Bookish - Android App
Introduction
Problem
Bookish is a personal design project - an audiobook app that was focused on creating a paid subscription experience. The hypothetical company’s business problem was - "We have a free audiobook app that's been successful among the users, how can we start monetizing it?"
Solution
The solution was to create a new paid subscription model for the app, where users would need to encounter these calls to action to subscribe within the app, and during the initial onboarding process. The CTA would need to be prominent while also providing clear value to a user to upgrade to a paid plan without being forceful.
My Role
This was a solo project - I executed all research, design, prototyping, and usability testing. I was responsible for gathering research to create the details of this paid plan and find creative ways to add CTA’s throughout the user flow and with the design.
Project Length
1 month (September - October 2020)
Research
Discover
Since this project was highly focused on the business side, I started my research by analyzing competitors. This research helped to understand how other businesses have approached similar challenges - promoting paid subscriptions throughout their products.
The competitive analysis revealed which flows of promoting premium subscription users would already recognize and swiftly navigate.
Here are some of the key findings from competitive research:
Pros
The subscription service is brought up on onboarding, it encourages the user to try the service with a free trial for 1 week.
The signup flow has a strong CTA button, explains how the trial works, and lists premium features.
For a free user, the book summaries are displayed as locked content, to indicate which content isn’t available (paywalls, restrictions).
The app promotes their subscription on the home page, throughout the book lists with prominent CTA buttons.
Cons
It doesn’t display their free plan option when signing up, which they have.
When starting a free trial, it shows the monthly price, but the default billing is an annual amount if not changed (lack of transparency, deceitful)
Only 1 week for the free trial.
Pros
Promotes its premium membership by offering a free trial for 1 month.
It reassures that the premium trial can be canceled anytime.
Unsubscribed users get visual cues that to access the books, a subscription is required.
Cons
The user isn’t given an option to decline the free trial offer and sign up anyway in a transparent fashion, which may result in abandoning the app.
Pros
Users can freely browse the selection of books before committing to the service.
Clear information about subscription - easy cancellation, a reminder when the free trial ends, what’s included in a subscription.
Visual cues which books are exclusive.
Cons
Different subscription plans aren’t listed in one place, which causes confusion.
In addition to competitive analysis, I decided to conduct user interviews with 3 participants to learn more about how they were perceiving paid memberships and what made them convert.
Talking to potential users, helped me to keep a balance between business goals and the user when deciding which solutions would work best.
“I don’t like it when I don’t get the all-important information right away and need to search for it. I feel like the company is hiding something and I cannot trust them.”
— A.V, Male, 27
“Free trial allows me to try the product and then decide if I need one.”
— M.G, Female, 25
Key Research Findings
Subscription-based products attract new customers by offering a free trial. The free trial is one of the main factors for the person deciding to try a new product.
Brands keep attracting free users by promoting their premium service throughout the product by highlighting the benefits of the subscription, comparing the prices, and emphasizing the value.
Companies encourage the free user to sign up for premium membership by implementing certain restrictions while utilizing the content. This is the second reason why people commit to subscription - to avoid ads, have access to more/unlimited content, freedom.
The lack of information on how subscription works, its benefits, payment limitations, all drive the potential customer away from subscribing.
Design
Define & Ideate
Based on the subscription patterns I observed on other similar apps and insights from user interviews, I determined that promoting the premium subscription when signing up and then throughout the app, with an option to decline the offer, would be a great first idea to prototype and test out.
I designed the user flows to map out the best way to do so, keeping balance between user and business goals.
Validate
Prototype & Test
The first round of low fidelity prototyping and testing revealed that users weren’t aware of the free version of the app, and assumed it’s only available with a paid subscription. It also suggested some upgrades to the product itself, which I iterated when designing high fidelity screens for the second round of tests.
After adjusting my initial screens, I conducted a second round of usability testing to uncover any additional issues preventing users from subscribing, selecting an audio book, and listening.
The second round of testing confirmed that the previous issues regarding subscribing, signing up flows were resolved, but some product-specific issues were identified:
Users brought up the lack of information under each audio book.
Lack of control over chapters when listening to an audio book.
Lack of flexibility in filtering and sorting out books.
“It was very easy to use, I can click through and figure out what I want in a very short period of time.”
— A.T, Female
“I really like the layout of the app, it’s well balanced and straightforward to use.”
— R.W, Female, 25
I decided to go one step further and design a tablet version of the app that allowed me to practice designing principles for different screen sizes and orientations.
Outcomes and Lessons
The usability testing verified that subscribing, signing up flows were successful and provided a seamless experience.
With this project, I got the chance to work on unique challenges: how to create the opportunity for new users to subscribe to the premium product, and how to create the opportunity for returning free users to become paid subscribers.
By searching for ways to solve those problems, I learned the value of balancing user and business goals. It was difficult to balance the need to encourage users toward conversion without being too pushy and deceitful.