User research
Before i started user research, i came up with few hypothesis (based on my ideas and competitor analysis results):
1. People would rather borrow book they are interested in, if it turns out to be expensive rather then buy it
2. People like to discuss books they’ve read
3. Common reading interests would be good reason to get people together
To check hypothesis and get to know potential users better I've made list of questions for both – quantitative and qualitative surveys. Quantitative survey (see “Lessons learned” section, point 1) contained 5 simple questions which I posted on book club facebook page. I got 30 responses from people who represented my target audience – active readers (by the time i put together case study, i got 5 more responses):
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I’ve got almost 100% confirmation of 2nd and 3rd hypothesis, but as for the first one - only 43% of readers would rather borrow book they are interested in than buy it. This surprised me a bit, but once I conducted qualitative survey I got more understanding on this point. Qualitative survey was aimed to get deeper insights into users behavior and preferences. For this I interviewed 4 active readers (I know, only 4, see “Lessons learned” section, point 1). For each interviewee I created simple empathy map and marked the most outstanding findings that contributed to creating personas. Here’s example of empathy map:
To summarize it, user research results made me re-think the initial concept and shift focus from only borrowing/lending books to book based socializing.