A reimagining of the world's largest reading app — warmer, smarter, and built for the readers who actually use it.
Book app
Redesign UI
Role
Product Designer
Timeline
8 weeks
team
Me
platform
Mobile
The Problem
Goodreads is the world's largest platform for readers — but its app tells a different story. The interface is cluttered, navigation is unclear, and important features like book clubs and reading challenges are buried where most users will never find them. The social layer exists but is invisible in practice. The experience doesn't reflect the warmth that reading actually brings to people's lives.
The goal of this redesign was simple: make the app worth using.
Visual Language
The most deliberate decision in this project wasn't a feature — it was a feeling. Reading is sensory: warm paper, a quiet afternoon, the weight of a book in your hands. That feeling is completely absent from the current Goodreads app. My goal was to bring it forward digitally.
Every visual choice — the cream and terracotta palette, Lora serif headings, paper cut illustrations on challenge cards, book spines in the Library — was made to answer one question: does this feel like it belongs in a reader's life?
Engagement Mechanics
A reading app lives or dies by one question: does it make you want to come back tomorrow? Goodreads doesn't have a strong answer. I built four interlocking mechanics to change that.
A daily streak (inspired by Duolingo) creates a simple motivation loop. Challenge cards are designed like collectible bookmarks — paper cut illustrations worth finishing the set for. The For You swipe turns book discovery into an active choice instead of a passive scroll. Stats and badges turn your reading history into something to feel proud of and build on.
Information Architecture
The most structural problem with Goodreads is its navigation. Features are buried, unrelated things share the same space, and there's no clear mental model for where anything lives.
My redesign gives every feature a distinct home across five tabs: Home for your daily reading life, Library for your personal space, Discover for finding what to read next, Community for the social layer that was always there but never visible — including Book Clubs, finally named something that makes sense — and Profile as your reading identity, not just a settings page.
Research & Constraints
The research for this project was intentionally personal. I started with my own frustrations as a Goodreads user, mapping the exact moments where the app lost me. I then validated those frustrations through informal interviews with casual readers — and the same themes came up every time: discovery felt random, social features were invisible, and the app didn't make reading feel like something to look forward to.
This was a solo passion project with no formal user testing or engineering constraints. That's a real limitation — and the most important next step would be putting the prototype in front of actual users to see what holds up.
What I'd Do Next
With more time, I'd prioritize user testing with casual readers to validate whether the navigation and engagement mechanics land as intended. I'd expand the prototype so every interaction has a destination — and design the flows I didn't get to: onboarding, the full book club experience, other users' profiles.
I'd also design the micro-interactions that make an app feel alive — the streak confirming with a tap, the For You card swiping off screen, badges animating when unlocked. And a warm, paper-inspired dark mode feels like a natural extension of everything this redesign is trying to be.
