Kindle
Designing For Solitude and Connection
Adding social reading to Kindle without disturbing the quiet that makes it worth opening in the first place.
UX Design Sprint | 3 Week Group Project (Akosua, Sarah & Jade)
Research • UX Strategy • Ideation • Prototyping • Testing
The Brief
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Creating early concept sketches
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Designing high fidelity reading and goals screens
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Leading iterations based on usability testing insights
Kindle is looking to evolve beyond a solo reading tool. The objective was to explore how avid readers read, track progress, share reflections, and connect with like-minded individuals, and to use those findings to guide how Kindle might support shared reading and meaningful discussion without losing what makes the experience so valued.
Timeline: 3 Weeks
Role: UX Designer (group project)
I co-led project coordination and contributed across research, ideation, and design phases.
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My specific contributions included:
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Conducting user interviews
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Synthesising research through
participant mapping -
Leading ideation through story
boards and mind mapping
Methods: User Interviews
Persona Development
Prototyping
Usability Testing
Project Overview
Kindle has long been a sanctuary for solitary reading. It provides a calm, immersive space where readers can step away from the noise of daily life. But reading culture has been shifting towards becoming more social recently. Communities on BookTok, WhatsApp groups, and digital book clubs allow readers to share reactions, discuss passages, and discover new titles together.
The problem is that these conversations rarely happen where the reading actually occurs. Instead, readers move between multiple platforms. They are discovering books on social media, tracking progress on StoryGraph or Goodreads, and discussing them in entirely separate spaces.
Our research revealed a nuanced tension;. Reading is deeply personal and immersive, often serving as a moment of emotional restoration in otherwise busy lives. Yet readers also crave small-scale, contextual social interaction- a way to quietly share meaningful moments and stay motivated to keep reading.
This fragmentation raised the central question for the project: How might Kindle support social reading while preserving the calm, immersive experience readers value most?
The Research
We conducted user interviews alongside competitive and comparative analysis, and heuristic evaluations of Kindle and competitor platforms. The goal was to understand how readers currently engage with books, track progress, and participate in social discussion.
Three clear insights emerged:
Reading as Restoration
Participants consistently described reading as a way to regulate stress and reclaim small moments of calm — making the immersive experience something worth protecting, not disrupting.
Fragmented Journeys
The reading experience was split across multiple tools. Discovery happened on social media. Tracking happened elsewhere. Discussion happened somewhere else entirely. No single platform held it all together.
The Social Paradox
Readers wanted connection, just not at the cost of their immersive reading experience. They craved small-scale, contextual interaction with people they trusted, not public performance
We found that readers weren't asking for, or in need of, another social platform. Many actively resisted the idea of reading becoming overly social. What they wanted was control over when they shared, who they shared with, and how visible their activity was. The real barrier wasn't a lack of social features. It was that no tool gave readers the option to be social on their own terms.
The User We Designed For
Emily — The Restorative Reader
"I want a deeply immersive and private reading experience that protects my mental escape, with the option to quietly share something meaningful with a trusted person if I choose."
Emily is an avid reader who treats reading as a personal sanctuary. It is a moment of calm in an otherwise demanding life. She occasionally shares meaningful passages with people she trusts, but has little interest in large public communities or performance-driven platforms.
Goals:
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Protect the immersive quality of her reading experience
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Connect with trusted readers in a low-pressure way
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Stay motivated to keep reading
Barriers:
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Reading feels like a private, restorative activity, not something to perform publicly. It feels exposing mixing the two
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Social features on other platforms feel performative or distracting
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The reading journey is split across too many tools
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Reframing The Problem
Initially, the brief pointed toward building out social and community features. During ideation, the temptation was to design Kindle as a social platform; to add more features, more feeds, more community tools. But our research pointed us somewhere slightly different. But our research suggested that more features weren't the answer. It was actually that our users wanted more control.
The breakthrough came when we reframed the challenge entirely:
How might we introduce social features that enhance connection without interrupting immersive reading?
Readers didn't want Kindle to become a social platform. They wanted the option to dip in and out of connection without ever feeling like their reading space had been taken over. This reframing shifted the design direction from "social reading platform" to "optional, reader-controlled social layer" leading to us augmenting the existing experience rather than replacing it.
The Kindle Solution
Three Reading 'Modes'
Full Immersion, Private Group, and Social Discovery. Allowing readers to move fluidly between deep focus and social engagement without one interrupting the other.
Permanent Navigation
A clear, persistent bottom navigation bar replacing the hidden gesture that confused early testers. This made mode switching feel obvious and effortless rather than accidental.
Private Group Reading
A small, trusted circle where readers can share highlights, discuss passages, and see each other's progress. Conversations are anchored directly to the text, keeping discussion contextual and meaningful.
Goal & Progress Tracking
A dedicated goals page to support reading motivation and help users stay connected to their own progress, not just each other's.
Testing Insights
We conducted usability testing across two prototype stages with six participants per round, asking each to complete three tasks:
enter the reading space, switch to book club, and return to reading.
The Impact of Testing:
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Navigation: 5 of 6 participants struggled to find the hidden navigation gesture. We introduced a permanent bottom nav bar, increased touch targets, and replaced ambiguous labels with clearer language.
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Discussion Space: The original felt too small and too focused on competitive elements. We expanded the conversation area, removed gamification badges, and prioritised dialogue.
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Readability: 4 of 6 participants found the interface cramped. We increased spacing, improved font sizing, and simplified the visual hierarchy.
Key Validation:
Participants consistently described Reading Mode as calm and immersive — while still appreciating the ability to access social features when they wanted them. This confirmed the central hypothesis: social connection enhances reading as long as it stays optional and unobtrusive.
Reflection
This project reinforced something I keep coming back to in product design. Successful products rarely evolve by replacing what users love just for the sake of progress. They evolve by respectfully building around it. Sometimes it is the small shifts and changes that are the most impactful.
Kindle already provides enormous value as a deeply immersive reading experience. Our job wasn't to redesign that foundation. It was to expand it thoughtfully.
The Result was a design that respects both the users needs and the businesses growth objectives. By designing for reader control rather than maximum social engagement, the Kindle concept delivers:
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Retained immersion: The reading experience remains undisrupted, protecting the quality users already rely on.
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Meaningful connection: Small-group features support the kind of quiet, contextual sharing readers actually want.
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Ecosystem expansion: A unified platform reduces the need to move between apps — keeping readers inside Kindle for more of their reading journey.