The User Experience of the Book

It’s hard to imagine that someone who loves books and reading as much as I do would want to leave BN.com. And true, on paper, it seemed like my dream job: getting to create experiences for an online bookseller should be the perfect combination for a librarian in interactive. And for a while, it was. I did some amazing things that made me feel like I was moving the needle in the world of reading – launching Rare & Collectible was an extraordinary experience, among others.

I am not foolish enough or naïve enough to think that in today’s market, a company can have a profitable future in selling just books. Nor am I a traditionalist when it comes to reading. But what I do believe in is a strong, clear mission statement and business strategy. “Selling things” is not a business strategy. “Copying Amazon” is not a business strategy.

Interestingly enough, this morning, MSNBC was talking about Fortune’s naming of Howard Schultz as Business Person of the Year. They pointed out that he stopped Starbucks from doing this very thing: trying to be too many things, grasping at any low-hanging fruit that might make money. He gave them focus, and that is what makes them successful. That said, I am fine with working for a company that sells books, and I am ok with working for a company that does other things. But I want to be somewhere that knows who it is and what its product is, whether or not it’s books.

So as of today, I’ve gone back to the interactive agency world – which is, honestly, a bit more my speed. I am still specializing in content, which though not specifically books, is a kissing cousin. Yet I am a librarian and reader at heart, and I still care passionately about the user experience of the book, whether or not it’s my primary source of employment.

The final project for my UX class this summer was to rearchitect/redesign any website or experience. I chose Amazon’s Books landing page, in part because the BN page is almost finished a redesign (and I’ve seen the comps), so I didn’t feel I could approach the project without bias/prejudice.

Though I obviously spend a lot of time on book sites in general, this gave me a chance to do an in-depth analysis, and to articulate my ideal of an ecommerce book experience. Here’s what it boiled down to:

1. I can’t understand why the major booksellers – Amazon, BN, etc. – insist on having separate landing pages for print books and ebooks. Yes, I get why there needs to be an educational page talking about the device and the experience of reading digitally, but having similar merchandising pages for similar merchandise is redundant and confusing for the user. Talk about the books that matter, then offer purchasing options for whatever format is available.

2. There needs to be more compelling conversation. When I buy a rice cooker, all I need is a few reviews and a price – it’s not an emotional investment. But people want to feel connected to books, to others that read, and to the authors. Splash pages with lots of covers and bestselling lists just aren’t enough for this type of product.

3. Editorial POV matters. In user testing, avid readers often talk about how they trust the staff at bookstores more than flashy marketing pages – they feel that store staff make recommendations more honestly, and that it’s difficult to know if online recs are due to deals with publishers or excess inventory. They want to feel like they are getting real reader’s advisory from people who know books.

I know that eventually, digital and print will live more harmoniously, and that right now it’s just a matter of time and adoption rates. But creating an experience that encompasses the above will expedite that adoption – showing readers that books are books no matter what the format.

Five years ago, I had two very different lives stretched out before me. One was a career as a rare books librarian: my days would have been filled with greatness, but it also would have been a life of poverty, frequent irrelevance, and a struggle to stay employable in an increasingly digital world. The other option was a corporate life of digitization, innovation, and the future of the book – not “the book” as an object, but “the book” as a concept.

I’d like to say that I chose digital because I knew where the future was headed, and certainly, that’s why I developed that skill set while I was at the BPL. But honestly, I wasn’t so prophetic back then. I was young and poor, and I simply applied for every librarian job in New York, London, Boston, and San Francisco. I almost took a job at Google Books, but they refused to pay for my relocation expenses. I almost took a job at some creepy independent bookstore, until I realized they wanted me to stalk people for their matchmaking service. I ended up in NYC, in digital, because People magazine needed someone that knew both metadata and the names of Britney Spears’ kids.

As the years have floated by, I’ve created a career that intertwines the book experience and the interactive experience: sometimes I focus on them separately, sometimes together. It’s a niche, but one that I love. Yet it doesn’t take a professional strategist to see that the book industry is shrinking. It’s not shrinking because books are going online – I consider reading an ebook just as valid as reading a print book. No, the book industry is shrinking because people are too distracted playing Angry Birds and watching videos of double rainbows. More time on digital snacking, less time on reading. Places like Barnes & Noble are adapting by selling Harry Potter wands and, of course, Angry Birds.

