Author: Heike Faber Master: Integrated Product Design Specialization: Retail Design Graduation date: 5 April 2012 Contact:

Author: Heike Faber Master: Integrated Product Design Specialization: Retail Design Graduation date: 5 April 2012 Contact: [email protected] Chair: Dr. H.H.C.M Christiaans Faculty: Industrial Design Engineering Department: Industrial Design Section: Applied Ergonomics & Design Mentor: F. van Mourik Faculty: Industrial Design Engineering Department: Industrial Design Section: Human Information Communication Design Company: Libris Blz. B.V. Koninginneweg 1, Hoevelaken Company mentor: J. van Schoot Head purchase management

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Today’s Dutch bookstores encounter problems in sustaining their profits. Different reasons are indicated for these profit losses like the economic crisis, the lack of Harry-Potter-like best sellers, the loss of interest in reading, e-reading, rising rents in the city centres and online sales. It is unclear to what extent these phenomena really contribute to the problems of the traditional bookstores, but the last mentioned reason, online shopping, is considered to be responsible for a great deal of the hurt. More and more people order books online, and most of the time books are not ordered at the webshop of their local bookseller. At this moment in the Netherlands 20% of all books are ordered through a webshop. The expectation is that in 2015 even 50% of all books will be sold online. If traditional bookstores want to survive in this changing retail landscape, they need to be well represented in online sales. This graduation project focused on the development of a new book webshop for Libris bookstores. The goal was to create a digital environment that significantly stands out from other book webshops and that helps Libris to reach better revenues online. An exploratory study was performed at the start of the project to map the context of the graduation assignment. This led to the idea of designing a book webshop, which does not focus on searching books, like all current book webshops do, but which puts more emphasis on browsing books, just like in traditional bookshops is the case. Subsequently, the assignment of the graduation project was formulated as: “how to create an online experience that is similar to, or even better than, the experience of exploring books in a bookstore?”. People like the atmosphere and the shopping experience in traditional bookstores. Sometimes they even go there just to browse, without having the intention to buy something. The physical bookstore was therefore taken as a starting point for design research. Aspects that contribute to the traditional bookstore shopping experience, like the display of books, the ability to pick them up quickly and the bookseller’s advice were mapped. The possibilities that the internet has to offer, were also subject for design research. The internet, for example, enables users to review products and to customize a digital environment to their own taste. These are things that cannot be reached, or at least not that easily, in physical bookstores. Examples of digital environments that enable users to explore information, like websites or apps that make people discover new music or films were also studied in this assignment. These examples helped to find elements that may also be useful for the new webshop design.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

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From the design research about bookstores and online environments, goals and boundaries for the design of the webshop were set. These served as guidelines in the conceptualisation phase of the design process. Different options and features for a new book webshop for Libris were subsequently generated and evaluated. Evaluation was done for the appearance of the website and for the usability of the website. The appearance of the home screen of the design was compared to images of home screens of other Dutch webshops in a questionnaire (spread among 98 people). The usability of the website was tested with a clickable prototype of the webshop. Several people, considered to be internet savy and book-minded, did walkthroughs with the prototype and were interviewed about the usability of the design. The final design of the book webshops contains three main elements: selection, exploration and personalization. Selection Booksellers carefully select which books they present where in their bookstores. The same happens with the new webshop. Libris booksellers recommend book titles for various categories. Each week a new category is add to the website to renew the assortment. The goal is to filter good, important, interesting and fun books. In this way, also books of the backlist can gain a place in the spotlights. Categories are determined by an editor of the website and can be related to, for example, emotions and news items. Indexing categories like this, differs from the way books are usually sorted in online environments: based on NUR codes, set by publishers, which is not per se a useful index for consumers. Using the knowledge of many real book experts, the 400 Libris booksellers, will create a unique online assortment of books. A big advantage of this approach is that it is very difficult for other online booksellers to copy this concept, because they are not equipped with the knowledge that many booksellers have. Exploration The visual appearance of the book webshop has similarities with the arrangement of books in traditional bookshops. The home page of the webshop is for the greater part filled with book covers, divided into different categories. The design is colourful and visual rich, although overview and clarity remain. The layout of the website triggers the user to explore and browse between books. Clicking on books reveals relevant and interesting information. It is also easy to jump from one book, to another. Personalization An important feature of the webshop is that users can create their own book webshop content. Everyone has his own preferences for the types of books he likes to read. A digital environment is capable of 4

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

adjusting the content for different users, something which booksellers cannot create in their bookstore, because they are limited to a certain space. Users create their own book webshop by adding categories, based on their interests, to a personal account. Categories can contain books of favourite authors, subjects, genres and more. Every time when a user returns to the website (and logs into his account), he will immediately see if new books of his preference are published. The three elements explained, offer many more functionalities than described. A challenge was to keep the webshop simple and clear without adding too many features. However, it will still be possible, due to its digital character, to update the website with extra functionalities, if needed.

Scan to view a presentation movie of the website, or go to: http://www.heikefaber.nl/libris.html

The end result of this graduation project is a design that is ready to be build for online use. It is suggested to put the website online as a satellite website next to the current Libris website. Online Libris customers can, in this way, choose themselves whether they want to search a book directly (at the regular Libris website) or want to explore books (at the new Libris website).

Screen shot of the final design of the new webshop for Libris. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

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PREFACE

PREFACE About a year ago I came up with the idea that digital books (or e-books) would be an interesting subject to study in my graduation project. New technologies and innovative products have always appealed to me, and, in that time, I followed an elective at Leiden University, modern media, which taught me something about the interesting field of publishing. It was also in the same period that newspapers started to report various articles on the possible downfall of traditional bookstores in the Netherlands. The idea rose to design something that could help the bookstores. Why not selling e-books in physical bookstores? Libris, one of the larger Dutch book chain companies, was interested in my ideas for this graduation assignment and, in September 2011, I started the project. During the design process, my graduation assignment took another turn; the turn of e-commerce. My graduation project is entitled: “From exploring books in the bookstore, to exploring books online”. The graduation project is performed as a completion of my Master’s in Integrated Product Design (IPD), at the faculty of Industrial Design Engineering, at Delft University of Technology. An IPD graduation project typically includes the design of an innovative consumer product, service or product service combination. The project starts with a design brief that will be elaborated up to a complete and validated product or product prototype. This, together with the graduation report, forms the total result of the graduation project. The total graduation project is equal to 33 EC (1 EC = 28 hours), according to the European Credit Transfer System (ECTS). The report is also digitally available via http://repository. tudelft.nl. The graduation report contains a mix of information about the designed product and about the design process that was undertaken to come up with the final design. In this way the graduation project differs from most Master’s theses that are written for other scientific studies. Reading this report from the first to the last page, will lead you through the design process of my graduation project. If you are only interested in my final design, it is also possible just to read chapter ten. To conclude this preface, I would like to say that I am very satisfied with the results of the project. Libris is very enthusiastic about my ideas as well and it is actually looking for possibilities to implement my design. Hopefully you can see my design live somewhere in the summer of 2012.

PREFACE

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CONTENTS

Executive summary Preface

Page 3 Page 7

CH. 1 INTRODUCTION Page 10-11: 1.1 Assignment 1.2 Project approach CH. 2 PRELIMINARY RESEARCH Page 12-23: 2.1 Libris 2.2 The future of bookstores 2.3 Trends 2.4 Reading experience 2.5 Conclusions CH. 3 DESIGN DIRECTIONS Page 24-29: 3.1 Direction 1: Digital Exploration of books 3.2 Direction 2: Social community for readers: ‘Bookface’ 3.3 Evaluation of design directions 3.4 Conclusions CH. 4 RESEARCH QUESTIONS Page 30-31

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CHAPTER X

CH. 5 ‘TRADITIONAL’ BOOKSTORE EXPERIENCE Page 32-35: 5.1 Bookstore experience 5.2 Exploring books in the bookstore 5.3 The Libris customer 5.4 Purchase behaviour 5.5 Conclusions CH. 6 ONLINE SHOPPING Page 36-45: 6.1 Online book shopping 6.2 Digital exploring 6.3 Online consumer behaviour 6.4 App or website 6.5 Conclusions CH. 7 DESIGN VISION Page 46-47: 7.1 Users 7.2 Libris entrepreneurs 7.3 Libris, the company CH. 8 CONCEPTUALISATION Page 48-65: 8.1 Main elements 8.2 Selection by book experts 8.3 Exploration 8.4 Personalization 8.5 Other

CH. 9 CONCEPT EVALUATION Page 66-81: 9.1 Prototype 9.2 Questionnaire 9.3 Usability testing 9.4 Design implications CH. 10 FINAL DESIGN Page 82-95: 10.1 Navigation 10.2 Visual design 10.3 Categorization 10.4 Implementation 10.5 Scenario 10.6 Future scenario CH. 11 CONCLUSIONS & RECOMMENDATIONS Page 96-97: 11.1 Conclusions 11.2 Recommendations Sources Acknowledgements

Page 100 Page 102

This report refers to various appendices and to a CD-rom. All are separate from this report available . APPENDICES A Libris bookstores B SWOT analysis C Other design directions D Other ideas E Consumer’s quotes on traditional and online shopping F Digital exploring G Translating bookstore elements H Sketches I Conceptualisation J Testing appearance and categories K Results testing appearance M Results usability test CD-ROM Poster Prototype Questionnaire - raw data Recommendation calculations Usability test - raw data

CHAPTER X 9 Boekhandel Van der Velde - Groningen

CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION Explaining the assignment

This chapter provides an introduction on the graduation assignment. It presents the assignment that has been worked on and what approach was taken to complete the assignment.

ANALYSIS

CONCEPTUALISATION

EVALUATION

EMBODIMENT

chapter 2, 4-6

chapter 3, 7-8

chapter 9, 11

chapter 10

1a - Distribution of the chapters among different design process phases.

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CHAPTER 1 - INTRODUCTION

1.1 ASSIGNMENT At the start of this graduation project a preliminary research was performed to explore the context in which Libris is operating. It appeared that e-commerce is a very interesting aspect for the (future) bookseller, and thus for Libris. A way to stand out from other online booksellers can be to design a website that is not focused on searching, but on exploring new books. Subsequently, the assignment of the graduation project was formulated as follows:

“How to create an online experience that is similar to, or even better than, the experience of exploring books in a bookstore?”. 1.2 PROJECT APPROACH This report can be considered as a description of the total design process that was undertaken to complete the graduation assignment. It contains research analysis, conceptualisation, evaluation and embodiment phases (figure 1a). As said before, first a preliminary research (chapter 2) was performed to explore the context in which Libris as a company is operating. It gives an image of the goals that Libris wants to reach and the competitors to be faced. Also the wider context of developments in society has been explored. The final step of the preliminary research was the analysis of the reading experience of consumers. The information obtained in the preliminary research resulted in the formulation of two design

directions (chapter 3), of which one is chosen for further design research. The design directions are roughly sketched design opportunities for this graduation assignment. The chosen design direction raised several research questions, which are presented in chapter four. Answers on these questions are mostly found in literature. This information is presented in chapter 5 and 6. In chapter 5 information is presented about the ‘traditional’ bookstore experience, while chapter 6 reports on information about online or digital experiences. The design research lead to formulations of design goals. These can be found in chapter 7. These design goals, that also indirectly include design boundaries, formed the guidelines that were used in the designing phase of this graduation project to come up with concepts. This design project does not report on several total concepts, from which one should be chosen. Instead, in chapter 8, a report is done of the concept phase of the project. Different solutions were generated on several aspects of the design. The conceptualisation phase resulted in a representative prototype that was ready to do tests upon. This prototype was tested to see if its appearance and usability fulfilled all the desired needs. Chapter 9 reports on this evaluation, that existed of a questionnaire and a usability test. Several points that could be improved according to this evaluation, are also reported in this chapter. This evaluation lead to the final design of this graduation project, which is presented in chapter 10. In the end of this report, also some conclusions and recommendations about this graduation project are written (chapter 11). CHAPTER 1 - INTRODUCTION

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CHAPTER TWO PRELIMINARY RESEARCH Exploring the context

12 CHAPTER X Boekhandel Van de Ven - Soest

This chapter provides a view on the project framework. Who is Libris and what do they stand for? What issues do they have to deal with? To what backgrounds in our today’s society should the assignment been seen? These questions will be answered. Also an analysis is presented on what a reading experience is for consumers and what role the bookstore has in this experience. Online bookstores and the sales of digital books probably influence people’s reading experience. Exploring all those aspects helps to get an understanding of the context, which helps to formulate design directions for this graduation assignment.

2.1 LIBRIS Libris is a Dutch retail organization that provides different services to its members. These members are some hundred independent booksellers who all have their own Libris bookstore(s). Services that are provided by the Libris organization are e.g. purchase management, logistics and marketing.

NEGOTIATION ON MARGINS

PUBLISHERS BOOK TITLES AND MARGINS

DIGITAAL BEURSPLEIN

Key values Libris bookstores are well known for their wide and large assortment of books. The Libris entrepreneur is a very enthusiastic expert in books. The Libris bookstores all have unique and exclusive appearances and are considered to be important and beautiful stores in the area. Libris reaches this by setting quality requirements for their entrepreneurs. Market research e.g. is performed to see if the Libris bookstore is really the ‘local hero’ of a certain area. If it appears that a certain bookseller cannot meet all the requirements, he has to solve this problem in order to become or stay a Libris member. Appendix A contains some (more) photos of Libris bookstores and figure 2c shows on a map where the Libris bookstores are located.

Purchase management The core activity of Libris is to purchase books collectively from publishers in order to obtain larger margins on books. This collective purchasing is organized in a unique system named “Digitaal Beursplein”, which connects the publishers and the booksellers. Entrepreneurs are obliged to buy a certain part of the books selected by Libris. Digitaal Beursplein provides the entrepreneur with

BOOKS ORDER BOOKS Entrepreneur

Entrepreneur

Entrepreneur

Entrepreneur

BOOK ORDER

BOOK DISTRIBUTION

CENTRAAL BOEKHUIS Fig. 2a - Model of relationships between publishers, Libris, Libris entrepreneurs, Digitaal Beursplein and Centraal Boekhuis

CHAPTER 2 - PRELIMINARY RESEARCH

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insights in the margins he can obtain on a variety of books. The margins are interrelated with the total returns of the specific bookstore. The larger the total returns, the better the margins. This makes it possible for entrepreneurs to purchase a wider variety of books, instead of only best-sellers. Figure 2a shows how publishers and entrepreneurs are related to each other in a model. Centraal Boekhuis is also part of the model. Centraal Boekhuis organizes almost the whole book distribution in the Netherlands. It is the central spindle between publishers and booksellers.

b o ek e n va n vl ees e n bl o ed.

Marketing and e-commerce

Fig. 2c - Overview of the locations of Libris bookstores

ELK BOEK BESTELD VIA WWW.LIBRIS.NL GRATIS INGEPAKT EN THUISBEZORGD Dit geldt niet voor exclusieve uitgaven. Die kun je wel online bestellen, maar haal je in de winkel.

alleen bIJ lIbRIs: nU € 4,95 PHIlIPPe ClaUdel GRIJZe ZIelen

Fig. 2b - Cover of the Libris magazine - November 2011

libris8.indd 1

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Libris itself has no motive to make a profit; it serves its entrepreneurs who e.g. profit from a periodically published magazine (figure 2b) with new books, nationally spread radio commercials and books that are exclusively published for Libris. Every bookstore can also make use of the Libris webshop (http://www.libris.nl). This webshop is connected to the complete database of Centraal Boekhuis, which makes it possible to deliver actually any book title published in the Netherlands. Every bookstore has the opportunity to adjust the layout of the website to its own wishes, or to use the pre-formatted layout. (Most entrepreneurs choose the latter option.) Visitors that buy a book via the Libris website have to indicate the Libris bookstore of their preference. In this way, the entrepreneurs benefit from all revenues.

Strategies Digital activities The overall book sales in the Netherlands have decreased over the last couple of years and people tend to order more books online. One of Libris’ strategies is to extend its digital activities. At this moment, the revenues of the Libris webshop involve only a very small part of the total revenues. The aim of Libris is to reach a rate of 10% to 15% online sales per year. Libris has to comply with this strategy, because it expects that online book sales grow to a rate of 50% of the total book market in 2015. Libris entrepreneurs are encouraged to promote the website in their stores. A part of the entrepreneurs is not very keen on all the internet developments and does not want to promote the website. Their arguments are that lower margins are obtained via internet sales and that impulse purchases in the physical store will be missed. However, Libris’ opinion here is that current Libris’ customers are already ordering books online. And, unfortunately, they are usually ordering at the Libris webshop. Libris wants to make sure that if books are ordered online, customers will at least order them at the Libris webshop. Cross channel In essence Libris does not want to sell (e-)books via a website, but according to its expectation of the market it is desired that it has to come up with a well-considered digital strategy. The combination of a physical and online bookstore has to become a strength of the organization. This clicks and

bricks model is considered very important for the future retailer. Recent research confirms this. Entrepreneurs that have both physical and online activities are most trustworthy for the consumer. The expectation is that more consumers will use a cross channel approach for their shopping behaviour in the future. (ABN AMRO 2011, Molenaar 2011, Rabobank 2011) In order to reach this, Libris wants to be ahead of all digital and technological developments. It wants to come up with new things. It wants to break with the image of boring and dusty bookstores. Internet activities must be more integrated into the physical bookstores. The Libris website must be more promoted and stressed among their customers and among other consumers in general. An example of a recent realisation that refers to this strategy is the implementation of free Wi-Fi in all Libris bookstores. Branding Another strategy is to create a better brand awareness for Libris. At this moment the brand Libris is not very large communicated through the bookstores and through the media. Therefore, advertising agency Kesselskramer was invited to start building on the message that should be spread among consumers. A new house style for the Libris magazine recently has been developed (figure 2b), together with a new slogan: “Libris, boeken van vlees en bloed”. (Libris, books of flesh and blood). The slogan refers to the personal character of all the local Libris bookstores.


