Audible

Product: Mobile Apps + Kindle Tablet
Role: Product + UX Design (Contract)
Year: 2014

Description: The Audible apps are the number one platform for purchasing and reading audio books. Audio books are a multi billion dollar annual industry. Discovery of new content is vital for increasing sales and as a contractor at the Amazon owned Audible I was tasked with helping to design this new feature and to address any UX issues that could result.

Challenges

  • Ideate and explore design options for content discovery
  • Address the ripple effect a new feature would have on the existing experience
  • Interpret user research and data to better align the introduction of the experience
  • Connect the discovery experience across channels



Because Amazon.com is famous for its recommendation algorithms, an obvious approach was to utilize them within the More Books discovery section of the Audible app.


User Experience

The addition of a new feature introduced the need to expand all the core UX and UI elements. Extremely detailed wireframe documentation was needed to address every aspect of the More Books feature. Here are just a few of the dozens of wireframes that were required for the phone and tablet interfaces on iOS.

After selecting titles either through the suggestion flow or by conducting a search, the convoluted checkout funnel had to permeate throughout the user experience. This included introducing the sample and download features and a contextual 'how to' overlay.

A UX flow to report inappropriate content was required in case the the suggestion algorithm failed and recommended content the user found objectionable.

Kindle Integration

This was part of the challenge to connect the More Books feature across Amazon channels. The purpose was the incorporation of seamless synching between a Kindle e-book and the Audible audio book of the same title. I was responsible for exploring and designing upsell advertising solutions within the Kindle Reader mobile apps and on the Kindle tablets to promote this feature.

Final Upsell Solution

Team & Process

Audible followed an effective bottom up methodology where design and product teams drove projects that bubbled up through management for sign-off.

Learnings

Audible is a company that moves at a very deliberate pace when introducing major new features to an app with tens of millions of active users. I learned that leveraging their comprehensive data on user behavior in and out of the app meant less friction for my design suggestions ultimately leading to a smoother process.