Despite being an early adopter and in love with digital innovation, I am depressed that people aren’t reading very much anymore, and depressed that B&N is going to start selling faucets. I don’t know what this all means yet (either for the industry or my career) and there isn’t the usual unicorn-y epiphany at the end of this blog. I just want someone, anyone, to own the reading experience – and that’s why now, all these years later, I still choose this life.

Back when I was a rare books librarian at the Boston Public Library, my favorite part of each week was the two hour shift I had at the main entrance’s Information Desk. Everyone in the entire library with an MLS took a shift; this was both brilliant and fun because 1) it allowed everyone who worked there to stay in touch with the public pulse; and 2) sometimes people asked for directions, but sometimes they asked for reference, so having a real librarian there was handy.

While caged behind the Info Desk, you were a sitting duck for anyone – and by anyone, I mean crazy people mad at the government, homeless people looking to sign up for Hotmail, and lonely people looking for love from young librarians. This desk wasn’t really where I helped people find serious research; this desk was where I gave people directions to the bathroom or The Da Vinci Code.

When I left in 2006, there were no ereaders. In fact, libraries were just getting into digital audiobooks, and the BPL even had a contract with a company that was incompatible with iPods (I was not on the committee that made that decision!). Patrons would come up to us at the desk, MP3 player in hand, bewildered and overwhelmed. We tried to liken sideloading to file folders, and were met with glazed stares. They pressed buttons on the MP3 players randomly and frantically before going back to CDs.

Fast forward to today, where libraries are in the same situation with ereaders. I can imagine my former coworkers still at the desk, trying to explain to those same patrons how to download Adobe and then sideload books onto their Nook.  Most library patrons do not have the same adoption level as regular consumers – seriously, I spent an infinite amount of time walking people through how to set up email accounts.

That is why, despite the fact that B&N got to the library community first, I doubt they will be the winner, now that  Amazon is in the game.  Based on my experience at that reference desk, I think that Whispersync is going to be the not-so-secret weapon that wins over the late adopters. There is simply no way that the average library user is going to have the wherewithal to learn how to get a library book onto an ereader when it involves installing software and dragging and dropping.

Maybe I’ll do an undercover shift and test this theory for myself…

When I asked my best friend, Carrie, for keys to her apartment, it was with partial love and altruism, and with partial greed and booklust.

Carrie lives just a few blocks from me, so of course it makes sense for us to be able to look out for each other. But she is also a book-lover, a librarian, and a long-time New Yorker. She’s spent years going to author readings around the city, amassing an extraordinary collection of signed first editions – everything from Jonathan Franzen to Jonathan Safran Foer to Amy Bloom. So when she handed over her keys, I looked her right in the eye and said, “Your grave won’t even be cold and I will be in here whisking away your collection of signed books and covering up that space like they never existed.”

Instead of drooling in envy, I can certainly focus more on building my own collection, and I plan on going to more readings when I’m finished school. But two years from now, will I even be using print books anymore? Will I even want to buy them just for the signature?

Seriously though, I don’t want some foolish autograph book like kids get at Disney World for signatures from the characters. And I certainly don’t want to ask Murakami to sign the back of my Nook.

Perhaps a picture with an autograph is the answer? Yesterday, The New York Times profiled the iPhone app Autography,  which bascially allows you to take a picture of yourself with the author; the author then signs the photo with a stylus, and a minute later the photo is inserted into your ebook. You can, of course, also post it to FB and whatnot.

Now, bringing this back to Carrie and our mutual agreement to trade books over each other’s deathbed, I doubt either one of us would be as excited for an ereader full of pictures of the other with famous authors, no matter how much we like each other.

In the end, this new format makes the experience less about the book, and more about the reader. I am with Murakami – I do not have a signed copy of his book.

But I sure will have a shizzly FB profile.