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E-book Because the Libris core business lies in the purchasing of physical books, Libris hopes that the digital book will have no success. However, Libris expects that this will not be the case and, therefore, it wants to be involved in the sales of e-books from the start. The e-book market is still small (around 1,3 % of the total book market (GfK 2011a)), but joining the market at a later stage could become quite a challenge. Libris can also use the e-book to stand out as the bookstore that grows along with technology.

Fig. 2d - Kobo - Canadian e-bookplatform that has recently established a partnership with Libris.

Recently (January 2012) Libris started a partnership with Kobo. Kobo is Canadian and the world’s third largest e-book platform, after Amazon and Barnes&Nobles. Its key focus is to provide consumers with a complete social reading experience. By collaborating with bookstores Kobo wants to enter the European market. Kobo has already started partnerships with the French FNAC and UK’s W.H. Smith. They want to use physical bookstores for the promotion of their hardware (e-readers) and e-book platform. With the partnership Libris hopes to be in top of the e-book market when this market starts growing. Libris entrepreneurs have to sell Kobo’s e-readers (figure 2d) and profit from all content that is sold in the Netherlands.

Competition In this paragraph a short overview will be presented of Libris’ main competitors. The overview is written from the Libris point of view.

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Bol.com is the largest e-retailer of books and e-books in the Netherlands and also the largest competitor for Libris. Bol.com has the image of the cheapest bookseller and of the bookseller with the widest assortment. This is not true, because of the fixed pricing regulations on books and the central distribution of books via Centraal Boekhuis. Libris offers exactly the same books via its website, with the same delivery service, which, as a bonus, is even free of cost. One can say that the marketing power of Bol.com is much higher than the marketing power of Libris. From a questionnaire that is discussed later in this report (chapter nine) it appeared that almost all participants knew the website of Bol.com and only very few were acquainted with the Libris website. Bol.com is known to have the ambition of becoming the largest internet webshop for all sorts of products; from television screens to baby products. This can offer possibilities for bookstores to stand out on the internet as specialized booksellers. An interesting fact is that the total book sales of Bol. com (so when other products are not taken into account)are slightly lower than the total book sales of Libris. However, Bol.com’s book sales are much bigger than the book sales of Libris obtained via the internet. Selexyz is the only other corporation beside Libris that buys a wide variety of books on a large scale. Publishers are

content with this strategy, because, for them, this is the only way to come up with new and unknown authors. Selexyz used to be specialized in the sales of study books. Since they have given up this part of their company, the business has been running less smoothly. The large bookstores that Selexyz possesses are impressive, but not profitable. The company was reorganized and a new party invested in Selexyz to solve their financial problems. It is not clear what the future will look like for Selexyz. (Kok 2012, Twinkle 2012) Libris is not amused with the potential loss of Selexyz. Its disappearance would enlarge the pressure from publishers on Libris. Publishers may publish fewer titles, because there will be less support for a wide variety of books. The image of the consumer about bad operating bookstores will also be strengthened, which is unwanted. Bookstore chain Bruna is a much less important competitor for Libris. Bruna stores are franchise companies. Bruna mostly only sells the top-200 of books and also sells stationer’s. Bruna focuses on customers that happen to pass by. The internet activities of Bruna are rather small. Remarkable is that Bruna obtained a 1% growth in 2011, while other bookstores had to deal with losses. (Nu.nl 2012) AKO can be compared with Bruna. The only

difference is that all locations are owned by AKO itself. This allows AKO to implement changes more easily. AKO does not focus on internet sales at this moment. An interesting fact is that AKO is part of Audax B.V., one of the shareholders of Selexyz. RDC is a bookstore-chain that exists of bookstores with the names Read-shop and Plantage Boekhandels. Their share in the book market is not big enough to be a real competitor for Libris. HEMA recently started a webshop for books. As HEMA is new on the book market, it is difficult to judge its importance as a competitor of Libris. Up to now Libris does not expect much competition from HEMA’s side. Conclusions Bol.com is the main competitor for Libris, because Libris and Bol aim at the same consumers. Selexyz is a less important competitor, although Selexyz is the only one that can be compared with Libris because of its purchase management. It is a less important competitor, because Libris has a more regional character. Since Bol.com is the main competitor for Libris, an analysis was performed in which the strengths and weaknesses of Bol.com and Libris were compared. This analysis can be found in appendix B. CHAPTER 2 - PRELIMINARY RESEARCH

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596

628

641

642

589

619

2.2 THE FUTURE OF BOOKSTORES

+5,3

+2

2006

2007

2008

2009 -0,2

2010

2011

-3,5

-4,6

Fig. 2e - Sales of general books in millions, change in percentages (GfK 2011b)

number of bookstores

2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 1770 1790 1780 1780 1770 1750 1710

Fig. 2f - Number of bookstores (Locatus 2012)

2015

8,8%

2011

10,4%

37,2%

54,1%

54,5%

35,2%

Dutch newspapers are full of news items that the Dutch bookstores are disappearing (see the image next to the preface of this report). Different reasons are indicated for these profit losses like the economic crisis, the lack of Harry-Potter-like best sellers, the loss of interest in reading, e-reading, rising rents in the city centres and online sales. It is unclear to what extent these phenomena really contribute to the problems of the traditional bookstores, but the last mentioned reason, online shopping, is considered to be responsible for a great deal of the hurt. All this media publicity might stress the image, which customers have, that bookstores are having difficult times.

Total turnover book market If we look at the total sales of books we can see that, indeed, the overall sales have decreased since 2009. In 2010 the total turnover of general books was 3,5% lower than the year before. The total revenues of the book market (A-books) in the Netherlands in 2011 were 589,4 million euro, a decrease of 4,6% compared to the year before. (figure 2e) Many retailers, not only book retailers, encounter decreasing sales, but the sale decrease is definitely very alarming.

Number of bookstores 0%

20% online buyer

40%

60%

offline buyer

80%

100%

cross channel

Fig. 2g - numbers and expectations of consumer behaviour. (ABN AMRO 2011) 18


Up to this moment the number of bookstores is rather stable, although some decline is noticed (figure 2f). Libris expects that a part of the current Dutch bookstores will disappear in the near future.

A lot of bookstores have been dealing with losses for some time now and if their revenues will not improve soon, it would mean they would have to end their business. Bookstores will have to innovate and find appropriate solutions that meet today’s consumer’s wishes to boost up their sales. There are many bookstores that have started to sell, for example, coffee and other products like music to their customers in order to offer the customer some extra shopping experience. The question is what other activities and services could be offered by bookstores.

2.3 TRENDS In this graduation assignment it is important to study trends in society in order to come up with relevant solutions that fit in today’s society. There is no doubt that technological developments have changed our society and that technologies keep on developing. Overviews of trends can provide useful information for design projects (COCD 2011). A few of the found trending topics are highlighted in this paragraph, because they are considered to be interesting subjects for the graduation project.

e-Commerce The arrival and the increasing use of the World Wide Web increased accessibility in different areas. It is possible for consumers to buy products via the internet from wherever they want. There is no need to leave the house and go to commercial centres, but goods can be delivered directly at your home. Internet makes it possible for companies to deliver

books directly to the home of consumers. Internet booksellers (e.g. Bol.com and Amazon) are large competitors for local bookstores. Retail stores in general also experience that the consumer chooses more often to buy goods via the internet. (Molenaar 2011) The combination of shopping at a physical store and a webshop (cross channel) is seen as the future for retail. Retailers that can provide both services will be most trustworthy for the consumer. (figure 2g)

Social media Consumers are, and will be, more often socially active on the internet. The use of social media like Twitter and Facebook keeps on growing. Apparently people feel the need for these digital social contacts. It is important for them to show to the world who they are.

Individualization The extensive use of social media, among other things, makes much information about individuals accessible for companies. The browse history of consumers, for example, helps in sending targeted advertising to a person, at the right place and at the right time. This trend will further develop on in the future. Individualization, or customization, is also a feature that is seen in many consumer products and services. Consumers expect that they can adjust everything to their own taste.

Wide range One of the problems that today’s consumer encounters is that the range of products is CHAPTER 2 - PRELIMINARY RESEARCH

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Case 1: ‘buying books at the local bookstore’

EXPLORE

In appendix B various trends are combined with strengths and weaknesses (SWOT analysis) to see if they could originate into interesting design directions.

book selection full preview

advice

2.4 READING EXPERIENCE

POSSESS

book home accessory

nice gift

READ individual process

COMMUNICATE friends/ family book club

Fig. 2i - case 1

goes even further after the last described stage ‘communicating about the book’. Customers can for example lend the book to someone else. However, the reading experience is divided into only four stages, because this will give enough inspiration for further design directions. In the following part of this paragraph the three different cases will be explained using a reading experience model. The different phases are highlighted with a blue coloured font.

Case 1: Buying at the local bookstore

part of image

paper

enormous, may be even endless. This range, which is also the result of the accessibility by internet, makes it difficult for consumers to make proper choices. Making choices takes up valuable time and it brings up questions about having made the right choice.

= ‘traditional’ aspects

Now attention will be paid to the complete reading experience of consumers. Although this graduation assignment only has to do with the selling of books, it is good to have a look at the total reading experience of consumers and to see what role the bookseller has in this. This experience can give inspiration for further design research. The reading experience as described in this paragraph is the complete interaction of consumers with books. The reading experience is described in four stages; exploring books, possessing books, reading books and communicating about books. These stages arose from reasoning about how customers buy books and use books. A distinction is made between reading experiences in three different cases; one in which books are bought at the local bookstore (case 1), one in which books are bought at the online bookseller (case 2) and one in which the product is a digital book (case 3). The reading experience possibly

Figure 2i: In this case the reading experience of a consumer starts with going to the bookstore. In the bookstore the customer can search between all the books that the bookseller has carefully selected (explore). The customer spends time in the bookstore with picking up titles to see if they meet his wishes. He can fully preview the book and randomly read some of the pages. If he cannot find what he is looking for, the customer can get personal advice from the bookseller. The customer makes a choice and buys the book in the bookstore. What the customer gets is a paper book, which is pleasant to hold, a beautiful home accessory and even a nice gift (possess). The reading of the book itself is mostly a complete individual process. It is just the reader and its book (read). After finishing the book, people like to communicate about it. Especially at birthday parties it is common to speak about the latest book that has been read and whether it was good or not. More content related information is seldom shared. However, special book clubs do discuss the content

of books (communicate).

Case 2: ‘buying books via the internet’

Case 3: ‘buying e-books via the internet’

Case 2: Buying books via the internet Figure 2j: The possibility for consumers to buy books via the internet has changed the ‘traditional’ reading experience. Exploring books at a web seller is very different from exploring books in a bookstore. It is a more directed process that better can be defined as searching instead of exploring or browsing. The remark that has to be made is that the digital environment of the internet bookseller’s offers some other features than the physical bookstore offers. It is for example possible to see reviews on books that are written by customers, or to write reviews oneself. The website also gives smart suggestions on your searches and past buying behaviour. It seems that web sellers strive for a personal and social approach. Despite all the features, exploring books on a website is very different from exploring books in a bookstore. Important to notice is that the web store offers all books that exist, while the bookstore entrepreneur carefully selects books for his customer, simply because he has a limited space to display or store all the books. The bookstore entrepreneur can be seen as a trendsetter and the webshop as a trend follower. Possessing, reading and communicating about the book is still exactly the same as in the ‘traditional’ process of case 1 where the book has been bought at the local bookstore. Obviously this is the case, because the books that are ordered via the internet are the same paper books as the ones that are sold

less attractive

less attractive

EXPLORE

EXPLORE

SEARCH

reviews

SEARCH

reviews

smart suggestion

smart suggestion

part of image

not part of image

POSSESS

paper

POSSESS

no gift

digital file

book home accessory

no home accessory

nice gift

READ

low weight

READ interactive

individual process

individual process

enrichment

relevant

COMMUNICATE

COMMUNICATE

friends/ family

friends/ family book club

Fig. 2j - case 2

whole world book club

= ‘traditional’ aspects = changed aspects

= ‘traditional’ aspects

Fig. 2k - case 3

= changed aspects

in the bookstore. Probably it will be a different experience for consumers when a book is delivered to the house than when it is immediately taken from the bookstore. This was, however, difficult to capture in the model and may not be very important.

Case 3: Buying e-books via the internet Figure 2k: The reading experience as defined in case 1 and 2 changes more drastically when the product is not a paper book but a digital book. Digital books can generally only be bought on the internet. This can be done at bookseller’s websites or through apps that usually also are owned by booksellers. Just like in case 2 the reading experience starts with a way of exploring books which is more focused on searching. Possessing an e-book is different from possessing a paper book. The main difference is the fact that it is easier to carry a lot of e-books with you, which is an important advantage of e-books. The disadvantage is that it is just a file, which cannot offer the value of a paper book, it is not visible in your personal library at home and it is less nice as a gift. Reading of an e-book is nowadays not very different from reading a paper book. The content of an e-book is usually an exact copy of the paper version. Apart from the discussion about the readability

22


of e-ink in comparison to paper, the reading experience of e-books is still an individual process. The e-book, however, has the possibility of making reading more interactive and social. This can be achieved by enriching the e-book with movies and linking of information, but also with initiatives like Open Margin and SocialBooks. The last-mentioned are services that make it possible for readers to make notes on passages of the book while reading. These notes can be shared with people that they did not know before. Kobo, with whom Libris started recently a partnership, also provides a social reading service. Digitalization offers much better communicating functionalities after books are read. You can still discuss with your friends what books you have read, but it is also possible to discuss this with people that you did not know before. This offers the possibility to talk more about the content of books instead of the superficial “I really like the book” or “I do not like the book”. Digitalization can connect people on base of the books they have read. Kobo, Open Margin and SocialBooks do offer a digital social reading experience. Because e-books are covering only a small part of the book market, the possibilities of social reading are not very familiar for consumers yet. However, this unfamiliarity can, of course, change very rapidly, because of the social character.

2.5 CONCLUSIONS Libris, the future of bookstores and developments in society Libris has to deal with decreasing returns, just like many other bookstores in the Netherlands. Internet sales become very important for retailing and especially for the book market. Libris has a clear focus on improving its web sales. Online retailer Bol.com is the largest (online) competitor for Libris. It will therefore be important for Libris to find a way to stand out from Bol.com. A way to distinguish Libris from Bol.com is to extend its cross-channel character. Trends in society like e-commerce, use of social media, individualization and the wide range of products that is exposed to consumers, are interesting subjects to be taken into account.

Reading experience Shopping in the local bookstore is part of the ‘traditional’ reading experience for people. Due to the arrival of the internet and digital books this reading experience changes. The change from a physical retailer to an online retailer mostly influences the purchasing process of books. The physical experience is a kind of exploring, while the online experience is more focused on searching. The change from a paper book to a digital book can influence the reading experience drastically on possessing the book, reading the book and communicating about the book.

Design ideas The yellow circles in figure 2j and 2k indicate the aspects that have changed due to functionalities of the internet webshop and the characteristics of digital books. In these aspects lie possibilities for the bookstore to improve or get involved in order to get a better market position. The bookstore can, for example, make the finding of books and e-books on the internet more attractive, so that it becomes an experience that is equal to exploring books in a bookstore. The bookstore could also give a physical appearance to e-books in a way that they are a nice gift and that they are nice to collect. Reading and communicating about books can become interactive. It would be great if the bookstore can have a social function in reading and communicating about books. It can, for example, be the initiator for a social network that connects people through books. Exploring books can become interactive by making it possible for readers to review books. Digital exploring can be made more attractive by adding extra information about books, while only a quality selection is presented to the customer. Possessing e-books and books can have a social function on the internet. It can be possible for users to show their personal library to the digital world. All these examples indicate that the ‘reading experience model’ offers many possibilities for new design projects for Libris. In the next chapter two interesting design directions will be discussed. CHAPTER 2 - PRELIMINARY RESEARCH

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CHAPTER THREE DESIGN DIRECTIONS Formulating initial ideas

24

CHAPTER 3 - DESIGN DIRECTIONS

From the information that has been found in the preliminary research in the previous chapter, many design ideas emerged. Different design directions were formulated for these ideas. This chapter presents two of them of which one will be selected for further research. Formulating design directions and the evaluation of them provides insight in the design process of this graduation project. It is also way to get a good overview of initial ideas. This helps to see if they offer relevant solutions. This chapter discusses two design directions. Both are considered to be interesting to offer new business opportunities for Libris. One is focused on the sales of books via the internet and the other focuses on the after purchase phase of books.

