Case Study: Digital Bookshelf Admin Management
By: Tabvis Digital Communication
Tags: User Experience, Digital, Product Design, Elearning, Edtech

Digital Library App

I. Project Case Study

Problem Statement

Millions of students today access digital content via various delivery systems. Physical books are today transformed into digital books. Somehow all digital book readers give a similar kind of experience and do not offer an experience that is engaging for young learners. To manage and deliver books to students, it is challenging for an admin.

What we need then?

A solution is required to help publishers connect to more and more students using a digital book reader application. Allow them to manage their books and deliver to students

Our Idea & Understanding

As per the problem statement, a solution required to publishers to maintain and manage digital bookshelf with collection of books for students. This solution will ultimately manage end user application that is digital book reader. We feel this portal will be used by educational authorities who will act as publisher as well as admin and can add, publish, unpublish, update or remove the books from their library. We propose to understand interaction of the the primary user i.e. publishers with this portal and his/her responsibilities on the portal to provide end experience thats is a convenient digital book delivery and reading.

How I am going to solve this?

I will design & develop a digital solution for backend user by understanding the objective of publishers, researching on competitive solutions, defining primary persona through hypothetical scenarios, visualizing the publisher journey on the digital solution through flowcharts and mockups.

Questions From Our Client Team

Q1. When we say delivering books to students, so does it mean students will have to buy the books (kindle concept)? Or this will be used in organizations like schools, libraries, colleges by students on an issue-basis? Idea is to understand “Book Assignment”

Answer: Similar, you are free to think otherwise

Q2. As this is a backend application for managing the end-user platforms, so I feel this will be a web portal to be designed? Please clarify this.

Answer: Yes, for the backend it could be a web portal

Q3. As per the requirements like the reader, while they travel, or at home or at school or maybe other cases like readers with sight problems, etc., I feel Publisher can consider providing multiple formatting options to readers. Do we need to consider features from these multiple use cases or keep limited features for the generic use cases?

Answer: It should ubiquitous

Q4. Will Publisher only act as Admin or there will be another person assigned as admin?

Answer. Admin

Q5. I believe this is a CMS based platform. Does the publisher upload Books (if yes, in what format)?

Answer. Yes, show pdf as an example

II. User Research

Target Audience, Competitors & Demographics

Our Internal Questions

Q1. Who will be primary user of the portal?

Publisher (Personas: Librarian, Teachers, Authors, Publishing Companies)

Q2. Who will be the end user of this solution?

Student (Personas: 13+ Scholars, Undergraduates, Graduates, Post-Graduates, Trainee Researchers)

Then we took following references from like-minded Competitors:

Amazon’s KDP allows user to add a book from Kindle or a Paperback book and he/she can create a collection of books that Amazon Prime members who own a Kindle can choose one book from each month.

2. epublishing — CMS For Book Publishers. Best SaaS CMS for Publishers

3. bookfunnel — Bookshelf App — Bookfunnel is the perfect tool to deliver ebooks quickly and easily, whether you’re giving away a reader magnet or selling ebooks direct from your site.

Hypothesis

As our primary user is an education provider to end user i.e. students, the expected solution will be applied to educational institutions like schools, colleges, libraries, training or research centres and educational publishing houses who are acting as Publisher as well as Admin to add, organize and deliver digital books to students for virtual learning. The books are educational in nature and it is assumed the books will be assigned to students by the publishers on “request/issue per book” basis. The publisher will also take care of different aspects of students while they read these digital books like are they are at school, or at home, or at travel.

Conclusion

We are going to show a digital book delivery interaction between an educational publisher lets say a Middle-School Librarian in India and the students to understand better on how actual solution will look like.

