Investigating why readers remain loyal to imperfect book-tracking platforms, and where design can make a meaningful difference.
CASE SUMMARY:
Why do readers keep using platforms they often criticize? Through research, design, and prototyping, this thesis explores the behavioral and structural forces behind Goodreads’ domination and reveals why better UX isn’t always enough.
WHEN:
February - July 2023
WHERE:
Technical University of Denmark (DTU) - Master’s thesis
MY ROLE:
UX Designer with one other
Digital book-tracking tools help readers keep track of what they’ve read, discover new books, and reflect on their reading. Goodreads is one of the most widely used dedicated book-tracking platforms in the world, but since being acquired by Amazon in 2013, it has seen slow and limited updates. User reviews frequently point to outdated design and stagnant functionality. At first glance, there are clear opportunities for improvement. And yet, most readers stay. Why?
Newer platforms offer better statistics, cleaner interfaces, and improved recommendations. But Goodreads is still the default. It’s free, familiar, and filled with years of reviews, ratings, and reading history. For many readers, including myself, it works well enough. Still, I groan every time I use it. The friction is palpable.
This tension became the starting point of our thesis. If so many readers continue to choose tools that feel outdated, cluttered, or restrictive, where does meaningful improvement actually matter?
What We Learned About Readers
Through surveys, interviews, and analysis of around 1,000 app reviews, we found that readers use book-tracking in very different ways. For some, it’s a personal record. For others, a challenge system or a social space.
We learned that book-tracking is more than functional. It’s also expressive and personal. Organizing, rating, and reviewing books reflects taste, identity, and progress. Even something as simple as rating a book varied widely. Some focused on enjoyment, others on perceived quality, and some avoided rating altogether.
Narrowing the Focus
Through our research, we found more opportunities than we could realistically address. Many competing apps tried to “fix” Goodreads by redesigning everything at once and piling on new features. The results often felt ambitious, but unfinished. We began to worry that trying to solve everything would lead us down the same path. We chose to narrow our focus instead.
We identified two core actions in book-tracking to focus on: collection management and book evaluation. These were the areas that readers criticized most consistently, and that seemed to shape how readers structure, interpret, and communicate their lives as readers the most.
Exploring a Direction
As we studied these areas further, we noticed a theme. Readers were asking for more space to convey nuance. It wasn’t just about wanting more features.
Shelf options felt rigid. Sort and filter systems lacked range. Rating processes felt broad. The structure existed, but it didn’t reflect the differences in how people think about books.
We began to explore how these core actions could feel more flexible and less constraining. Through multiple iterations of prototyping and testing, we studied whether small shifts in these areas could make the platform feel more aligned with how readers actually think about and evaluate books.
What Changed (and What Didn’t)
Users responded most positively to the added flexibility in our designs. They appreciated having more freedom to express how they personally rate, organize, and reflect on books.
At the same time, this flexibility introduced new challenges. Some users hesitated when navigating the system, and others were unsure how quickly new users would learn it.
This split was important for us. Improvement in one area created new friction in another. More flexibility can afford more expression, but it can also increase complexity.
Reflections
When we started this project, I was hopeful that with a significantly better user experience, the right platform would be enough to convert readers and “save” them from Goodreads purgatory. I don’t think it’s that simple anymore.
The truth is that Goodreads works. It’s not broken. It’s free, familiar, and deeply embedded in readers’ habits. Leaving it comes with a cost. In low-stakes contexts, where frustrations are widely noticeable but not critical, that cost can often outweigh the potential benefits.
I also recognize that greater forces are at play. Goodreads is owned by Amazon, which is a company that holds huge distribution power, access to data, and financial flexibility. This means competing apps aren’t just designing against a familiar, outdated interface; they’re designing against an entire ecosystem with an incredible upper hand.
Improvement alone is rarely enough in an established market, because design doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It exists within systems influenced by factors like ownership, habits, pricing models, and social connections. To create meaningful change, we need to understand those forces and recognize where design can actually make a difference.