Looking again at the four stages of the reading experience, different suggestions are done on what the future reading experience can be like (figure 3a). Two clusters have been made, which can be considered as two design directions: •

•

The first one has something to do with the exploration of books. The way that webshops present their books is different from the way that bookstores present books. A different approach to the current Libris website that is more focused on exploring books, instead on searching of books, will help the Libris website to stand out from other e-retailers. Secondly the possessing, reading and communicating aspects of the reading experience model can easily be transformed into a new social community for members of the local bookstore that is based on what people read.

In the UK researcher Laing performed a research on traditional and online bookselling (Laing 2008). Findings and recommendation in that research strengthened the power of the two design directions, mentioned before. As a result of the preliminary research also other design directions and interesting ideas than the two that are discussed in this chapter were created. They are not discussed in this chapter, because they were considered to be less relevant for the graduation project. Nevertheless they can be found in appendix C and D.

Enriched reading experience ATTRACTIVE, EXPLORE

Digital exploring of books and e-books in an attractive and interactive way.

POSSESS

Let books be part of people’s online image.

READ

Reading books becomes a social activity. Share thoughts while reading.

COMMUNICATE

Connect with people that read the same books. Talk about the content of books.

INTERACTIVE DIGITAL EXPLORING OF BOOKS

SOCIAL COMMUNITY BASED ON WHAT PEOPLE READ

DESIGN DIRECTION 1

DESIGN DIRECTION 2

Fig. 3a - clustering ideas into two design directions CHAPTER 3 - DESIGN DIRECTIONS

25

SELECTION OF BOOKS BY BOOKSELLERS

+

VISUAL ATTRACTIVE ENVIRONMENT

+ EXTRA INFORMATION

Fig. 3b - Proposal of characteristics that are required in digital exploring of books

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3.1 DIRECTION 1: DIGITAL EXPLORATION OF BOOKS Today’s book webshops usually show the top-selling books of certain categories. The user has to type a keyword to find books that are not top-listed. Book webshops present a large database of books, in which the customer has to find his own way. This differs from the experience in a bookstore where books seem to serendipitously attract the attention of customers. The books that are offered at the bookstore, are, however, not randomly presented to the consumer. The bookseller has carefully selected and ordered the books he wants to sell. An e-commerce environment that makes it possible for consumers to explore books in a way that is similar to exploring books in a bookstore, would be an outstanding feature compared to today’s existing book webshops. Online book shopping right now is a complete different experience than book shopping in a traditional bookstore. According to findings of a focus group session in the research of Laing (2008) this difference was also noticed. The results of the focus group: “It raises the idea that browsing and the definition of browsing perhaps need to be redefined in an online context. It is such a different physical experience compared to browsing in a shop, that participants seemed unsure as to whether it really was browsing. Nevertheless, it was agreed that the bookshop experience online is an entirely different one to that experienced in a traditional bookshop.”

In her research Laing recommends to explore online sites and to develop the possibility of serendipitous browsing online rather than the current focus on ‘guided’ browsing, which is led by links to recommendations and other readers’ preferences. Design proposal A solution for this design direction is, therefore, to design a new website or new e-commerce environment that elicits exploring of books. This can be reached by offering the consumer a carefully selected range of books. These books are not selected for the sake of their popularity, but for their quality. The books are selected by real book experts; the Libris entrepreneurs. Offering a good selection of books, helps the customer to make a proper choice, although he still can browse through different books. Information that consumers use in the bookstore to explore individual books (like blurb texts and pricing) should also be made visible online as well. In addition, the website can also offer extra information which is usually not available in the traditional bookstores (like user reviews and book trailers). The appearance of the online environment should also have similarities with traditional bookstores; it should be very visual attractive. (figure 3b)

3.2 DIRECTION 2: SOCIAL COMMUNITY FOR READERS: ‘BOOKFACE’ The other proposed design direction is to enrich the reading experience by strengthening the social function of the bookstore. A solution for this can be a social community that is designed for readers. The social community, called Bookface for now, is different from other social communities. Social communities like Facebook and LinkedIn on the web connect people that have met in real life before and make it possible to share for example hobbies. ‘Bookface’ starts by showing the kind of books one reads, after which one is connected to other people. Liang (2008) also makes a recommendation for online bookshops: “...there is scope for development, especially regarding those online bookshops who compete with Amazon. For example, there is scope for the development of direct online communication between consumers. This is a facility that Amazon does not offer and might offer other online bookshops a strong competitive advantage.” A note should be made that Liang’s research was performed in the UK. Results of the same research in the Netherlands might differ, since Amazon is not operating in the Netherlands, but it is likely that there are many similarities. Design proposal A design solution for this design direction should at least contribute to the three discussed aspects from

the reading experience model: possessing, reading and communicating: Possessing: Bookface members can build up their personal reading life. Both books and e-books that were bought in the bookstore or online will be add to the customer’s personal account. This information can be used to predict what other books the customer will like. The customer can decide for himself if he wants to make his personal library visible to everyone. Reading: It is possible for Bookface members to interact with other people while reading. Comments can directly be made on interesting passages. Communicating: It is easy for Bookface members to communicate about the books they have read. Interesting is that discussing books can be similar to the way that book clubs discuss books. Figure 3c and the description below show an example of how such a social community can operate: (1) Visitors of Libris bookstores or the Libris website buy a book. The customer is offered the opportunity to become a member of Libris Bookface. If he does, he will get exclusive discounts in return. (2) Purchases of every new book will contribute to the amount of discount a Libris member can get. The member has to mention his membership in the bookstore or he has to login to the website when he buys online.

1) BECOME A MEMBER OF LIBRIS

2) BUY BOOKS = SAVE POINTS FOR DISCOUNTS 3) BUILD UP YOUR PERSONAL LIBRARY 4) CONNECT PEOPLE ON BASE OF THEIR READING BEHAVIOUR

(5) DISCUSS ON BOOK CONTENT

(6) SPENT DISCOUNT POINTS ONLINE OR OFFLINE (7) ORGANISE REAL-LIFE EVENTS (8) LET THE CUSTOMER THINK ALONG Fig. 3c - Different steps in the social community for Libris customers.

(3) All purchases of members are organized in their personal digital bookshelves. Members can earn extra discount points when they make their bookshelves public and when they interact with other people’s bookshelves. (4) Interacting with people that have a similar reading behaviour is very easy. This is an interesting feature, because those people have probably read other books, which one might also be interested in. (5) Discussion on content of books gives people extra discount points. (6) Discount points can be spent in the local bookstore or online. (7) Bookface members can also be connected in real life. It is for example possible to organize an author meeting for all members that have read a book of the author. Or, for example, a local ‘boekenbal’ could be organized. Visiting these real life events also results in extra discount points. (8) Bookface members can think along with the bookseller. They can suggest books that should be available in the local bookstore. Or they can suggest what kind of events should be organized. There are of course many other options to arrange a social book community, but the steps abovementioned, provide some understanding on how it could work.

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3.3 EVALUATION OF DESIGN DIRECTIONS This paragraph will sum up the advantages and disadvantages of both design directions. One of the design direction will be chosen for further investigation in this graduation project.

Direction 1: digital exploration of books Advantages • Offering a selection of books that is based on advice of real booksellers is unique for an online environment. • Involvement of real booksellers in the online environment positively contributes to the cross-channel character of Libris. • A visual attractive website could improve the current e-commerce environment of Libris. • It is interesting for consumers to have all information about a book in one place. In this way, the internet can offer extra service that cannot be provided in-store. • The concept is difficult to copy for other online competitors, because of the booksellers’ involvement. Disadvantages • Content of the online environment has to be managed carefully. (content management)

Direction 2: social community for readers

3.4 CONCLUSIONS

Advantages • It is very valuable to know what books which customer buys. (data analysis) • It offers a nice integration of the physical bookstore and the online environment (crosschannel). • Members that are active in the social community are likely to buy their books at Libris. (loyalty) • It gives Libris a social image in a way that fits today’s society. • It offers Libris a role in more parts of the reading experience of customers than it did before.

Both design directions are considered to be interesting for Libris, but only the first design direction is chosen as a subject for elaboration. A new online environment can directly help Libris to improve its web sales. The approach of a range of books that is based on the selection of real booksellers is unique and this concept cannot easily be copied due to its combination of the physical and online world. The other design direction is less unique, because other companies are developing services in that area as well. It is also a more complex system to develop than a new website and its success is highly dependent on the participation of consumers. If the community will only rely on a few active members, it will be difficult to sustain the community. However, a remark should be made that both design directions do not exclude each other. A new website can be combined with a social community section. The graduation assignment will only cover the design of a new website that is focused on the exploration of books. During the graduation project it became clear that Kobo and Libris started a partnership. Kobo possesses a large technologic knowledge and do focuses a lot on creating a social reading experience for consumers. In this way, the second design direction is partially realized.

Disadvantages • Other companies are also developing social communities for book readers. (not completely new) • Difficult to predict to what extend customers are willing to participate in the community. (success rate) • Relatively high technological knowledge is necessary to build the community. • Discount points cannot be used in combination with books, because of fixed pricing regulations.


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CHAPTER FOUR RESEARCH QUESTIONS Setting up design research

Boekhandel Burgum - Burgum

The chosen design direction in the previous chapter involves the exploration of books online. The main question that is raised by this direction is: How to create an online experience that is similar to, or even better than, the experience of exploring books in a bookstore? To be able to answer this question, different sub-questions were framed. This chapter presents the sub-questions that are interesting for further research in this project.

The main research question for the chosen design direction is:

“ How to create an online experience that is similar to, or even better than, the experience of exploring books in a bookstore?” It is not possible to provide an answer to this question straight away. It is important first to analyse interesting aspects like how consumers experience shopping of books in a bookstore and how they experience online book shopping. Relevant sub-questions are presented below. Answers to these questions are given in the next two chapters: five and six. Answers are retrieved from literature about bookstores and online sales. Desk research was also performed to see if interesting examples that contribute to the subject of digital exploration could be found. Answering the questions will help to find interesting information that may contribute to the conceptualisation phase of this project (chapter 8).

Sub-questions related to the traditional bookstore (chapter 5): • • • •

How do customers experience shopping in a bookstore? How do consumers explore books in a bookstore? Who are the customers of Libris bookstores? What is the purchase behaviour of customers in bookstores?

Sub-questions related to online shopping (chapter 6): •

• • •

How do customers experience shopping books online? - What reasons do consumers have to shop books online? - What is the share of the online book market? - How do they experience shopping at the Libris website? - How do they experience shopping at other online book webshops? What digital environments exist that offer an exploration experience to consumers? What is the purchase behaviour of customers that buy books online? What type of digital environment would be the best for a new Libris webshop?

CHAPTER 4 - RESEARCH QUESTIONS

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CHAPTER FIVE ‘TRADITIONAL’ BOOKSTORE EXPERIENCE Collecting useful information for design

Boekhandel Den Boer - Baarn

This chapter provides answers to the sub-questions about bookstores that were presented in the previous chapter: “How do customers experience shopping in a bookstore?”, “How do consumers explore books in a bookstore?”, “Who are the customers of Libris bookstores?” and “What is the purchase behaviour of customers in bookstores?”. Answers are found in literature on bookstores. The collected information in this chapter will be used in the designing phase of this graduation project.

5.1 BOOKSTORE EXPERIENCE Many consumers say that they like to be in bookstores. Some consumers do not even buy a book in a bookstore, but just like to wander around. 62% of the consumers that did not buy a book after visiting a bookstore give this for an answer (SMB 2009). Apparently people like to be in bookstores. Laing (2008) investigated what reasons people have to go to a traditional bookshop. From her research the following reasons are given in a random order:

I can pick up and handle the books

I can browse

I like the atmosphere

I can look inside and read the books

Serendipity of discovering new books

It is difficult to provide a clear answer to what the bookstore experience is. It has something to do with the atmosphere and with the availability of the books. In appendix E some quotes from consumers about the bookstore experience from Laing’s research can be found, which illustrate the general thoughts of consumers about browsing books.

5.2 EXPLORING BOOKS IN THE BOOKSTORE The question: “how do people normally explore books in a bookstore?” has some overlap with the reasons given in the previous paragraph, which explained why people go to traditional bookstores. Elaborating on these reasons, different aspects can be listed on how people explore books: Exploring books in a bookstore can be done in several ways: • Bookshelves; browse through different categories • Table displays of books; browse through different categories (70% of the revenues in a Libris bookstore is sold via a table display) • Asking advice from bookseller • Posters and merchandise of books • Events; e.g. signing sessions, book presentations If the customer picks up a book, he will explore the book some more. He will look at different aspects like: • Cover (38% of the consumers say that it is important that they like the cover, but the real cover impact may even be larger (SMB 2010) • Interesting title • Known author (34% of the consumers usually buy books of authors that they already know. (SMB 2010)) • Blurb text (80% of the consumers read the blurb text of the book before they buy it (SMB 2010)) CHAPTER 5 - ‘TRADITIONAL’ BOOKSTORE EXPERIENCE

33

hours per week

8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0

12-19 years 20-34 years 35-49 years 50-64 years < 65 years folders

magazines

books

newspapers

Fig. 5a - Time use media (SCP 2006)

percent

80 60

76

67

40

40

20 0

browse then purchase

just browse

look for a specific book

32

visit the coffee shop

3

1

meet friends

write letters, work, read newspaper

Fig. 5b - Consumer behaviour in traditional bookstores in the UK. (Laing 2008)

• • • • • • • •

Recommendation on cover Thickness and size of the book Material of the book Visual attractiveness of the book Interesting subject Balance of text and pictures Preview the book (read random page) Price

How do people explore books? Before people go to the bookstore they can already get information on what books are on the market. For example: 39% of the consumers say that the presence of books in the media makes them curious about books and 36% attach importance to good reviews of books (SMB 2010). They get inspiration from several sources like: • Tips from friends/family • Reviews on television (DWDD, P&W) • Reviews in newspapers/magazines • Reviews on internet • Internet forums on reading • Bookshop websites • Websites author/publisher • Advice from the bookseller • Posters, advertisement, television and radio commercials • Library staff • Newsletters of bookstores • Apps (iBooks, Amazon, Kobo, Aldiko, etc.)

5.3 THE LIBRIS CUSTOMER From research it is known that men and women differ in their reading habits. Women (1,7 hours per week) read almost twice as much as men (0,9 hours per week). Women read more literature and romantic books than men. Men read relatively more informative books, related to the total time they spend on reading. (Mintel 2007) There is also a relation between age and the time people spend on reading (figure 5a). Older people read more than younger people. In general, we can say that women over 40 years read most books. (Laing 2008)

5.4 PURCHASE BEHAVIOUR According to Mintel (2007) three times as many people buy books in traditional bookstores in an impulse than they would do online. Mintel performed research in the UK, but also in the Netherlands it is likely that more consumers will show impulsive buyer behaviour in traditional bookstores than online. Impulse purchases are very important for bookstores. According to customer research of SMB (2010) 36% of the consumers usually know beforehand exactly which book they want to buy when they go to a traditional bookstore. A larger part, 64% of the consumers, only knows what genre of book they want to buy. This means that these consumers make the choice of the book they want to buy inside the bookstore. 69% of the consumers say that they mainly buy books for themselves and only 9% say that they

34

CHAPTER 5 - ‘TRADITIONAL’ BOOKSTORE EXPERIENCE

mainly buy books to give as a present. (SMB 2010) The book is, however, a very popular item to give as a present. Figure 5b shows what the consumer behaviour of customers in traditional bookstores in the UK is. It is clear that consumers more browse in bookstores than that they are looking for specific books. Visiting coffee shops and meeting friends is less likely to be observed in the Netherlands, because in the UK it is more common for bookshops to have a coffee shop-in-shop.

5.5 CONCLUSIONS Bookstore aspects This chapter has mentioned a lot of aspects that are related to exploring books in a bookstore. It is interesting to see which of these aspects, some way or other, can be translated into online aspects. Browsing books seems to be very important in a traditional bookshop. This browsing is made possible by the availability of the large amount of books that are displayed on tables and on bookshelves. Serendipity also plays an important role in the browsing process. The way that books are displayed in the bookstore can be helpful for the visual design of the new webshop. Table displays and bookshelves are important items. All these kind of elements will be taken into account in the conceptualisation phase of the project (chapter nine).

