TwoReads bookshops. As has been mentioned already in a previous post, we have worked for the most part on simplifying the app and making it quick and easy to use, so as not to have an awkward infopoint, but a tool which is perfectly integrated in the environment and experience of the bookshop.
We have received positive results from our tests, which we have made with seven tablets, placed around a floor of the bookstore:
The development of our app in Padova’s IBS bookstore is as stimulating a process as it is demanding. One of the principal issues which we are trying to solve is how to favour independent book browsing in the bookshop.
First of all, it is worthwhile to draw a comparison between bookshop and library. Different requirements and ends translate into to very distinct approaches. A library classifies its books in “rigid” categories, therefore giving them a “fixed” location. Compared to bookshops, libraries tipically have a larger amount and a wider variety of books, which have been accumulated over the course of decades and centuries. Most of all, libraries stock these books for a longer period of time and therefore that these be “returned” is hugely important to them. However, on the short term, libraries obtain a smaller number of books and can afford to spare more time for each item (naturally, we imagine that the available space and resources are comparable). Lastly, libraries do not feel any pressure to display a book in the most “appealing” position for their customers.
Over the past several days we have been in Padova’s IBS bookshop (63 Via Alinate) developing our new app. It’s proving to be a beautiful experience for us as we’re finally working with accurate book data. Most of all we are having close interaction with our designated users, in every phase of the development.
In this post we will present our app, which is aimed at customers who have already entered the bookshop, beginning from a discussion about what pushed us to create it in the first place. Here is therefore a first, basic and obvious consideration: if I have entered a bookshop I have already made a big decision and at that moment I’m more interested in books than in shoes. The first incentive to read must be that of an environment which is favourable for research, discovery and purchase of books (a similar argument may be made, regarding non-commercial activity, for libraries and there are many any worthy projects in the area which follow this very direction).
Dear blog readers and friends of our startup project, the silence of these last few months is due to a radical reorganisation of TwoReads.
On the 28th of August we had a meeting with Roberto Lombardi, our business angel. He made us come to terms with the fact that although the relationship with editors is productive, it is too slow. Furthermore, the market for essay writing, on which we were concentrated, is too small, at least in Italy at this stage. We have therefore decided to spin right round and have restarted from readers themselves and from reading as we enter the bookshop. TwoReads is designed to help readers find their desired book with ease, even without much information, at the same time suggesting other interesting books, in support – and certainly not instead of – the bookseller.