Objective: Introduce a digital bookshelf to aid B&N customers with the book discovery process.

Team

I worked with my senior research partner and a software engineer to develop six prototypes for the bookshelf in six, frenetic weeks. I worked with my research partner to develop our research plan, intercept customers in-store, synthesize data, and produce weekly presentations. Additionally, we screened interviewees for usability testing, which we conducted in-person.

Process

Getting to know the bookshelf and Barnes & Noble’s users

Before installing the bookshelf, we wanted to get to know the shelf and gather some impressions of it from potential users.

We brought five avowed bookstore browsers into the office. From our interviewees, we learned about their discovery journey and how, if at all, it changed when browsing online versus in-store. We gave participants an opportunity to use the shelf, and they gave us their impressions and provided contexts in which they could see themselves using the shelf.

We learned that for many users, the old adage is true—you can judge a book by its cover. When those users go browse for books they’d never heard of before, the cover was often what got them to pick one up.

We also learned that, on initial glance, users did not recognize the shelf was interactive.

And finally, we were relieved to hear that no one would be upset to see the shelf in their local B&N.

Ideation

We needed to translate what we’d learned into ideas that we could prototype during our six week trial run. When ideating, we focused on two things:

• Concepts that impacted book discovery during the early and middle stages of the customer journey.

• Testing the shelf in different ways, i.e. when the screen was the main focus of the experience or when the books around the screen were the focal point of the experience.

We came up with as many ideas as we could and narrowed them down to the six ideas that had a happy mix of our requirements.

• Teasers: Short, pithy statements about each book, which autoplayed

• Trailers: Short, soundless videos that are triggered when a user picks up a book from

  the shelf

• Book Pages: Summaries and reviews for each book that appear on screen when a book is picked up (inspired by Amazon/B&N book pages).

• Suggestion Engine: A book recommendation based on what the user is in the mood for and their genre preferences (inspired by NYTimes Watching).

• Genre Matchmaker: Blank books were wrapped in paper and stamped with their genre. When a book is picked up, the screen suggested three books from that genre.


• Satisfaction Guarantee: In the case you try on the books on the shelf, and you don’t like it, another book of your choice will be sent to you, free of charge.

Our initial ideas

Design approach

With a good sense of what we wanted to test and some ideas of how to test them, we began the process of prototyping. The challenge was creating a prototype and testing it within one week. To stay on schedule, my partner and I would work in tandem to create paper prototypes for our engineer, intercept and interview customers at B&N, and synthesize data for our weekly presentations with stakeholders.

Intercepts

When interviewing customers, we wanted to make sure we understood their typical browsing habits at that B&N, impressions of the shelf, and how they would change the shelf or prototype. We approached customers who interacted with the shelf and even recruited a few customers who passed the shelf but chose not to use it. From our interviews, we learned a lot about what customers look for when they’re shopping and the difficulties they have finding new books.

Beyond the intercepts, the shelf collected more technical data on user interactions (e.g. number of book pickups and screen touches) that we used during synthesis.

Weekly synthesis and presentation

We created presentations to give stakeholders, internally and at B&N, a snapshot of that week’s iteration. Presentations described the results of that week’s test and its implications for next week’s iteration and for our overall conclusions. Also included was a synthesis of that week’s intercepts.

The goal of the synthesis was to give a snapshot of the shelf each week, showing what part of the customer journey we were exploring, what functions of the shelf we tested, and what customers were saying about it.

Findings

After six weeks, users showed us, through their words and their actions, what they thought of the shelf at B&N.

Due to NDA, direct quotes from users cannot be shared; however, generally, from our interviews, we learned:

Things to build on:

• Some users discovered books they’d never have found themselves thanks to the information provided by the screen (Suggestion Engine and Summaries). Specifically, users mentioned having reviews and similar titles.


• Ability to find similar titles in-store to books they liked was requested by more than one user


• The interactivity of the shelf brought a new, welcome element to the book-browsing experience. Users appreciated having another way to find books they might like. 


Things to improve:

• For many users, the shelf and the screen were hard to notice among the other shelves and books
.

• Some users found tying the books surrounding the screen (about 6 different titles could be displayed at one time on the shelf) limited the digital experience. They wanted the digital experience to be standalone.

• Many users complained that to find a specific book, they had to wait in long lines at the Customer Service desk.


We created a presentation to show to decision makers at B&N, as well as a report that could disseminated to stakeholders throughout their company and ours.

Based on our findings, we recommended B&N create some standalone digital products for their stores. Many users showed enthusiasm for using the screen to discover books at B&N and given the frustrations with finding specific books in the store, there is potential for a really useful digital product.

Conclusions and Reflections

Overall, we were able to deliver actionable insights to the business leaders at B&N within a tight timeline, so I’m very proud of the work we accomplished.

That being said, as with any project, along the way you think of ways you could have done something differently. For this project, I had a few of those moments.

For one, I wish we had time to conduct more observational research. Most of our designs were based on a mix of user behavior and user preferences. Ideally, our designs would be based almost wholly on observations and user behavior. But due to time constraints, field studies and observational research were out of scope.

With a larger budget, testing the shelf in other B&N stores would have helped mitigate the bias of gathering data in one of their more unique locations. We found that Union Square customers are mission-driven buyers, and the shelf resonated mostly with book browsers, users who came to the store to learn about new books and pass the time. A store with a larger percentage of book browsers could have provided some interesting data to compare to what we gathered at Union Square.