Customer Women over 40 years read most books and are therefore the most important customers of Libris. However, books are for everyone and Libris aims to reach a wide target group. So, it is good to keep the typical Libris customer in mind, but this graduation project should focus on a wider audience. Impulse purchase Impulse purchases are very important for traditional bookstores. It will be the ultimate goal to reach a high impulse purchase rate in a new e-commerce environment. This could be done by taken into account that the majority of the consumers do know beforehand which genre of book they want to buy, although not the exact book.

CHAPTER 5 - ‘TRADITIONAL’ BOOKSTORE EXPERIENCE

35

CHAPTER SIX ONLINE SHOPPING Collecting more useful information for design

This chapter provides answers to the sub-questions about online bookstores that were presented in chapter four: “How do customers experience shopping books online?”, “What digital environments exist that offer an exploration experience to consumers?”, “What is the purchase behaviour of customer that buy books online” and “What type of digital environment would be the best for the new Libris webshop? The collected information in this chapter will also be used in the designing phase of this graduation project, just like the information gathered in the previous chapter. I think that over 5 years (2015) most books will be obtained via:

Buy at an internet shop

Buy at a bookstore

Download from the internet

Lend at a library

Buy at another store that sells books

Borrow from a friend/family/relation

Buy at a bookclub

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

Fig. 6a - Consumers were asked to predict how books will be obtained over 5 years. Most consumers (37%) expect that most books will be sold via the internet. (HBD 2010) 36

CHAPTER 6 - ONLINE SHOPPING

6.1 ONLINE BOOK SHOPPING Reasons to shop books online Laing (2008) investigated what reasons people have for preferring shopping in online bookshops above shopping in a traditional bookstore. From her research the following reasons were given in a random order:

A good range of books

Good prices

A quick process

24/7 availability

Convenience

Customer reviews The reasons that are mentioned in Laing’s research, are not surprising, since they are very similar with reasons for shopping all sorts of products online. Only the reason ‘good prices’ will probably not be applicable for the Dutch market. The fixed pricing regulations for books in the Netherlands prevent companies from competing on price.

The reason ‘good range of books’ is actually a reason that goes for many other webshops as well, because online environments have unlimited digital space for their products, unlike physical stores do. The ever growing assortment of books (and other products) online is already mentioned in the preliminary research (chapter 2). It is true that one can find almost every book via the internet. However, this is only true when the consumer knows what he is searching for. If consumers do not know what they are looking for, they go to a traditional bookshop to browse. The idea of the chosen design direction is that it will be interesting to change this unlimited assortment of books of to a good selection of books.

Numbers about online book sales

“69% Of all Dutch booksellers owned a webshop for books in 2009.”

“Online bookselling covers 28% of the total book market in the Netherlands and growth is expected.”

“68% Of all Dutch books are sold via traditional bookshops.” Quotes about online and traditional bookselling.

According to Boek en Bedrijf (2010) 92% of all Dutch booksellers had a website in 2009. Threequarters of those booksellers implemented a webshop in their website. This number is relatively high, compared to other branches in retail. Books are relatively simple to sell via the internet, because Centraal Boekhuis offers a database with book titles and takes care of all the whole distribution of the books. The share of online book selling is around 28% of the total book sales in the Netherlands. Most books are still sold via the traditional bookshops (68%). However, 37% of the consumers indicate that they think that in five years time most people will buy books via an internet shop (figure 6a). Libris also thinks that the e-commerce part for books will grow in the coming years. It expects that 50% of all book purchases are done online in 2015. CHAPTER 6 - ONLINE SHOPPING

37

Libris website Libris entrepreneurs all have their own online bookshop in addition to their physical store. All entrepreneurs have an own domain for their internet shop. They have the opportunity to design the layout of the website to their personal taste, but most entrepreneurs choose to use the default layout of the Libris website. Http://www.libris.nl is the common website through which many books can be ordered in the webshop.

LOGO

Figure 6b shows a screen shot of the home page of the general Libris website. The home page is divided into different modules. Figure 6b shows an overlay on the home page that indicates the different modules. The main function of the website is to order books. The offered way to do this, is by using the search function where users can give different input variables like ISBN, author or title. It is also possible to choose one of the menu items. Some of the menu items cover a category of books and other refer to

ADVERTISING MENU ITEMS

SEARCH FIELD

6b - Module overlay on top of the home page of the Libris website (http://www.libris.nl). (left page) Screen shot of the home page of the Libris website. (right page) 38


M E N U

ADVERTISING ADVERTISING

O T H E R B O O K S


39

other kinds of information. Striking in the layout is that only a small part on the home page is available for the displaying of books (the top 10 at the lower right of the page), although the Libris slogan tells the consumer “we have a lot of books” (in Dutch: “Boeken. Heel veel boeken.”). A lot more space is reserved for advertisement of different promotions of Libris.

Other online bookstores There are many other bookstores present on the World Wide Web. In the Netherlands the most well-known one is Bol.com. In figure 6c a few screen shots of Dutch book webshops are presented. All the websites have different layouts, but in essence they have many similarities. They all provide two menus (a top menu and a side bar), a search function, banners for promotion, a logo at the top left and some other general features like ‘a shopping basket’. This is not remarkable, in that sense, since many websites make use of this format. Users easily find their way, because they are familiar with the format. However, it is though remarkable, because the websites all present large databases of books, that can only be accessed through searching, which is a completely different approach than the situation in traditional bookstores. Browsing books is more difficult online. One cannot say what is good or what is bad, but one can say that there are more different possibilities to sell books online. Especially, because, many Dutch book webshops use a similar format, it is interesting to search for solutions that stand out.

40


6.2 DIGITAL EXPLORING Although the current shopping of books in a webshop may not be an exploring experience, there are examples of online environments that focus on discovering information. In figure 6d some screen shots are given of such digital environments. Searching for similarities between all these environments may give some clues on what digital exploration is and may give inspiration for designing. From the analysis in the previous chapter (chapter five) is known that exploring in traditional bookstores has something to do with the serendipity of finding books. If we look to figure 6d, we see also examples of serendipity. The digital turning globe of Google Earth lets users explore the world with some guidance from the geographical knowledge of the user. It is easy for the user to zoom in and to discover places. It is not sure what location the user will go to beforehand, except when he chooses to use the search function in the right upper corner. Aweditorium for iPad is a music app that offers music from interesting artist that are not yet well-known by a large audience. The user swipes his way around with no more clues about the music than pictures of the artists. Clicking on a picture zooms in on the picture up to full screen size and the music starts playing. Swiping now results in going back and forth to other artists. This is almost completely serendipitious, because the user cannot see anymore ‘where he is located on the map’. This observation of seemingly random items, that

Fig. 6c - Screen shot of the website of bookseller Bol. (http:// www.bol.com)

Screen shot of the website of bookseller Bruna. (http://www. bruna.nl)

Screen shot of the website of bookseller Selexyz. (http://www. selexyz.nl)

Screen shot of the website of bookseller Youbedo. (http:// www.youbedo.nl) CHAPTER 6 - ONLINE SHOPPING

41

6d - Examples of online environments that invite to explore information of products. From left to right, from top to down: rtlXL, Google Earth, Flipboard for iPad, Safari bookmarks, Windows tab screen feature, Windows explorer, iTunes DVD rent, Aweditorium for iPad.

42


are preselected by humans or by a smart algorithm is seen in the other examples in figure 6d as well. Striking is that all examples make abundant use of high colour pictures and photos that can be browsed through. All the pictures are real eye-catchers, that provide many clues about the information that it represents. Using many pictures and many colours should also be incorporated in the design of the new webshop.

Goodreads One of the very few examples that could be found from websites that offer the possibility to find new books via an alternative way than searching is Goodreads. Goodreads is a website that helps users to get inspiration for new books (figure 6e). Users can save books to their account that they have read, or bought, or still want to read. Based upon this information, Goodreads searches for users that have an overlapping library, so that they can suggest other books that this user will like. Some other functions are that books can be reviewed and other users can be add as friends. The website is interesting, because it is one of the few websites that make it possible to build up a digital library of your books. Goodreads is mainly popular in the US.

6e - Screen shot of the website Goodreads

Appendix F provides some more examples of digital environments that invite to browse through interesting information. They served as useful inspiration sources during the project.


43

6.3 ONLINE CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR

percent

80

82

60

57

40

51 40

40

20 0

look for specific books

read look for look for get reviews something bargains ideas for I fancy browsing in ‘trad’ shops

35

just browse

Fig. 6f - Consumer behaviour in online bookstores (Laing 2008)

44


Figure 6f shows what the consumer behaviour of customers in online bookstores in the UK is. Clear is that consumers mainly look for specific books (82%). This is more than twice as much when compared to the traditional bookshop consumer (chapter five, figure 5b). Remarkable is that consumers also use online bookstores for browsing of books, although it is only 35%. This may indicate that consumers do want to browse for books online, but that they may not find ideal web places to do so. Because the number of browsing books online is lower than the number of looking for specific books online, one would imagine that impulse purchases do less occur online than in-store. However, a research from Verhagen (2011) showed that websites are becoming more capable of eliciting impulse purchases. According to this research, webshops that want to stimulate impulse purchases should focus on building a website that is: calm, friendly, knowledgeable, fun and has an attractive assortment; providing pleasure when customers browse through it. Although this description is still rather abstract, it shows that there are possibilities to design a website in a way that it does stimulate impulse purchases.

6.4 APP OR WEBSITE In the formulation of the design direction, in chapter three, there was spoken about a digital environment to explore books. The definition ‘digital environment’ should be better specified, because a digital environment can be many things. Relevant digital environments for the purpose of exploring books are a website and a mobile app that is suitable for tablet products. Apps for mobile phones are less interesting, because the screen size of a smart phone is relatively small to read from and exploring information is less suitable. The main requirement for the digital environment is that it is accessible for many people. The service should be platform independent. Apps are per definition not platform independent; different versions should be developed to reach all the customers. Developing apps for different platforms (Android, iOS) will also contribute to higher costs. Also, because, more frequent updates are required. Therefore, it is best to develop a new website for Libris, instead of an app. In addition it is required to build a website that on a tablet product can be navigated through with hand gestures. HTML5 programming languages need to be used to reach this.

6.5 CONCLUSIONS Online book shopping Reasons for people to shop books online are similar to ones that people have for shopping online in general: it is fast, convenient, 24/7 open, good range of products, etcetera. Online book sales cover 28% of the total Dutch book market. The expectation is that this number will increase significantly in the next years. The Libris website and all other found examples of Dutch book webshops do look in a way similar to each other. Users can find books through a search function or by clicking on category links in one of the menus. It will be interesting for the new webshop design to find a different way of navigation through the website. This will definitely help to stand out from current book webshops.

Consumer behaviour Most books that are ordered online are planned purchases. However, impulse purchases can be realized online as well. Building a website that is calm, friendly, fun and has an attractive assortment could help to stimulate the impulse purchase online. Website The new webshop for Libris should be a website and not an app, because, in this way, the largest audience can be reached. HTML5 programming languages should be used to include hand gesture navigation in the design.

Digital exploring Many examples of digital exploring of information were found. Most examples have in common that they make abundant use of colours and pictures in their design. Websites that calculate what type of books or music you might like, based upon your read or music history, also provide ways to explore new information.


45

CHAPTER SEVEN DESIGN GOALS Defining goals and boundaries

Boekhandel van den Ven - Soest

Design goals for different stakeholders emerged from the analysis phase presented in the previous chapters. This chapter describes how the new online environment of Libris ideally should be. What value should it bring to the consumer in the most optimal scenario? And to the Libris booksellers and Libris as a company? Defining the ultimate goals for the new book webshop also determines different design boundaries. Both are very helpful during the whole design process, because the designing itself will be done with these goals in mind.

7.1 USERS

7.2 LIBRIS ENTREPRENEURS

7.3 LIBRIS, THE COMPANY

Goals The new Libris website offers a unique book webshop experience. Consumers like to spend time in the online environment, they like to play around with the website and they are triggered to view many books, one after another. They are delighted with the books that have been selected for them and they discover books that they did not hear of before. Consumers like to learn more about the presented books, whether they have read them in the past, or not. The reason that consumers go to the online environment can be the wish to buy a book, or just because they like to browse between books. The consumer links visual and interactive elements of the website with aspects from a ‘traditional’ bookstore. Consumers go back to the online environment on a regular base. They are curious to view new content and they also recommend the website to family and friends, and via social media.

Goals The Libris entrepreneurs believe that the new website offers a good opportunity to boost their web sales. Therefore, Libris bookstore entrepreneurs and their employees like to recommend books for the new website. They see it as a competitive element to be the best book-recommender. They want to know how many times the book, that they recommended, has been sold.

Goals The new website evokes book browsing and finally will lead to purchases that were not thought of before (impulse purchases). The website generates a larger e-traffic for Libris and users become loyal to the website once they have used it. The website also offers another way to communicate the brand identity of Libris. The layout for the new website stands out from the layouts of current Dutch book webshops. Libris uses the website to show their cross channel character to the consumer.

Boundaries • Many consumers should be able to access the webshop; the webshop should therefore be platform independent and work properly via the majority of the web browsers from the most conventional devices (laptops, personal computers and tablet products).

Boundaries • Recommending books does not take too much effort for the booksellers • Quality of recommendations should be ensured

Boundaries • The content management of the new website is not enlarging the pressure on the internet department. • The costs for a new webshop can be considered as extra costs, since Libris possesses already a webshop. Libris is encountering profit losses, and therefore, investments cannot be too large. It is difficult to name a number for the maximum size of investment. Libris is looking for innovative projects, but meanwhile it wants to limit the necessary investment costs. How much it wants to spend on a new webshop will depend on the perceived value of the project. • The Libris house style (made by Kesselskramer) should be incorporated in the webshop.

CHAPTER 7 - DESIGN GOALS

47

CHAPTER EIGHT CONCEPTUALISATION Shaping the design

SELECTION BY BOOK EXPERTS

The new website has to be a place where consumers can explore books. In order to reach this, many design decisions have to be made. Chapter seven reported on guidelines for the design. Designing, with these guidelines in mind, results in different design solutions. Therefore, this chapter presents design possibilities. The presentation of these different design possibilities, is divided among three topics: selection, exploring and personalization.

&

To help customers find their way in the massive range of book titles.

Fig. 8a - The three main elements: selection, exploring and personalization 48

CHAPTER 8 - CONCEPTUALISATION

EXPLORING

Offering a browsing experience that is similar to, or even better than, exploring books in traditional bookstores.

&

PERSONALIZATION

Many customers read many type of books. Personalization also helps consumers to find their way in the massive range of book titles.

8.1 MAIN ELEMENTS At the start of the conceptualisation phase an overview was created of the main elements of the website and their functioning. This helps to structure new ideas and it makes it easier to explain them. The new online environment has three main elements: selection, exploring and personalization. The user is offered a selection of books (selected by real book experts: Libris booksellers) as an answer to the ever growing database of book titles. The user is also offered a browsing experience that is equal to, or even better than, exploring books in traditional bookstores. In addition, the user is able to edit the content of the online environment to his own taste. This also helps to guide the consumer within the ever growing database of book titles. (figure 8a)

New element: personalization The first two elements, selection and exploring, were both already described in the formulation of the design direction (chapter three). The third one, personalization, however, was not explicit mentioned before. This element was thought of later in the design process. The idea rose from the trends that were seen in society (chapter 2) and the fact that many people read many type of books. Individualization is a popular phenomena nowadays, and combining such with the difficulties of a wide range of books, it can become an interesting feature for the new website. It is also an interesting feature, because it is not being used, or at least not that extensively, by other book webshops right now. The way personalization can be applied to the website, will be explained later in this chapter.

From now on different design solutions will be presented according to the three main elements. Some design solutions are not directly related to one of the three main elements, and are, therefore, mentioned in the last part of this chapter, under the heading ‘other’.

