Kindle UX Project

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Problem Statement : Kindle, arguably is the most popular and fully-featured ecosystem for e-books available. Apple’s iBooks (or Apple Books) is close but Apple does not manufacture reading exclusive devices like the Kindle e-readers. Books on the Kindle platform are truly multi platform, with apps available for every major OS that there is, in addition to the Kindle Devices but the UX unfortunately is inconsistent to say the least.

The Objective of this project is to build a consistent UX for the Kindle Platform, that which is built from the ground-up to offer the same reading experience across the eReaders, mobile apps and the Web.

Role
UI / UX

What’s it like now - Despite being Multi-platform, the pick up and play aspect of the UI is lost in translation as the UI differs among the different devices. Most notably, the e-reader UI is visibly of low fidelity.

My Approach - Instead of scaling down a mobile app to fit the limitations of an e-ink display, I decided to do the opposite; building a UI / UX from the ground-up for the eReaders which can scale up to fit the mobile and web standards all while ensuring a consistent user experience across all platforms.

Navigation Paradigms : COB (Contextual Omni Bar) is a floating bar which containing the home, back and other contextual controls; for example a Font Picker shows up on the COB when reading a book. I built a COB instead of scattering the controls along the corners. People hold books, magazines, and even eReaders along the bottom edge. This means that adding controls along the top corners isn’t the best practice in terms of user experience.