What features am I playing with for our upcoming book tracking app? (beyond the basics)
Building a smarter book tracking app that is deeply personalized.
Every 3 weeks, I share my notes on building Shepherd.com.
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I am feeling…
I’ve had a really good Summer & Fall, and I am excited about our shift to building an app for readers. I’ve gotten really great feedback, and it is exciting to see it starting to come to life 😀. I can’t wait to get the MVP out to its first batch of testers!
What features am I playing with for our upcoming app?
We are in the process of building the core features, but what else are we playing with?
Goodreads imports + a quick welcome process
We want to make it easy to import books from Goodreads (or another source).
We are playing with the UX now, and then will start testing the UX on readers before we build it.
Logging reading progress & specific editions
Some readers want to log their reading progress as they work their way through the book (it is an optional feature for those who want it).
I am working to nail down the UX and test it on readers (especially for audiobooks).
We are also working on how to allow readers to select the specific edition of the book (it will also be optional for that group of readers). We are just starting the first UX elements.
Making your TBR list “smart”
We are playing with how to use your reading history to help you find books within your TBR. We are playing with ideas based around your favorite authors, genres, and other factors.
We are playing with the UX and trying to figure out how this might work so that we can test the concept further with readers.
I am still trying to figure out this one, but I hope to be to a spot soon where I can test the concept on readers and see what they like and don’t like.
Custom user folders to organize your books how you want
We want to give readers an easy tool to organize their books however they want.
We are still tweaking the UX after testing it on readers.
Seamless tracking of the book series you are reading
I read a lot of book series, and I want to easily track them so I know when the next book in the series is out.
We are playing with UX on how we might do this based on your reading log, and allow readers to indicate which book series they want to track versus those they have abandoned (or finished and waiting for a new release).
I haven’t tested this on readers yet as I am not quite happy with the UX yet.
What is going on outside of Shepherd?
My dad was in town for a month, and we had a great time visiting! Our 7-day bike tour in Italy was fun, though we had some very “exciting” weather :).
What am I reading now?
I just finished…
Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams - This is a FANTASTIC book about the negligence and abuse that Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, and Sheryl Sandberg have inflicted on society. Sarah was in the room with them at key moments, and I am so glad she wrote this. It is hard to put down, and I finished it in two days (my wife is almost done as well). I quit FB after the 2016 election, and I think they will go down in history as being worse than Big Tobacco on our health. Thanks to Claire for the recommendation!
I am reading...
Oscar Wars - This is my brother’s pick for our family book club, and so far, it is incredibly boring as it covers the history of the Motion Picture Academy. Hopefully, it gets more exciting soon as I want movie gossip 😀.
Have a great week,
Ben
P.S. From my bike ride in Puglia, Italy, with my dad!