8.2 SELECTION BY BOOK EXPERTS Booksellers carefully select which books they present where in their bookstores. The idea is that the same happens with the new webshop. Libris booksellers recommend book titles for various categories. Periodically a new category is add to the website to renew the assortment. The goal is to filter books, which are good, important, interesting, fun, etcetera. In this way, also books of the backlist can gain a place in the spotlights. Using the knowledge of many real book experts, the 400 Libris booksellers, will create a unique online assortment of books. A big advantage of this approach is, that it is very difficult for other online booksellers to copy this concept, because they are not equipped with the knowledge of that many booksellers. Using the knowledge of the booksellers can be done in various ways. Categorizing of the books is chosen to give the user something to hold on, when he is visiting a website that displays many books. In more initial ideas, the suggestion was made to display only a selection of good books, without any form of categorization. In the paragraph ‘exploring’ (8.3) this idea will be explained some more. CHAPTER 8 - CONCEPTUALISATION

49

Ontroerend

#Trendingbooktopic

Beste backlisters

Heldhaftig

De selectie van... Jan Mulder

Onmisbare skills

Smoorverliefd

Het betere kado

Echte mannenboeken

Wereldverbeterend

Hersenkrakers

Slaappillen

Inspirerende nerds

Durf te lezen

Fig. 8b - Selection of generated categories (in Dutch)

Fig. 8c - Example text that serves as a category description

50


Categorization Indexing categories Categorizing books is no new phenomena. Traditional bookstores do it, by categorizing books among different bookshelves and table displays. The online Libris book webshop, and other online bookstores, categorize books through NUR codes. Each book has a different NUR code like: thriller, fiction, children, etcetera. The NUR code is provided by the publisher of the book. The indexing via NUR’s is tailored to the publisher’s wishes, which may not be the most useful index for consumers. The idea of the new website is, that this categorizing of books, is done by the Libris booksellers, instead of by the publishers. This makes it possible to come up with interesting and appealing categories for the consumer. The names of the categories should trigger the consumer to see what books are in there. They should elicit a certain curiosity, but also have to give a certain insight on what books belong in there. Some examples of such alternative categories have been generated to give an impression of the possibilities (figure 8b). Monitoring category supply A constant supply of new categories (and titles) should be monitored well. The question is: who should be responsible for this monitoring? The internet department of Libris seems to be the most logical option. This department is responsible for all internet activities of Libris, and the monitoring of a new website would belong to their work.

However, the internet department, is relatively small compared to the workload they have to produce. Therefore, the responsibility can also be given to an editor and a book committee. A book committee (existing of 4-6 Libris booksellers) and an editor have meetings four times per year. They are responsible for providing and the selection of high quality themes. The editor will be the leader of this process. The editor also produces small texts that are displayed with the categories on the website, to explain or illustrate them (figure 8c).

Title supply Amount of titles per category Every category contains several book titles. There are basically two options that determine the amount of books per category: • A fixed amount (e.g.: ten books) • A variable amount (depending on the amount of titles that were recommended) The first options ensures an organized process of book recommending. If a category is full, no more books for that category can be recommended. This is also clear for the visitor of website. The second option makes it possible that books are ranked inside the category: the more times a book is recommended for that category, the higher its ranking is. This option requires more input from the booksellers. It is therefore more easy and convenient to choose a fixed amount of titles per category, since content management will be the most complicated part of the website.

Bookseller’s input Booksellers have to give the input of book titles for the webshop. It is essential that they are motivated, and keep on motivated, to do so. Therefore, recommending book titles should be easy and not require too much effort. However, it cannot be too easy, because it then can become the case that booksellers may not have read the books they recommend. It is important that they have read the books, so the quality of recommendations is guaranteed. It can be assumed that Libris booksellers are real book experts and that they have many knowledge about books. Recommending titles for categories should not be a problem for them. Possible input that they could give for the recommendation of a book: • Recommend a title for the assortment: providing the corresponding EAN number • A striking quote from the chosen book • A review of the book • Photo of the book From the EAN number, all kinds of meta data can be retrieved and automatically be loaded into the website. These meta data are things like: price, amount of page numbers, title, author, image of the cover and blurb text. In addition to this information, a quote and a review, provided by the bookseller, can be placed on the website as well. A photo of the book could also be provided and placed on the website. Examples of such photos are given in figure 8d and 8e. The idea for the placement of a handheld photo of the book, is that it gives a personal look to the website. It

makes it visible that real people recommend books for the website. It also provides some information about the book that is usually not visible online (e.g. the thickness, size and material of the book). However, there is not chosen to implement bookseller´s reviews and photos of handheld books. One can never be sure that the reviews and photos are from a high enough quality. The choice to display striking quotes from the book is more interesting, because it is new to do so for a book webshop, it creates unique content and it attaches a more objective perspective to the website. It also takes less time for a bookseller to indicate an interesting page of the book, instead of writing a small review about it. Sending input Sending the input will be done via the internet, because this will be convenient for the booksellers and fast for the internet department in terms of data processing. Two options were considered for the booksellers to hand in their recommendations: • •

Internet form, that can be sent through email Evernote, app that can sent information via a smart phone to the internet

Figure 8f shows an example of how such an internet form can look like. The bookseller has to type in the EAN number, where the passage he wants to quote starts and ends, and he has to upload a photo of the book. Fig. 8d- Example photos that booksellers could give as input for the book that they recommend. CHAPTER 8 - CONCEPTUALISATION

51

the smart phone was considered as the best option. This mainly has to do with the fact that through OCR slogans/quotes from the book can easily be digitized. This will be far less data processing for the internet department of Libris.

Logo of Evernote

Fig. 8e - Example of a photo made of a book, and of a quote in that book with a mobile telephone. The app Evernote can be used to upload the information online.

new categories per week

titles per category

required amount of titles per year

number of recommendations per entrepreneur per year

0,5 1 2 3

10 10 15 15

260 520 1560 2340

2,6 5,2 15,6 23,4

Fig. 8g - Table that shows a few calculations for the planning of title input per entrepreneur. 52


The idea of using a smart phone to send recommended books has an advantage over the internet form. Evernote is an app that makes it possible to very easily send notes and photos to the internet. It is very convenient to make a photo of the book and also of the page, where an interesting quote is visible, via a smart phone. Through OCR (object character recognition) the quote can be digitalized immediately. (figure 8e) A disadvantage can be that not every bookseller possesses a smart phone. Evernote was taken in this example, but also other apps could be used. From these two options of ways that booksellers can recommend books, the option to hand input via

Title management Supplying the titles for the website needs to be managed well. Titles should be hand in on a regular base, to guarantee an up to date offer of book titles. Simultaneously, booksellers should not be confronted with too much requests for book recommendations. Therefore, a calculation was made for different plannings of book recommendations which results in a different amount of recommended books. A presumption was made for the calculations: the categories contain a fixed amount of books. An example of a result of one of the calculations is: If every week a new category of ten titles will be add to the website, then: 520 titles need to be recommended by 100 entrepreneurs (who on average have 3 employees to help them with this) per year. That is: 5,2 titles per entrepreneur per year. Figure 8g shows some more examples of the calculations. On the CD-rom, that belongs to this report, an Excel file can be found that makes it possible to experiment with setting different variables. After deciding how many books each entrepreneur yearly should recommend, a planning should be made to be able to update the website in time. Also

only allow books that have not been

titel: (verschijnt na invullen EAN) auteur:(verschijnt na invullen EAN)

recommended before.

Fig. 8f - Example of an internet form that can be filled in by the Libris booksellers for the recommendation of books.


53

a database of recommended book titles should be generated before the implementation of the website. This database can be used for the first start of the website, because the website should be completely filled from the start. After that, titles and categories can periodically be renewed. To generate this start database, every Libris book entrepreneur will be invited to recommend an amount of titles for several categories. The entrepreneur becomes in this way familiar with the process of recommending. In this request, the entrepreneurs can also be asked for their favourite type of categories. These preferences can be used for composing the planning. The planning has to provide an overview of when which entrepreneur has to recommend books. For example: when each bookseller has to recommend 5,2 titles per year: every two weeks 8 entrepreneurs have to provide 3 titles.

8.3 EXPLORING In this paragraph, more tactile aspects of the website are discussed: the appearance of the website and its navigation.

Browsing and exploring All the elements and aspects of bookstores and book exploring as described in chapter five and six, were attempted to be translated into online aspects. All these elements can contribute to the new website. In appendix G a table is shown that presents possible translations. The designing process of the layout of the website was done while having these possible translations in mind. 54


Visual appearance The visual appearance of the website needs to have similarities with the visual appearance of a bookstore. Different examples of layouts for the website were designed. They all have the following in common: • Colour rich environment • Showing many books together • Serendipity of finding books The colour rich environment, and the displaying of many books together, refer directly to the interior of bookstores. Bookstores are very colour rich, because the whole store is covered with books. Browsing books in bookstores has something to do with serendipity. Including a form of serendipity in the website makes it possible for the user to browse around. It means that the user should be confronted with books he has not thought of before. He should be able to find books he likes, without specifically searching for a book. The type of navigation determines how the visitor can browse through the website. Different types of navigation were considered for the website. Appendix H shows some sketches that show ideas for navigation and layout of the website. Four of the examples for possible layouts for the new website will now be presented. Example 1 (Figure 8h) The home page of the website displays many book covers. Not all covers are visible at the first sight. Visitors of the website can browse through all the books by dragging over the map or by making use of the arrows. Interesting covers can

Over de schrijver

Recensies

Preview boek

Meer...

David van Breybrouck Congo Er is aan het begin van de eenentwintigste eeuw nauwelijks een roeriger natie dan Congo, het reusachtige land in het hart van Afrika, dat barst van de grondstoffen die onontbeerlijk zijn in onze moderne tijd – én van de gruwelijke conflicten. Hoe kon de vroegere, relatief rustige kolonie van België, sinds 1960 onafhankelijk, zo veranderen?

Fig. 8h - Example 1 - left: home page, right: pop up

David Van Reybrouck beschrijft voor het eerst de verbijsterende geschiedenis van Congo, van ruim voor de komst van de ontdekkingsreiziger Stanley tot en met de invloed van China in de laatste tien jaar en de recente economische crisis. Van 1885 tot 1908 werd het land bestierd door koning Leopold ii, die een fortuin verdiende met de exploitatie van rubber. De kolonisatie door België in de periode van 1908 tot 1960 zorgde voor industrialisatie en infrastructuur, maar werd ook gekenmerkt door paternalisme, zo niet betutteling. De onverhoedse overgang van kolonie naar onafhankelijke staat rond 1960 is een adembenemend verhaal vol idealisme en gekonkel. e-book

14,95

paperback

19,95


55

be clicked on and a pop up shows extra information about the book. Inspiration for this example comes from the application: Aweditorium (for iPad), that is discussed in chapter six (figure 6d). Developing an HTML5 version of the proposed website, that is suitable for tables, will contribute to the feeling of browsing. Swiping on a touchscreen works more intuitive than dragging or clicking arrows with a mouse cursor.

Fig. 8i - Example 2: home page

Example 2 (Figure 8i and 8j) In this example categories are introduced to the website. The user has to choose one of the nine categories (figure 8n), which all contain a fixed amount of books. This approach makes it very clear for both the customer and the content management of the website. Only a selection of the best, or most interesting books, can be found on the website. Every category has its own theme, which is illustrated with a full screen photo that is related to the theme as background photo. These photos can be the same photos that are used as background images in the Libris magazine. In this way, the house style of the magazine fits well with the style of the new website or app. Little cover images of books are spread over the category page (figure 8j - left) which all can be clicked to display a popup with information about the book (fig 8j - right). Example 3 (Figure 8k) Another way of browsing through books is presented in example 3. Images of book

56


de

SELECTIE van ANNA ENQUIST* klik hier voor eerdere selecties van...

DAAR KOMT EEN BOEK TOT LEVEN.

Fig. 8j - Example 2 - left: category page, right: pop up CHAPTER 8 - CONCEPTUALISATION

57

covers are displayed with some perspective to let them look three-dimensional. This layout brings some dynamics in the layout. Browsing through the books is very easy by using the left and right arrows. Inspiration for this example comes from various websites that use a similar principle for the display of television shows and dvd’s. Far less books can be displayed at once on the website in this example, compared to the other examples. Via a drop down menu other categories, with other books, can be found.

Fig. 8k - Example 3: browsing books

Example 4 (Figure 8l) A variation of the first example is presented in example 4. A background image of a bookstore is add to the website, to link the website with the physical bookstores of Libris. Also categories are add to the website to provide a more guided navigation. Navigation of the website can be done in two directions. Scrolling up and down is done inside category columns, to browse within the books of it. Clicking or dragging left and right will browse through all the categories. Many variations on the discussed examples were generated. Appendix I shows some images and descriptions of this design process. Concept choice Example 4 (figure 8l) is chosen as layout for the website to work with. It shows many book covers together, while overview and clarity still can be maintained. Example 2 and 3 are not chosen to be elaborated, because they make use of less book

58


Fig. 8l - Example 4


59

covers. Example 2 is also less clear to the user; the books are less well organized. Example 1 was not chosen, because the used navigation offers less possibilities than a categorized layout. It is difficult to describe exactly why the other examples were less good than example 4. In the end a designer’s intuitive was used to choose. Example 4 is an interesting and innovative layout and provides a similar feeling as the bookstore does; it overloads one with colourful books, but in a structured way. It looks a bit like bookshelves and book table displays in one.

8.4 PERSONALIZATION From the analysis phase appeared that many customers of bookstores do already know beforehand which genre of books they want to buy, although they do not know the specific book yet. And customers read (obvious) different type of books. From this information the idea raise that it would be interesting for customers to indicate the type of books that they like, in order to be able to offer them a range of books that they probably like. The third discussed element, personalization, makes it possible for the user to customize the webshop to its own taste. Adding categories The user of the webshop can register himself to be able to save information to his own account. When this user returns to the webshop, he can retrieve this information easily. The idea is that the user can add categories to his personal account. These categories are filled with 60


books that this user might like. The content of the categories are live feeds of the latest books that belong to the accompanying subject. To add a category, the user has to indicate his interests. The webshop can then automatically calculate the books that the user might like. Different types of information can be indicated for a category: • genre(s) • subject(s) • author(s) • books that were in the news • Facebook likes • Goodreads account • favourites Scenario As an example we can look to the (fictive) persona of Marja (figure 8m) and think of the categories she might like to add: Marja reads mostly Dutch literature. She can create a genre category that displays the latest published Dutch literature. Two of the authors she would love to follow are Tommy Wieringa and Peter Buwalda. She can add an author category that displays both books from Wieringa as from Buwalda. Further on, she reads the newspaper ‘de Volkskrant’. To have an overview of all the books that were reviewed in her newspaper she can add a category with books from the news. She can indicate that she only wants to see books that are reviewed by de Volkskrant. Marja is also joining a books club with friends. One of the possibilities is to manually set up a

MARJA, 55 JAAR “ZONDER BOEK SLAAP IK NIET.”

Part-time maatschappelijk werkster Moeder van Tim (23) en Masha (21) Getrouwd met Paul (59) LAATSTGELEZEN BOEKEN:

KRANT:

OVER MARJA:

Fig. 8m - Persona of Marja

Zit in een leesclub met vriendinnen Boekenkast is te klein voor al haar boeken Leest vooral Nederlandse literatuur Krijgt op haar verjaardag vooral boeken Wisselt graag boeken uit met vriendinnen


61

category. She can set a name for a new category and thereafter start adding books to it. In this way, she can add all the books that are read with the books club, or that they are planning to read. Subsequently, she can share this category with her books club friends. They are able add this category to their personal accounts. If Marja likes them to do so, her books club friends can edit the category as well. We can make a similar example of the (fictive) persona of Arthur (figure 8n): Arthur reads other type of books than Marja. He mainly likes to read non-fiction that might educate him something. Therefore, Arther can add a genre category of ‘management books’ and also one of ‘psychology’. Arthur is very familiar with online services. He is a member of a Goodreads and he also uses Facebook. An easy way for Arthur to add all books that he once had add to his Goodreads account, is to add a Goodreads category. Athur has to indicate his Goodreads user name and automatically all books will be loaded into a category. The same procedure goes for adding all Arthur’s Facebook likes to a category. Arthur is also a fan of young American writers. He can also indicate this as a category. Sorting and editing categories After categories are add to a user’s account, there will be options to sort and edit the categories.

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Possible sorting options for a category: • Alphabet • Publishing date • Price • Best ratings Options for editing a category: • Remove single books manually from a category • Remove a whole category • Change the category name • Remove books that appear in other categories as well Other options: • Share and search for other user’s categories • Make your Libris account public and view other public accounts • User’s recommendations (quotes and photos) Default settings The default settings of the webshop will be the display of content that is preselected by the Libris booksellers. If the user chooses to create a personal Libris account he can start managing his own content. To let hem get quickly familiar with the options of a personal account, and to prevent the user to start from scratch, it could be an option to make a default setting for personal accounts too. One of the ideas is to provide the option to choose the personal webshop of a well-known person (e.g. someone like Tom Lannoye or Eva Jinek) or from other users, that already have build a public book webshop account, as a start up for their own account.

ARTHUR, 29 JAAR “LEZEN IS VOOR MIJ ONTSPANNING EN JE LEERT ERVAN.”

Studeerde Technische Bedrijfskunde Junior adviseur bij KPMG Single LAATSTGELEZEN BOEKEN:

KRANT:

OVER ARTHUR:

Fig. 8n - Persona of Arthur

Vindt dat hij te weinig tijd heeft om te lezen Leest vooral non-fictie Besteld al zijn boeken via internet


63

8.5 OTHER Link with Libris branding The new website should fit into the total branding of Libris. Advertising agency Kesselskramer takes care of the message that is communicated through Libris. The slogan ‘boeken van vlees en bloed.’ (in English: ‘books of flesh and blood’) lead all Libris advertisement. Recently (October 2011) a new layout for the Libris magazine has been introduced and also radio commercials were broadcasted with the same message. The new Libris website will also have to contribute to this message. In the different examples, that are discussed in the paragraph ‘exploration’, already many experiments were done to let visual design elements of the Libris house style be incorporated.

