Managing iPad Libraries: iBooks, Kindle, Kobo

A few people asked me to review some of the popular eReader iPad apps. As I started to dig into them, it became clear that the topic was too broad to adequately cover in one review. Instead, I’ve decided to break the UX review down into three parts. This first part will cover personal libraries (books downloaded to the iPad), the second will cover the bookstore, and the third will cover the reading experience. iBooks, Kindle, and Kobo were chosen since they are widely used and have some interesting design differences.

Viewing & Previewing Books

All three app libraries provide Cover and List views.  The main difference in the Cover views is that iBooks and Kubo are on “shelves” whereas Kindle books are in a plain grid that supports the pinch gesture to expand or shrink covers.  Visual details also differ when comparing the Cover views.  iBooks covers have an indentation that looks like a book spine.  Kindle books appear three dimensional against a background that changes according to the time of day.  Kobo has put forth the greatest effort in terms of visual details, letting users customize both the bookshelf and bookmark appearance.

iBook Cover View (full-size image)

Kindle Cover View (full-size image)

Kobo Cover View (full-size image)

List views, on the other hand, differ mostly in the amount of metadata provided for each book.  iBooks provides title and author information plus the genre; Kindle provides the title and author.  Kobo provides a tight two-column layout and has the most information: title, author, whether the book is currently being read, and how much of the book has been read.

iBooks List View (full-size image)

Kindle List View (full-size image)

Kobo List View (full-size image)

Getting additional book information—TOC, summary, ratings—is only possible in the Kobo UI.  Users can tap and hold the cover when in the Cover or List views.

Kobo Preview (full-size image)

Organizing & Filtering Books

All of the apps include some level of filtering but their approaches are very different.  iBooks is the only app that provides searching, which will become critical as users build larger book collections over time.  In addition to Search, iBooks lets users sort by “Bookshelf” (most recently purchased), Title, Author, or Category (genre).  Unfortunately, these search and sort features are only available on the List view.  It would be preferable to enable sorting on both views, as done by Kindle, which provides sort by Recent, Title, Author.  Kobo sort values are essentially the same, except “Recent” indicates recently read.

Removing Books

Kindle users may tap and hold to remove books from the Cover or List views.  On Kubo, tap and hold brings up Delete as well as the TOC and book overview. On iBooks, users must tap Edit to choose which books to delete.  This interaction difference could be problematic for users moving between apps.

A few recommendations…

Capture more metadata to improve the user experience. Goodreads.com lets users mark books—read, currently-reading, to-read—and uses this information to create bookshelves.  Kubo does this to some extent with the “I’m Reading” view, but it can be taken a step further.  Other possible metadata to capture are notes and personal ratings.

Leverage known metadata to help users filter through their collections. For example, Delicious Library doesn’t treat all books the same.  They alter the cover size based on the paper book’s actual dimensions.  Students at UC Berkeley’s iSchool also explored this concept in the Virtual Shelf project.  Visual cues such as these may help users pinpoint and choose books to read.  Similarly, the book stores for these apps do not have to be islands.  Reviews and other content may be of interest to users even after purchase.

Allow freeform organization of book collections. In addition to providing more automated views, consider letting users create their own bookshelves, as done on Delicious Library.  Users may want to organize books based on their interests (e.g., work or pleasure), family members (e.g., for themselves or their children) and more.

Design for growth. As users’ collections grow, search, tagging, and other filtering mechanisms will become increasingly important.  At the same time, user interface options, e.g., the ability to resize book covers as done on Kindle, will make it easier for users to manage large collections.  These should be introduced now, rather than waiting until collections become unwieldy.

Want to read more?  Just posted a review about purchasing books on the iPad.