Bookari, improving the e-reading experience…
A few months ago Mantano Reader silently became Bookari and got a new fuschia pink logo that intrigued a few observers… This was the first tiny step in a far bigger project, which was a complete UI/UX revamp, that has led to the brand new “Bookari 4” release in December.
As usual for this kind of app transformation, the main goals were:
- To follow more closely the interaction and visual guidelines specific of each platform while keeping a strong brand identity
- To improve the consistency of micro-interactions, by providing unified ways to achieve similar actions throughout the app
But since Bookari is a reading platform, we also wanted to provide a sensual interactions to recreate a deep connection with the books. Hence, instead of systematically looking at “minimizing the number of clicks” to achieve each action, at some very specific points and when it makes sense, we have added some smooth interactions. As you sometimes play with the cover of your beloved print books, you can play with your app, with no specific purpose in mind.
For example, here is the “book details” screen that you can find while browsing a catalog:
Or simply the global navigation side-panel, whose transparency smoothly changes while it appears, and the main page content slightly goes to the background:
Enchantment and delight
Creating enchantment and delight was really the real goal. Based on the huge and amazing feedback we received, we probably did hit the target pretty close to the center! 10 times more ratings per day, and extremely positive reviews are a huge reward for the team and we appreciate that.
Of course all this is a start. While some consider that the “e-book trend is declining”, we know that digital can provide high value to the reader instead of multiplying issues and frustrations. Digital must be more reliable than paper, and provide more features!
Our mission is clear: we need to create better apps, and we struggle for it.