Fig. 8o - Possible slogans for the new webshop

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Slogan - The slogan ‘Boeken van vlees en bloed’ could be integrated on the website. It is a very logical choice to do so. Another possible slogan, also created by Kesselskramer, is: ‘Daar komt een boek tot leven’ (in English: ‘Where a book comes alive’). This slogan is especially relevant, because the website is all about exploring books. All books have their own story that is worth to come alive. A third slogan that was thought of is ‘Dit is uw Libris boekhandel’. This slogan would refer to the personalization aspects of the website and to the local and personal character of Libris bookstores. Figure 8o displays the different slogans.

Category embedding There can be thought of many features for the new webshop. It will be a challenge not to over design the website by adding too many features. One of the features that were thought of that might be interesting for the website, is the possibility to embed books from the Libris website in other websites. This option is very much seen on the web. A wellknown example is YouTube. Everyone is able to copy the code for a YouTube movie (including some setting like size and borders) in order to place the movie on his own website (figure 8p). It would be a fun option to embed categories that were created at the Libris website into other websites (e.g. your own blog). Figure 8q shows an example of a school’s website where (at the left) a book category is embed, which shows books that are used on that school. Clicking on one of the books will link to the Libris webshop. Another idea is to build special plug-ins for blogs like Wordpress and Tumblr, and for Facebook. When users make use of these plugins, to show to others what books they like, they directly make promotion for Libris.

Fig. 8p - Embedding a YouTube movie

SCHOOLBOEKEN MAVO/HAVO 1

Fig. 8q - Embedding categories CHAPTER 8 - CONCEPTUALISATION

65

CHAPTER NINE CONCEPT EVALUATION Testing the concepts

Boekhandel Libris - Utrecht

The previous chapter presented an overview of possibilities for the website. A prototype was build that represents the results of the conceptualisation phase. Both the appearance and the usability of this prototype were tested. A questionnaire was set up and spread online among 98 respondents, to test the appearance of the design and to ask about some aspects of the website. A usability test was performed to test the interactive aspects of the design. Results of both analyses are presented in this chapter. Conclusions of these analyses contain recommendations for the final design of the website.

9.1 PROTOTYPE A prototype was build from the website, with all the concept choices taken into account. It is a clickable prototype that was tested both on its appearance and on its usability. This paragraph will show how the prototype looks and it reports on how users can interact with it. The clickable prototype (flash) can also be found on the CD-rom that belongs to this report.

Appearance Figure 9a are two screen shots of the prototype. They show how the home screen of the prototype looks and how the pop up looks that appears when a user clicks on a book. Appendix J shows more screen shots of the prototype.

Navigation Navigating the website can be done in several ways. Figure 9b shows in a wire frame how can be browsed between categories and between books. It shows also the two other possibilities that the user has: adding a category and finding more information about a book. Both actions will show a popup that provide the desired information.

Personalization Adding categories to the prototype can be done in three steps (figure 9c): 1) choosing the type of category 2) indicate a keyword by typing or choosing 3) preview the category and possibly edit it Fig. 9c - Adding a category in three steps CHAPTER 9 - CONCEPT EVALUATION

67

name / location Libris store of the photo. drop down menu to select other stores for the background photo.

title/author on mouse over

photo (blurred) of the Libris store, nearest located to ip-address

description of category

size of the visible part of the background photo varies per browser

click to see more categories

cover image of the book

general information blurb text

return to all the books by clicking somewhere outside the cover and text frames

go to previous book in column add to favourites add to a category

Display option to switch between ‘only books’ view and the current view.

order the book

go to next book in column

Fig. 9a - Screen shots of the clickable prototype

CATEGORY

CATEGORY

CATEGORY

CATEGORY

CATEGORY

CATEGORY

CATEGORY

+ ADD

Clicking on

add gives th is

Click to add more categories. Adjust the website to your preferences.

Horizontal drag to see more categories (if applicable)

Vertical scroll inside category column to see more books in that category.

BOOK TITLE / AUTHOR

All crossed squares represent pictures of book covers.

Fig. 9b - Wire frame that explains the navigation possibilities of prototype

Hover over a book cover shows its title and author.

po

opup:

Search for an author, a subject, title, Libris user or category. A new category will be generated based on your search results.

SEARCH BAR FILTERS Author

Subject

Category

Title

Libris user name

Dutch language

BOOK TITLE AUTHOR

SEARCH

PRICE

OR

ISBN

BLURB TEXT

Pick one of the featured categories.

CATEGORY A CATEGORY D CATEGORY G CATEGORY J

CATEGORY B CATEGORY E CATEGORY H CATEGORY K

CATEGORY C CATEGORY F CATEGORY I ...

BLURB TEXT BEST PASSAGE REVIEWS READERS REVIEW MEDIA

Clicking on a co ver displays th

is popup

Quickly add a book to your favourites. Or add the book to an existing category.

.................................................................. .................................................................. .................................................................. .................................................................. .................................................................. .................................................................. .................................................................. .................................................................. .................................................................. .......................

♥+

ADD TO ADD TO FAVORITES CATEGORY...

PREVIOUS BOOK

NEXT BOOK

Click to see the previous or next book from the category you are viewing.

9.2 QUESTIONNAIRE A screen shot of the home page of the prototype was used to test its appearance. This was done by spreading a questionnaire. The questionnaire was also used to ask some other information about aspects of the website.

Research questions The research questions of the questionnaire are formulated below: 1 What visual elements are important for an innovative website? 2 What visual elements are important in the context of discovering? 3 Are people appealed to my design compared to other websites of bookstores? And what are people’s first thoughts about my design? 4 What do people think of personalization of a book webshop? 5 What do people think of selection by book experts in a webshop? The first two questions are directly related to the goal of the new website. The new website has to emit an innovative feeling (the website at least has to stand out from other Dutch book webshops) as well as a feeling that books can be discovered. The question is if those feelings are also clear communicated from the visual design of the home page. The third question was proposed, to see if people are appealed to the design of the website, and, more important, what they think about it. The fourth and fifth questions are related to 72

CHAPTER 9 - CONCEPT EVALUATION

two of the three main elements of the website: personalization and selection by book experts. It is important to find out if there is a need for these elements.

Method Different types of questions were addressed in the questionnaire to answer the different research questions. The method that is used to test the appearance of the website for the first two research questions is comparison in pairs. Pictures of websites are shown to respondents in pairs. The respondent is asked to choose the one that he thinks belongs best to the given variable. All websites are compared to all websites once (although randomly distributed among the participants). Five websites were tested in the questionnaire. This makes 10 comparisons per respondent per question. In this way it is easy to make a ranking of the websites according to a certain design aspect. All house style elements, such as logos, names and slogans, were removed from the images. After the pair comparison sessions the respondents were asked if they knew to which webshop which image belongs (as an open question). This was done to see, to what extend, the familiarity of the respondents with a webshop could influence the results. The other questions of the questionnaire were asked through open questions and multiple choice questions. Appendix K shows the exact questionnaire as it was sent to the respondents.

Results and discussion The results of the questionnaire are presented per research question. Directly thereafter a discussion about those results will be given. All the results of the questionnaire can be found in appendix L. The first two questions (the pair comparisons) were answered by 98 respondents. The other questions were answered by 93 respondents.

1) MY DESIGN (88%)

1) MY DESIGN (86%)

2) BOL.COM (59%)

2) SELEXYZ.NL (59%)

1 Innovative - visual elements In the first sessions of pair comparisons, there was asked to choose for the website that looks most innovative. Every website occurred in 4 of the 10 comparisons. The amount of times that a website was chosen, was counted, and, from this counting, a ranking could be made. This ranking is visible in figure 9d. Clear is that the new design of the website (referred to as ‘my design’), far ahead, was ranked as the website that looks most innovative. Bol.com follows secondly, Libris and Selexyz almost equally on place three and four and Bruna was ranked as the website that looks the least innovative of the five.

3) LIBRIS.NL (38%)

Discussion The question is if there can be thought of reasons that would explain these results. For the ranking of most innovative website it can be argued that ‘my design’ has the least common used layout. A common layout for a website, a layout that is frequently used on the web, would be a layout with a top menu and a side menu and with content in the middle. Bol also makes use of this structure, but it makes use of ‘three-dimensional’ pictures

5) BRUNA.NL (28%)

4) SELEXYZ.NL (37%)

Fig. 9d - Which website appears most innovative to you?

3) BRUNA.NL (44%)

4) LIBRIS.NL (39%)

5) BOL.COM (22%)

Fig. 9e - Which website, do you think, makes it best possible to discover new books? CHAPTER 9 - CONCEPT EVALUATION

73

Vraag 6: Welke website spreekt u het meest aan?

Bruna My Design Libris Bol Selexyz Fig. 9f - Which website appealed most to you?

74


and animations. This might give the website an innovative look. Actually, it is very difficult to explain how the ranking took place exactly, but at least it is possible to say that ‘my design’ does stand out from the other websites. 2 Discovering - visual elements In the second session of the pair comparisons, there was asked to choose for the website that makes it best possible to discover books. Again ‘my design’ was ranked as the website that the most makes it best possible to discover books. The ranking of place two to five is different arranged than in the previous question. A difference is that Bol.com was ranked as the website that makes it the least best possible to discover books. (figure 9e) Discussion Again it would be interesting to found reasons, from the visual appearance of the websites, that explain how the ranking took place. In figure 9k the websites are again displayed with, at the right side of it, a description of the amount of book images and the amount of displayed categories. It looks that for the ranking of ‘book discovering’ the websites that show more books are ranked higher. The amount of visible categories could also contribute to this. This could explain why Bol was ranked last; there are no images of books and few categories visible at the home page. However, again, it is still very difficult to explain.

3 Appeal - first thoughts One of the question was “which website appeals most to you?”. As an answer to this question 74,2% of the respondents said that ‘my design’ appealed most to them. The website of Selexyz and Bol follow up with respectively 14,0% and 9,7%. This is, of course, a positive result for the design of the prototype. (figure 9f) Even more interesting is to see why people are appealed to the website. The respondents were asked to motivate their choice. As a result, many quotes about the design of the prototype were evoked. In figure 9g some interesting quotes (in Dutch) are displayed. More quotes can be find in appendix L. The quotes were also grouped and ranked. The grouping and ranking that has been found is displayed in figure 9h. Most of the quotes said something about a clear and good overview of books. Also the presence of many books/images, a nice layout and originality were mentioned quite a lot of the times. Other reasons that were mentioned are that the website is inspiring or can be browsed, there is little advertising and also the link with the traditional bookstore was mentioned. Discussion The quotes that were mentioned about the different websites are the most interesting to study. The participant was asked why he was appealed to the design that he has chosen. Apparently it was very important for the participants that the website contains many pictures and is very colourful, while a clear overview of books remains. The website was

“weinig tekst, lekker plaatjes kijken en geïnspireerd raken. weinig andere reclame en super korting acties om door afgeleid te raken.” “Het is denk ik net als winkelen in een echte boekenwinkel, kaften kijken en achterflappen lezen.”

Motivations ranking ‘My design’: inspire/discover/browsen: 14% little advertising: 16% link to bookstore: 14% originality/innovative: 29% nice layout/design: 33% clarity/overview: 40% many books/images/covers: 36%

Fig. 9h - Grouping and ranking of quotes about “My design”

“in één oogopslag te overzien” “Meest origineel; mooie layout, helder, plezierig om naar te kijken, heeft de informatie die je zoekt.” “Omdat hier te zien is waarvoor ik naar een online boeken winkel ga, boeken! Informatie over gratis bezorging of ingewikkelde lijsten aan de linker kant nodigen niet uit en ik zou niet weten in welke categorie ik dan ook zou moeten zoeken... B laat gelijk boeken zien, misschien niet degene die ik zoek, maar wel inspirerend om het boek te zoeken dat ik graag wil of naar op zoek ben.” Fig. 9g - A few quotes about “My design” CHAPTER 9 - CONCEPT EVALUATION

75

Personalization Een nieuwe website biedt de bezoeker de mogelijkheid om zijn/haar eigen online boekhandel te creeëren. De bezoeker kan zelf aangeven in welke auteurs, genres en onderwerpen hij/ zij is geïnteresseerd. Op basis van deze keuze wordt het assortiment van de website aangepast. De keuze van de gebruiker wordt door de website onthouden, zodat de gebruiker bij terugkomst naar de website direct kan zien welke boeken er binnen zijn interesses zijn bijgekomen.

Selection by book experts Een nieuwe website biedt de bezoeker een uniek samengesteld boeken assortiment aan. Het assortiment is samengesteld door 400 boekhandelaren die hun mooiste/beste boeken aanbevelen. De boeken zijn verdeeld over tien onderwerpen, die regelmatig worden vervangen met nieuwe onderwerpen en nieuwe aanbevolen boeken. Op deze manier kan de bezoeker gemakkelijk een keuze maken uit een kwalitatief goede selectie van boeken.

Zou u gebruik willen maken van deze website?

Zou u gebruik willen maken van deze website?

Ja 38% Misschien 49% Nee 13%

Ja 38% Misschien 42% Nee 20%

Argumentation: • Personalization is appreciated (58%) • Fear of overlooking other books (28%) • I do not buy books (12%) • I do not buy online / prefer the bookstore (10%) • Prefer new books (8%) • Prefer searching (8%) • Depends on quality of suggestions (8%)

Argumentation: • Quality of assortment is appreciated (33%) • May not match my taste (22%) • Can be inspiring, curiosity (14%) • Up to date overview (10%) • Fear commercial interests (9%) • Easy for buying presents (7%) • I do not buy books (7%) • Prefer searching (6%) • Depends on quality of suggestions (6%)

Fig. 9i - Scenario: personalization

Fig. 9j - Scenario: selection by book experts

also often described as original or innovative. Striking is that some of the participants literally mentioned that the website has a link with the traditional bookstore: browsing and exploring. This is exactly one of the main goals that the website should communicate. The fact that there was little advertising used in the website was also mentioned as positive. As a conclusion we could say that most participants are indeed appealed to the website and that no significant changes are necessary for the visual design. 4 Personalization In one of the questions, a scenario was explained to the respondents; this scenario describes a website that makes it possible for users to customize the website to their own taste and that this information can be saved to a personal account. (so that is one of the main elements of the prototype) After the scenario description the respondents were asked to indicate if they wanted to make use of this website and why. As a result 49% of the respondents say that they might use the website, 38% say that they would use the website and 13% say that they would not use the website. Reasons that are given for the answers are mainly mentioning that a form of personalization is appreciated (58%). 29% of the respondents mention that they would or might experience a certain fear of overlooking other books, that do not fit to the indication of their personal interests. Also the quality of suggestions is a few times mentioned as a requirement to use the website (8%). (figure 9i)

Discussion The majority of the participants answered that they appreciate a form of personalization. A negative mentioned aspect is that some of the participants fear that they might miss other books. The description of the website does indeed not mention that there are other possibilities than personalization of the website. Therefore, adding more content to the website (selection by book experts) will help to overcome this problem, and to make the website more complete. This is, of course, already part of the prototype. The majority of the people that answered that they would not make use of this website, gave as a motivation that they prefer searching for books, or that they do not order books online, or that they do not buy books at all. These last two arguments do indicate even more that people like a form of personalization, when they make use of a book webshop. Only a few times was mentioned that the quality of suggestion that would be done on the website would determine if a respondent would make use of it. This aspect will indeed be important for the new webshop. It is good to take this into account. 5 Selection by book experts In the last question another scenario was explained to the respondents; the scenario describes a website where booksellers recommend their best books, so that the website possesses a range of quality books. The respondents again were asked to say if they wanted to make use of this website and why. Results are comparable with the results of the last

question, although slightly less respondents said that they might use (42%), or would use (38%) the website. 44% of the respondents say that they appreciate the good quality range of books. 22% say that the recommendations of a bookseller might not match their taste. Another interesting mentioned reason is that some respondents say that they fear recommendations that are influenced by commercial interests (9%). (figure 9j) Discussion Selection by booksellers is appreciated by the greater majority of the respondents. A few mention that they are not sure if they would have the same taste as the bookseller does. This indicates again that a combination of personalization and selection by booksellers would perfectly go together in a webshop. The fact that some participants may fear that the recommendations of the booksellers are influenced by commercial interests, should be taken into account in the design of the webshop, if possible. Other To conclude, some aspects will be discussed that might have influenced the answers of the respondents: The distribution of age and gender was not completely equal over all the respondents. The distribution men/women was around 40%/60%. 50% of the participants were in the age category of 18-25 years, 12% in the category 26-34 years, 10% in the category 35-50 years, 24% in the category 51-65 years and 4% was 65+. Especially the age

IMAGES OF BOOKS: HIGH VISIBLE CATEGORIES: LOW

IMAGES OF BOOKS: LOW VISIBLE CATEGORIES: HIGH

IMAGES OF BOOKS: LOW VISIBLE CATEGORIES: HIGH

IMAGES OF BOOKS: LOW VISIBLE CATEGORIES: MEDIUM

IMAGES OF BOOKS: NONE VISIBLE CATEGORIES: LOW

Fig. 9k - Visual elements on the website


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Van welke boekhandel denkt u dat deze website is? Bol

91 out of 98 (92.9%) said Bol

Selexyz

38 out of 98 (38.8%) said Selexyz

Bruna

25 out of 98 (25.5%) said Bruna

My Design 6 out of 98 (6.1%) said Heike Libris

6 out of 98 (6.1%) said Libris

Fig. 9l - Recognition numbers of the websites

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distributions, might have influenced the results. It could be that younger people value websites from another perspective than older people. The participants were also asked to indicate the name of the webshops that belongs to the images of the websites. It appeared, although all house style elements were removed, that many people knew the website of Bol (93%). About 39% also recognized Selexyz, and about 26% recognized Bruna. Libris and ‘my design’ were also a few times recognized. (figure 9) This last also indicates that not all the participants could be completely objective in the questionnaire. For some reason they assumed that ‘my design’ was the website that was going to be tested. Therefore, the most interesting aspects of this questionnaire are the quotes that are collected about the design of the website. Many can be learned from that. The last thing that needs to be mentioned is that testing a website from purely one image of the home page cannot be enough to completely judge a website. A form of interactivity with the website is also needed. However, this was difficult to capture in a questionnaire. Yet, the interactivtity of the website will be tested in the usability testing paragraph of this chapter (9.4).

