How will we bring readers' to-be-read piles to life?

Mockups, mockups, my old friend...

Every 3 weeks, I share my notes on building Shepherd.com.

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I am feeling…

It has been a wild couple of months at Shepherd!

I am working like a madman to reorient everything as we build an app to bring readers to-be-read piles to life (plus light book tracking). It is fun but a bit chaotic, given the speed of this shift due to Google’s murder of the open web.

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How is UX coming along?

Reminder: We are working on a full app for readers that will bring their TBR pile to life, record what they read, and use that to help them find books they love (not just like). Plus, we want to make it fun to celebrate the books we love and reward those authors on Shepherd.

The UX is still very raw as we poke and prod it. In 2 to 3 weeks, I hope to start testing some of the mockups on readers...

We are using a pretty heavy filter design. I am worried this might be overwhelming; reader interviews should help me understand that.

We want to make it easy to save a filter. Then, you can quickly jump to a part of your TBR list, such as “all my sci-fi TBR books” or “all my nonfiction TBR books about biology.”

For wide book cards in your TBR pile, we are finally honing in on something more doable. This approach is feeling a bit calmer than the others we tried. We are grouping actions in the top right, and the sections make it easy to scan a book to see what it is about and what others think of it.

(we are launching the beta purely on the web in desktop form, and once we get things nailed down, we will proceed to a mobile app)

The reading log is meant to show what you are reading now and in the past.

And then, we are playing with ways to visualize your reading timeline…

And we are paying with some wide views here as we play…

And because I love stats, I am playing with some ideas like:

That is it for now…

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I relaunched our For Authors section 🤩

I moved it from ForAuthors.Shepherd.com to Building.Shepherd.com, as it now focuses on explaining what we are building for authors and readers (and eventually publishers). The new design and platform make my life much easier (Squarespace is a bit limiting, but it treated us well through our early years).

Check out the new roadmap page!

What is left to work on?

• A lot of spell-checking and word tweaking.

• I need to redo (and add) a lot more videos.

• I need to redo the menu to improve navigation.

• I will also add a lot more pages with in-depth explanations.

If you notice any bugs, please email me.

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What is going on outside of Shepherd?

My wife is out of town helping our family, so between Shepherd and going from zone to man-on-man with my son, things are intense.

What am I reading now?

I just finished…

• The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy—I listened to the audiobook while driving my son to a castle this weekend. He loved it and laughed nonstop! I liked it, but it didn’t hit me the same way. It would have been amazing if I had read this in my teens.

I am reading...

• Night Soldiers by Alan Furst - This is our dad/son/son book club pick, and I love it so far (but I am only 10% in). It is set in 1934 and is about a young man whose brother is killed by fascists in Bulgaria. He is pulled into the NKVD, and I am looking forward to where it goes next…

• Curious: The Desire to Know and Why Your Future Depends On It

  by Ian Leslie - I am researching curiosity as it is one of the big foundations of Shepherd in the coming years.

Have a great weekend,
Ben

P.S. From a father/son weekend trip to explore castles and go hiking. Cathar country in France!