Defining A Scenario using User Story

User Story

A XYZ School at New Delhi is shut down due to recent pandemic situations and classes are going virtually over digital platforms. The next session for the school is around the corner and the school is worried about delivering books to students. If they hire delivery agency for delivering the books, it will be expensive, diverse and time-consuming for them to reach out to 200 students per class level. So they asked Madhu, their school librarian to look into the matter and find a digital solution to deliver and assign books to students conveniently and in real time. Madhu comes to know about several e publishing websites and propose for an independent Digital Bookshelf Digital App for the school where she can be able to publish books virtually to students keeping the pain points of the organization in mind. The school get in touch with one of the web development agency to create such system for them. After few months of development of Digital Bookshelf App, the school trains and appoints Madhu as the Publisher Admin for the entire e publishing system.

Scenario & Persona

Madhu, a 36 years old librarian

Madhu is assigned as the admin email id and password for the Bookshelf Admin Management. During the trial demo, the school has already published few books in the system. Madhu is expected to get started with the portal and add first soft copy of the book from her system or cloud storage where she has maintained the collection of books. She then has to decide when to publish the new book and maintain the other books in the digital bookshelf.

Goal: To Assign and Deliver Digital Books To Students

Motivation: To provide the students a hassle free, consistent and real time book reading solution

Expectation: The books from digital shelf are utilized by the students without any technical barrier in a very convenient experience while they are at school, home or travel and they get all text formatting options

Technical Skills: Knowledge of Internet and Microsoft Office Tools like Word, Excel, PDF etc.

Defining Outcome — Proposed Features using Statements

Q1. What are the objectives of Publisher(or Admin) on the portal/app?

Manage Books Deliver Books Search Books

Manage Content Select A Book

Publish A Book

Assign A Book

Create A Book Preview Upload A Book

What are the features Portal/app will provide to end user application?

Books Sorting

Book Reader with Controls and Tools like Text Formatting etc. Browse

Books with Filter Option(s) like Author, Genre, etc Publish (Manual**)

Unpublish or Hide Book

Assign (Accept/Decline)

Add A New Book

Delete A Book

Q2. What are the outcomes of this portal/app in end user application?

Student can Search Books according to their convenience

Student can send Assign Request for the Book

Student can read books as per their abilities, surroundings or activities(eg. travel) Maintain or Organise their bookshelf or book library

What can be additional features for this portal?

Sync with Cloud Accounts like Google Drive, ICloud, etc. Assign Co-publishers

Edit Book(s) Content

Text to Speech reader

III. UX Design

Screen Flows

Screen-Flow 1: Login Screen

Admin will be assigned email address and password and needs to log in to access the web portal.

My Book IA

Log In Screen

Screen-Flow 2: Dashboard(Home) Screen

Admin will then come to the main dashboard screen where he is able to see quantitative information for the Bookshelf Management. As per the scenario, he will now straightaway like to “Add A Book”

Bookshelf Web Portal Dashboard

Screen-Flow 3: Add A New Book

Admin will then land to Add A Book screen where there are options to fill book details, upload book and set additional reading settings for the book reader. Then there are two options: either admin can save and publish now book or he can save and publish later. He can also cancel Adding the book.

Add A New Book

Screen-Flow 4: Add A new Book Successful

As the Add New Book is successful, Admin can choose to be on dashboard or go to My Books Library

Screen-Flow 5: My Books

Add A New Book Successful

Admin will then come to My Books where she can see the list of books in tabular format. She can search books using the provided “sort” and “filter” options. She can see all the information related to Bookshelf like Book Information (Name, Author, Cover, ISBN), Creation Date(Book Added date) Publish Status, Number of Times Book is Assigned and Manage options like Edit Book, Hide or Unhide Book, See List of Students To Whom Book is Assigned and Delete Book. She can navigate to all book in single view format with lets say 10 entries visible at once and then she can view other 10 in Next View. Here also a button is added to “Add A New Book”

Screen-Flow 5(a): Select An Unpublished Book To Publish

Admin saw a book is unpublished, so she selects a book #2 and two other options come above the list. Primary action is “Publish Book” (as we gave option to Publish Later in Add A New Book)

Select an Publish Book

These flow is compiled to Prototypes for better understanding.

Refer Prototype: Marvel App Prototype (External Link) | Follow us for more such insights