Conclusions Several conclusions can be drawn from the results of the questionnaire: • The layout of the design does stand out from other websites, since it was ranked both the highest for ‘most innovative website’ and for website ‘that makes it best possible to discover books’. It also stands out, because almost three-quarters of the respondents said that they were most appealed to the design compared to the four other websites. • Colour richness and amount of displayed book covers play an important role for the website to stand out. • Display of book covers is highly valued • Link with physical bookstore and discovering books is recognized. This, together with the before-mentioned conclusions, indicates that the layout of the design of the current prototype does not need to be redesigned or adapted. • Personalization and recommendations by booksellers both are interesting features for the consumer to explore. Implementing both features overcomes the possible problem that user would have the fear of overlooking interesting books. • Low quality of personal suggestions and fear of commercial interests are aspects that should be taken into account, in order to avoid them as far as possible in the final design.

9.3 USABILITY TESTING The next question that should be answered is: “is the usability of the website good?” A usability test was set up to test the interactivity of the website. The prototype was used to let 5 students perform a cognitive walkthrough with the clickable prototype on a laptop. The students are considered to be expert evaluators: They all are very book-minded (they study: book and digital media studies at Leiden University) and they all use book webshops to order books on a regular base.

Method The participants were asked to perform several tasks with the prototype. They had to: • Explain the interaction possibilities from the home screen • Try to browse books and categories • Try the icons on the background of the website. • View information about a book • Add a category While performing the tasks, the participants were asked to think aloud. After each task, shortly was discussed what the participants thought of it, and if parts of the website could be improved. In general was asked to provide as many comments as possible. Comments could be made about every aspect of the website: visuals, content, interactivity, everything. Also was asked to imagine if a typical user (who e.g. is less internet-savy) would also

understand how the website works. Not all buttons were active in the prototype. The participants were asked to take that into account. Whenever a participant made a ‘mistake’, by clicking on a button that did not work, this was mentioned. The participants were in that case asked to tell what they expected the button to do.

Results During the test, the voice of the participants and the screen of the laptop were recorded. These recordings can be found on the CD-rom that belongs to this report. In appendix M notations per participant were made and appendix N shows the most important comments in relation to the corresponding part of the prototype. From now on the most important results will be discussed. Home page How to browse between books and categories was clear to all participants. They also noted all the interaction possibilities (all the buttons and things that could be clicked) from the home screen. Minor things in the home page that could be improved: • It could be tried to make the typography of the category names better readable in order to make the them, and thus the structure of the website, more stand out. • It could be better communicated that the books are recommended by booksellers. Options to make this more visible are to add categories that explicit say “recommended by our booksellers” and to make an about page CHAPTER X 9 - CONCEPT EVALUATION

79

that describes how the content of the site is organized. The question, however, is to decide whether it is necessary to communicate this message to the consumer more extensively. Icon ‘only books’ The icon that made it possible to toggle between two views was not directly understood (figure 9m: 1). However, this may not be that bad, because the users were willing to try the option. They would immediately see how it works when they would try it. Since it is also a minor option, redesign of this icon is not necessary. Bookstore menu The other icon located at the background of the website, the bookstore menu, is not considered to be very interesting (figure 9m: 2). Participants of the usability test liked the idea of it (that they can select their own Libris store as background photo), but it was no essential feature to them. Therefore, it is better to remove the option to choose your own bookstore. Instead, the background photo will change periodically, for example every week. This provides the possibility to use the background photo to display various Libris bookstores, but also to show photos related to themes such as the week of the book and other. Pop up The layout of the popup was considered to be very clear and well designed. No adjustments regarding the layout are necessary to make. An interesting option, however, is to use input from other websites to keep user reviewing up to 80


date. Using reviews from a website like Goodreads is more likely to solve the problem that some books are not reviewed at all by users. Add a category The pop up of adding a new category probably needs to be changed most drastically, because most comments and suggestions were made about this part of the website. A login option was absent in the prototype. Adding this login option at the first step of the ádd a category´ function would be a good option. A good option for the login page would be to log in with a Facebook account in addition to the option to log in with a Libris account. It would be even better if the name ádd a category´ will be changed to ´my bookshelves´ (mijn boekenkast) (figure 9m: 3). This would make a clear distinction between the personalized part of the website and the ‘selection by booksellers’ part of the website. The button would not give a popup to add a category, but instead, it would show all the categories that once were add by the user (after login). So, the website will be refreshed to a new page. From this page it will then be possible to add categories. A few suggestions were done to change the steps in ‘add a category’. Mentioned was to first start with giving the category a name. Adding books to a category should also be done more manually. The user should be better equipped to have more control over the content. Although these suggestions were done, they will not be taken into account in adjusting the design. The goal of the website is to

explore books. Therefore, adding categories should still be done based on a variable that generates a live feed of books for a certain category. However, an extra option, to add a category manually (adding books separately), can be included in the redesign. It is actually already possible to add books manually to a certain category via the popup of a book.

1

2

Design implications In this last paragraph, aspects of the website are listed that should be redesigned. The results of redesign of the website will follow up in the next chapter (10). • • • • • •

• •

Experiment with the typeface of the category names to let it more stand out Add an about page to the website Remove the bookstore drop down menu Use user reviews from Goodreads in the website Change ‘add a category’ to ‘go to my bookshelves’. Refresh to a new page, when clicking on ‘my bookshelves’, instead of adding categories to the home page Provide a Facebook login option Provide the option to build up a category manually

3 Fig. 9m - Home page of the prototype


81

CHAPTER TEN FINAL DESIGN Presenting the final design

This chapter presents the final design of the website through images complemented with explanation in words. The aspects of the website that have been changed, due to the formulated design implications in chapter nine are explicitly named. Just like in chapter eight (conceptualisation) the presentation of the website is divided among the three topics: exploration, selection by book experts and personalization (figure 8a). The design implications did have no influence on these main elements.

10.1 EXPLORATION Home page Figure 10a shows the home page of the webshop. The visual appearance of the book webshop has similarities with the arrangement of books in traditional bookshops. The book covers play an important role and the book covers are arranged like books are arranged on table displays, just like in traditional bookstores. The design is colourful and visual rich, although overview and clarity remain. Browsing Browsing through the books can be done by scrolling inside a category column. Viewing more websites can be done by dragging the columns horizontally (figure 10b), or by clicking the red arrow at the right upper corner (figure 10a).

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CHAPTER 10 - FINAL DESIGN

Hover The roll over of the mouse pointer on a book cover reveals the title and author of the corresponding book. The other books in the same category, are darkened by a black and half transparent overlay. This makes the orientation of the categories easy visible. A red arrow at the bottom of the column also becomes visible to indicate that the user can scroll down. Background photo The photo on the background of the website is one of the Libris bookstores. In the upper left corner of the website, the name of the corresponding bookstore is displayed. This text is also a hyper link to the ‘shadow’ website of that Libris bookstore. Change with prototype: The drop down menu, that made it possible to choose between background photos from all the Libris bookstores, has been

Fig. 10a - Home Page


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CATEGORY

CATEGORY

CATEGORY

CATEGORY

CATEGORY

CATEGORY

CATEGORY

Horizontal drag to see more categories (if applicable)

Scroll vertically to see more books in a category Fig. 10b - Browsing

CATEGORY

removed. Instead, the background photo of the website will change temporarily. Every week another bookstore will be used for a background photo, to show the users of the website the various appearances of all the Libris stores. It will make it also possible to adjust the background photo to a certain theme. For example, in ‘the week of the books’, the photo can be related to the theme of that week. This helps to let the website look very up to date.

white is red). This is done to let the logo be more outstanding and recognizable. Change with prototype: The logo and the slogan together are a hyper link to the about page of the website. In this about page will be explained how the website is constructed and how booksellers are involved. This page is add to the website to let the user of the website be more aware of the fact that real booksellers select the content for the website.

Zoom The icon in the upper hand right corner of the website lets the user toggle between two viewing modes: a view with ‘only books’ and the view in figure 10a. The view with only books is especially convenient for tablet users (figure 10c).

When the user clicks on a book cover, a pop up of the book will appear. This pop up provides various information about the book: • General information like the price and number of pages • The blurb text (descriptive text about the book) (figure 10d) • Parts from the book to read: a striking quote selected by a Libris bookseller and the first pages of the book • Reviews: from users (figure 10e) and from wellknown newspapers, magazines and blogs • Information about the author: its biography and bibliography • Media: all sorts of movies that are related to the book (book trailers, interviews, etcetera) (figure 10f)

Typeface Change with prototype: The font that has been used for the heading texts in the website is the same font that has been used in the magazine and slogan of Libris. In the prototype another font was used. It appeared from the usability test that the headings of the categories could be more outstanding. A slightly bigger space between the letters is used to make the heading more easy to read. Logo and slogan The slogan ‘dit is uw Libris boekhandel’ has been chosen for the website. It refers to the personal and regional character of Libris, as well to the personalization possibilities of the website. The Libris logo used on the website is a reversed version of the original Libris logo (red is white, and 84


Pop up

Change with prototype: user reviews are loaded in the website from the website Goodreads. Goodreads already has a database with a lot of user reviews, so the user review area in the website will not be empty from the start. This suggestion was done in the usability test. (figure 10e)

Fig. 10c - Zoom to ‘only books’


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Fig. 10d - Pop up, blurb text

Add to favourites/category There are two options present on the pop up, that enable the user to save the book that he is viewing. The user is able to save the book as a favourite or to add it to an existing category. When the user adds 86


the book to a category, he will be asked to which category he likes to add the book. This implies that the user already has defined some categories to his personal account. If he has not, there is also the option to quickly name a new category, after which

Fig. 10e - Pop up, user reviews

the book can be add. The user can find all the add books back through the button ‘mijn Libris boekenkast’.

Next book / previous book These buttons allow the user to quickly view the next or previous book in that category.


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Fig. 10f - Pop up, media

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10.2 SELECTION BY BOOK EXPERTS Categorization Editor and book committee An editor will be responsible for the content management of the website. Together with a book committee of 5 booksellers he determines three times per year when which categories will appear on the website. They think of names for the categories and the editor will be responsible for the final text that will be shown on the website when a user hovers over a category name (figure 10g). The categories that they think of will have alternative names than the existing NUR codes. The categories are interesting and appealing for consumers. Category management The categories ‘literature’ (Literatuur van nu), ‘thrillers’ (Durf te lezen) and ‘books in the media’ (Radio, tv en in de krant) are such important for bookstores that they will be always visible on the website. However, the content of these categories do actually change like all other categories do. Figure 10h shows how categories are displayed on the website. The three most important categories, that are mentioned just before, will always be located at the left side of the website. Every week a new category will enter the website at column four. All the categories, except for the first three, move one column to the left of the website. The history of all the add categories stays visible for a year. After a year these categories are removed from the website.

Title supply Title management Every week a new category of ten titles will be add to the website. This means that in one year 520 titles need to be recommended by 100 entrepreneurs per year. That is: 5,2 titles per entrepreneur per year. Because the content on the website should be up to date, a planning should be made, in order to receive a constant stream of recommended books. It will be sufficient when every two weeks 8 entrepreneurs provide Libris with 3 book titles. In this way, every entrepreneur has to recommend two times a year three book titles. On average has a Libris entrepreneur three employees with whom he can share these recommending commitments. Bookseller’s input Every Libris entrepreneur receives two times a year a request from Libris to recommend three books for a certain category. Via his smart phone he has to answer to this request by: • Providing the EAN numbers of the three books he wishes to recommend • Making photos of interesting quotes from the three chosen books. The quotes will be used in the pop up on the website. Users of the website can, in this way, read an interesting passage of the book.

Fig. 10g - Category text on hover


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Visible categories

History of categories

Every week one old category is removed from the right There are three fixed categories Every week one new category is add to the website

10.1 PERSONALIZATION Fig. 10h - A part of the categories is immediately visible on the website. The history of earlier categories can be viewed. The oldest categories are removed from the website when new categories are add.

Mijn Libris Boekenkast Login Users can personalize the webshop to their own taste via the button: “Mijn Libris Boekenkast”. The first action that they have to perform is to login with their Facebook account or with their Libris profile. (figure 10i) Change with prototype: there was no Libris log in feature and Facebook log in feature in the prototype. My Libris Bookshelves Subsequently, the user will enter his own Libris bookshelves. The first time that a user has logged in, he will see an empty bookshelves (figure 10j). The first column is reserved for a wish list of books. Books can be add to this column from the pop up (figure 10d).

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Change with prototype: In the prototype the user was able to add personal categories to the website. However, these categories would appear between the categories of the ‘home page’ that were created by the Libris booksellers. This way of organizing personal categories can be confusing for the users. From the usability test it appeared that a separate area for personal categories would be much clear.

Add categories The user can add categories of his interest in the different columns of his personal bookshelves. He has to perform three actions: Step 1 He has to choose the type of category he likes to add from a menu (figure 10k). The user can add for example a category based on the books from his favourite author. This category will then show a live feed of the latest books that have been published by that author. The can do the same for other type of categories:

Geen profiel? Registreer hier

Fig. 10i - Login


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•

Genre/subject: a live feed of the latest books from the same genre/subject. E.g.: history. • Radio, television, newspapers: live feed of the latest books that have been reviewed in, for example, De Volkskrant. • Facebook-likes: Live stream of all the books that are liked on a specified Facebook account • Goodread: Live stream from books that are saved to a user account of Goodreads. Change with prototype: The user can now also choose to completely manually create a category. This category will not be a live feed, because books will be add by the user separately. Fig. 10j - Empty bookshelves

Fig. 10j - Empty ‘Mijn Libris Boekenkast’

Step 2 In the second step the user has to specify the content for the category. In the case of a category based on an author, the user has to indicate by search, or by choosing from the featured authors list, which author he likes to see books from. (figure 10l) Step 3 Step three provides an overview of all the choices that the user has made. The user is able to edit his choices from this page if he wants to. He can, for example, add another author to the category column. He can also change the name that was automatically generated for the category. When the user confirms his choices, the example category that is shown at the right side of the pop up, will be add to his bookshelves, in one of the columns. (figure 10m)

Fig. 10k - Step 1

Other ways to add categories There are other ways to add categories to a user’s personal account. The user can, for example, add a category directly from the home page of the website. When the cursor moves over a category name, and a description of it appears as a drop down menu, also the option to add it is a category becomes visible (figure 10.g). From the pop up of a book it is also possible to add a category from the bibliography of an author. Books can also be add separately from this pop up: to the wish list or to a manually add category.

Scenario In paragraph 8.4 the personalization element of the website was explained in a scenario with the fictive persona of Marja. In figure 10n an example is given for how the personal bookshelves of Marja can look like. Marja has entered different types of categories to her account, like categories based on authors, newspapers and genres. Every time when Marja returns to her ‘ Libris Boekenkast’ she can see in one overview if new titles have entered her personal bookshelves.

Fig. 10l - Step 2

10.4 PRESENTATION MOVIE A presentation movie was created to explain the total concept of the new Libris website as a whole, instead of explaining different screen shots of it. The movie can be found on the internet via: http://www.heikefaber.nl/libris.html Fig. 10m - Step 3

MARJA, 55 JAAR “ZONDER BOEK SLAAP IK NIET.”

