If you're familiar with Goodreads, you might feel as I do: that while Goodreads used to be a fun way to track books, find a community, and cultivate a wonderful reading list, it's now become an overly cluttered, overwhelming experience.

But don't take my word for it.

I was curious if anyone else felt the same way, so I conducted a round of interviews, including surveying a large pool of existing readers who used to use the site regularly, as well as a more personal talk-through round for authors. To my surprise, complaints were the same across the board, including:

-Ads littering the entire site, making it confusing

-No ability for half-star rankings despite asking for years

-Outdated interface

-Way too much clutter

-No ability to customize what you want to see

The current site...

Below, I worked up a user persona that I felt showcased the most common frustrations...

Worse, though is the fact that users are dropping left and right, which affects authors directly. See, authors rely on sites like Goodreads to help spread awareness about their books, but if users no longer care to use it, they aren't seeing recommendations any longer.

With this in mind, I decided to take a stab at a redesign. Mind you, I didn't want to reinvent the wheel, because the goal is to have users return to the website and recognize basic functions.

A sneak peak...

Now, this is a work in progress, but here's a sneak peak of what I'm playing with. I'd love to hear your thoughts!

The biggest thing I wanted to address was the ads. Now, we can't get rid of them. It's a business fact.

But - what if we relied on a smarter system? What if we allowed the user to tell us exactly what types of books they wanted to see, and therefore give the publishers who purchase the ads a much higher rate of success? That way, we could have less ads, but higher performance and revenue.

Update: Mobile preview!

Thank you for reading!

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