Part-time maatschappelijk werkster Moeder van Tim (23) en Masha (21) Getrouwd met Paul (59) LAATSTGELEZEN BOEKEN:

KRANT:

OVER MARJA:

Fig. 8m - Persona of Marja (paragraph 8.4)

Zit in een leesclub met vriendinnen Boekenkast is te klein voor al haar boeken Leest vooral Nederlandse literatuur Krijgt op haar verjaardag vooral boeken Wisselt graag boeken uit met vriendinnen

Fig. 10n - Example personalized bookshelves of Marja (paragraph 8.4)


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CHAPTER ELEVEN CONCLUSIONS & RECOMMENDATIONS What has been reached and what is next?

Boekhandel Quist - Bergen op Zoom

This is the last chapter of this graduation report. In this chapter a retrospect will be made about the achievements of the complete project. Also a look to the future is provided. Some aspects that are important to take into account for the implementation of the webshop are discussed, together with some recommendations for further (design) research.

11.1 CONCLUSIONS The formulated assignment for this graduation project was to “create an online experience that is similar to, or even better than, the experience of exploring books in a bookstore”. After some design research more goals and boundaries were formulated in chapter seven (Design Goals). This paragraph will reflected upon them. The website stands out One of the most important goals was that the webshop has to stand out from other Dutch book webshops. It can be concluded the final design of webshop indeed does stand out, because it stands out on several aspects: • The website is focused on browsing books, instead of searching books, which is not present on the web right now. • The visual design of the website is (the colourful display of many book covers in one view) stands out from other book webshops. This was confirmed by the questionnaire. • The range of books presented on the website is a unique assortment, because 400 Libris booksellers select good books. Using the knowledge of booksellers in a webshop is unique and is a concept that cannot easily be copied. • Categorization of books is realized through co-creation of booksellers instead of the application of the NUR coding system. Alternative category names are also applied. • The way personalization is applied in the designed website is not used by other book

webshops. The new webshop offers the possibility to create a whole personalized book webshop. Other book webshops do offer features that can save book wish lists, or that recommend books, but that they do not offer live book feeds based on users’ preferences. User experience is inviting to explore books A few of the formulated goals were related to the user experience of the website, which should be inviting for the user to explore books and stimulate to return to the website. From both the questionnaire and the usability test it appeared that consumers are interested in the website and that they are curious to try the website. The website was seen as a website that makes it best possible to discover new books, compared to other book webshops. So, it can be said that these goals are, for the greater part, realized. Final implementation of the website will show if the user experience indeed is inviting enough for users to return to the website. The quality of the content of the website can determine if a user is prepared to return. Brand identity The website has to communicate the brand identity of Libris. This is realized because visual elements of the Libris house style were incorporated in the design. From the questionnaire it appeared that users linked the visual appearance of the website to the visual appearance of traditional bookstores. This proves that also the message of a cross channel strategy is sent to the consumer.

CHAPTER 11 - CONCLUSIONS & RECOMMENDATIONS

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Investment One of the boundaries of the project was that the investment for the development of the website cannot be too large. A number could not be attached to this boundary and it is therefore difficult to reflect on this boundary. However, what can be said, is that the costs for the development of the website were limited as far as possible. The final product of this graduation project is a very detailed version of a webshop. The larger part of the visuals have been created and also the navigating structure was elaborated in detail. This means that the only costs left, that are necessary to implement the website, are the costs for the programming of the website, and the costs necessary to manage the website’s content. The effort that is needed to realize the content management was also limited as far as possible.

invite people to browse around between all the books. Hopefully users will be more triggered to buy books on the new website, then that they would be before. This can also only be proven once the website will be operating live for a while.

Bookseller’s input Content management will probably be the greatest challenge of the new website. It will be extremely important that booksellers are willing to recommend books and that they keep being motivated to do so. It cannot be said in this conclusion if it will be difficult to manage the content of the website. To know this, the website should be implemented for a while. What can be said is that the Libris entrepreneurs do have to give an input of three book titles, twice a year. This seems to be a reasonable amount.

Publish as public BETA and satellite website The final product of this graduation assignment is ready to be built. However, designs are never finished and can always be improved. The main recommendation for this project is: build the website and publish it as a beta version. This will offer the possibility to test and to explore the functioning of the website, while there is a certain permission to make mistakes. Consumers that are curious to the website can try it, and Libris can learn from them. If certain aspects of the website are not yet good enough, updates can be released before the official launch of the website. It is also recommended that the new website will exist next to the current webshop of Libris, as a satellite website.

Impulse purchase One of the goals for Libris is that the website will elicit online impulse purchases. The website will 98

CHAPTER 11 - CONCLUSIONS & RECOMMENDATIONS

11.2 RECOMMENDATIONS Libris is very interested in the webshop that has been designed in this project. It is now looking for possibilities to actually implement the design. The goal is to have a pilot version of the website online within a few months. In this recommendations paragraph, recommendations will be done for the implementation phase of the website and for those aspects of the website that might need further design research.

Market the website A great new Libris website is not much worth when people cannot find it. Another recommendation is to explore ways to attract users to the website. Libris has to communicate to the consumer that the new website is unique, because the assortment is selected by real booksellers, users can completely personalize their own bookshop and users can explore books in a very attractive way. Experiment with photos of hand held books One of the ideas presented in the conceptualisation phase (chapter 8) was to display a photo of the book instead of an image of the cover. The idea was that this shows that real booksellers are involved in the website and that it strengthens the personal character of Libris. A photo of a book also provides some more information about it; like the size, thickness and colourfulness of the book. This is especially the case when the book is photographed together with a person. There was chosen not to use this idea in the final design of the website, because it is difficult to guarantee a good quality photos when booksellers have to produce these photos themselves. However, the idea to use these photos in some way on the website, can still be very interesting. One should experiment with different possibilities in order to find an appropriate solution.

usability test that this message was not clearly communicated. Ways to inform the user about this should be explored some more. A well written ‘about page’ will be necessary for the website. It will also be a good idea to add little information texts to several parts of the website. A little ‘i’ can, for example, be add on top of the category names. Clicking on this ‘i’ will show information on how the content of this category was composed. Content management Booksellers should be kept motivated to create content for the website. To do so, a kind of rewarding will help to do so. A reward can be set, for example, for the bookseller that is the best book recommender. This can be measured through the amount of books that has been sold or viewed via the website. The bookseller that has proved to be the best book recommender will be rewarded with a price (for example at the yearly Libris ‘inspiration day’ for Libris booksellers). It would be great if a kind of competition would occur. This will stimulate booksellers to invest some time in the recommendation of books. Paying the booksellers to give input, or to give them a contribution discount, will also stimulate book recommending. It is recommend to explore these and other possibilities to reward the booksellers.

Communicate the bookseller’s involvement Besides displaying photos from booksellers that hold books, other ideas can be thought of to show that real booksellers have recommend the book titles on the website. It appeared from the CHAPTER 11 - CONCLUSIONS & RECOMMENDATIONS

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SOURCES ABN AMRO, CBW-Mitex (2011) Retail rapport, cross channel retail - de toekomst 2015 Boek en Bedrijf (2010) Rapportage onderzoek winkelautomatisering in de boekhandel, Adviesrapport COCD (2011) Handige trendkaarten, via http://www.cocd.org/ nl/node/943, last accessed 13 October 2011 Engel, J.F., Kollat, D.T., Blackwell, R.D. (1982) EKB-model, Consumer Behavior (4th ed.). Holt, Rinehart & Winston. New York. GfK Retail and Technology Benelux (2011a): Themameting e-boeken en e-readers, Stichting Marktonderzoek Boekenvak, Intomart GfK GfK Retail and Technology Benelux (2011b) Maandrapportage bookpanel - December 2011 Hoofdbedrijfschap Detailhandel (HBD), Q&A Research & Consultancy (2010) Films, Foto’s, Muziek en Boeken “Bij wie is de speciaalzaak nu en in de toekomst nog in beeld?”,

Stichting Marktonderzoek Boekenvak (SMB), Intomart GfK Retail and Technology (2010) meting 14, juli 2010 Stichting Marktonderzoek Boekenvak (SMB), Intomart GfK Retail and Technology (2009) meting juli 2009 Twinkle (2012) Selexyz gered door anonieme strategische partner, via: http://www.twinklemagazine.nl/nieuws/2012/01/ selexyz-gered-door-anonieme-strategische-partner/, last accessed on 13 January 2012 Verhagen, T., van Dolen, W. (2011) The influence of online store beliefs on consumer online impulse buying: A model and empirical application, Information & Management 48 (2011) 320–327

IMAGE REFERENCES Cover

Laing, A. (2008) Bookselling culture and consumer behaviour: marketing strategies and responses in traditional and online environments, The Robert Gordon University, retrieved 21 April 2011 from: http://openair.rgu.ac.uk.

Report

Images retrieved from http://www.libris.nl

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Heike Faber

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Headlines from various newspapers Heike Faber

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Libris - Van der Velde, Groningen

Mintel (2007) Books [online], London: Mintel International Group Limited. via: http://www.reports.mintel.com, last accessed on 25 February 2012

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Libris - Van de Ven, Soest

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Fig. 2a - Heike Faber

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Fig. 2b-2c - Libris

Molenaar, C. (2011) - Het einde van winkels, Sdu Uitgevers

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Fig. 2d - http://www.kobobooks.nl

Nu.nl (2012) Bruna profiteert van uitstervende boekhandel, via http://www.nu.nl/boek/2714572/bruna-profiteert-vanuitstervende-boekhandel.html, last accessed on 13 January 2012

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Fig. 2e - source: SMB/GfK

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Fig. 2f - source: Locatus

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Fig. 2g -

Rabobank (2011) eVisie (iPad app)

SOURCES

Sociaal Cultureel Planbureau (SCP) (2006) Tijdsbesteding, via www.tijdsbesteding.nl, last accessed on 25 February 2012

Kok (2012) De toekomst van Selexyz, Boekblad, via http:// www.boekblad.nl/de-toekomst-van-selexyz.182873.lynkx, last accessed on 21 January 2012

Locatus (2012) via http://hbd.nl/pages/13/Branches/ Boekhandel.html, accessed on 25 February 2012

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Sociaal Cultureel Planbureau (SCP) (2005) De boekenlezer is een vrouw, via http://www.scp.nl/content. jsp?objectid=default:24694, last accessed on 25 February 2012

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Fig. 2h - SCP (TBO), http://www. tijdsbesteding.nl (18 okt 2006)

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Fig. 2i-2k, 3a-3c - Heike Faber

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Libris - Boekhandel Burgum, Burgum

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Libris - Boekhandel Den Boer, Baarn

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De Volkskrant and Libris - Boekhandel Burgum, Burgum

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Fig. 5a - SCP (TBO) www.tijdsbesteding. nl 18 okt 2006 and 5b - Laing, A. (2008) Bookselling culture and consumer behaviour: marketing strategies and responses in traditional and online environments, The Robert Gordon University

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Fig. 6a - HBD 2010

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Fig. 6b - http://www.libris.nl

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Fig. 6c - http://www.bol.com, http://www. bruna.nl, http://www.selexyz.nl, http:// www.youbedo.nl

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Fig. 6d - rtlXL (for iPad), Google Earth (for iPad), Flipboard (for iPad), Safari bookmarks, Windows tab screen feature, Windows explorer, iTunes DVD rent, Aweditorium (for iPad)

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Fig. 9a-9c - Heike Faber

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Fig. 9d-9e - Heike Faber, http://www.bol. com, http://www.bruna.nl, http://www. selexyz.nl, http://www.libris.nl

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Fig. 9f-9j - Heike Faber

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Fig. 9k - Heike Faber, http://www.bol.com, http://www.bruna.nl, http://www.selexyz. nl, http://www.libris.nl

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Fig. 9l - Heike Faber

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Fig. 10a-10n Heike Faber

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Libris - Boekhandel Quist, Bergen op Zoom

Appendices Appendix A

Libris - De Roij & Boschman Boeken, Helmond - Island Bookstore, Amsterdam - Boekhandel Quist, Bergen op Zoom - Boekhandel van de Ven, Soest Boekhandel Haasbeek, Zoetermeer - Boomker Boeken, Haren - Boekhandel Marinus van Kralingen, Breukelen - VU Boekhandel, Amsterdam

Appendix B

Heike Faber

Appendix D

Saskia Wyers, Maarten Geraets, Heike Faber

Appendix F

http://www.flipboard.com, http://feedly. com/home#essentials/en-US, http://www. chromeexperiments.com/detail/webglbookcase, http://market.android.com/ details?id=com.google.android.apps. currents&hl=en, http://www.22tracks.nl, http://www.ted.com, http://www.zite.com, http://www.pulse.me

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Fig. 6e - http://www.goodreads.com

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Fig. 6f - Laing, A. (2008) Bookselling culture and consumer behaviour: marketing strategies and responses in traditional and online environments, The Robert Gordon University

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Libris - Boekhandel vanden Ven, Soest

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Fig. 8a-8c - Heike Faber

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Fig. 8d - http://www.facebook.com/media/ set/?set=a.435067399443.235060.60094 9443&type=3

Appendix H

Heike Faber

Appendix I

Heike Faber

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Evernote (for iPad)

Appendix J

Heike Faber

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Fig. 8e-8l - Heike Faber

Appendix K

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Fig. 8m-8n - http://www.exactitudes.com

http://www.netq.nl, http://libris.nl, http:// www.bol.com, http://www.bruna.nl, http:// www.selexyz.nl, Heike Faber

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Fig. 8p - http://www.youtube.com

Appendix L

Heike Faber

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Fig. 8q - http://www.niftarlake.nl and Heike Faber SOURCES

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS At the end of this report I would like to thank a few people that helped me during this graduation project. So first, I would like to thank Mies for her great support in improving my English text writing skills. I also would like to thank Elsbeth for having various very interesting discussions on graphic design of websites. It inspired me to keep on improving my designs time after time. Furthermore, I would like to thank my teachers Frans van Mourik and Henri Christiaans for supervisioning this project. I enjoyed the meetings and the interesting discussions we had about retail and books. I am also very thankful for their flexible attitude towards changes in my original graduation subject. At last, I would like to express my gratitude to Jan van Schoot and to Libris for giving me the opportunity to completely independently think of new concepts for Libris and for the possibility to present all my ideas. The enthusiasm that I received after many presentations highly motivated me during the whole design process. I am also glad that I got the opportunity to have a look in the interesting field of book selling, in these, for booksellers, interesting times.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

APPENDICES

A Libris bookstores B SWOT analysis C Other design directions D Other ideas E Consumer’s quotes on traditional and online shopping F Digital exploring G Translating bookstore elements H Sketches I Conceptualisation J Testing appearance and categories K Results testing appearance M Results usability test

APPENDICES

3

APPENDIX A LIBRIS BOOKSTORES This appendix provides some photos of a few of the current Libris bookstores. At this moment there are around 100 bookstores affiliated to Libris.

Island Bookstore - Amsterdam

De Roij & Boschman Boeken - Helmond

4

APPENDIX A

Boekhandel Quist - Bergen op Zoom

Boekhandel Van de Ven - Soest

Boekhandel Haasbeek - Zoetermeer

Boomker Boeken - Haren

VU Boekhandel - Amsterdam

Boekhandel Marinus van Kralingen - Breukelen

APPENDIX A

5

APPENDIX B SWOT ANALYSIS In the second chapter of this report already some information is given on Libris as a company and on its competitors. This information helps to formulate the different strengths and weaknesses of Libris. Besides analysing the existing situation we have to look to future developments in the market. Different kinds of trends give inspiration for different kinds of innovation for Libris. In this paragraph the current situation and future developments are mapped to create different design directions.

Strengths and weaknesses Different aspects of Libris have been mapped into a bar chart. Values from one to four are given on how good Libris is on each aspect. The same thing is done for the main (online) competitor of Libris, Bol.com. Both are implemented into the same chart to give insight in relative strengths and weaknesses of the companies. Bol.com is chosen as a reference point, because they are the main competitor for Libris. The chart is shown at the next page and beneath some explanation is given per aspect: Purchase of Books - The core business of Libris is the purchase of books for its entrepreneurs. Libris has close connections with publishers and can arrange large discounts, because of the high amount of books that are purchased collectively. Bol.com can also arrange quantity discounts, but they do not have to purchase that many books at once, because they do not need a physical stock. 6

APPENDIX B

Marketing power - Libris possesses a good marketing position. Around 2 million customers are reached with brochures. Bol.com even has a better marketing reach, since Bol.com is well-known among almost every consumer in the Netherlands. Bol.com has reached this position by television advertisement and other big campaigns. Contact with publishers - Libris has good contacts with publishers, because of its large purchase of books. Bol.com also has these contacts for the same reason. However, Libris has better contacts with publishers, because they are the biggest retailer of non top-listed books, for many years. It also seems that publishers have an inferior relationship with Bol.com, because Bol.com puts sometimes high pressure on publishers to retrieve the margins that they request. Technical knowledge - Bol.com has excellent knowledge on how to build an excellent webshop with all kinds of accompanying features. Libris does not have this knowledge at this moment, but collaborations with other companies that do have this knowledge (like Kobo) are being explored. Local presence - One of the aspects that an online webshop cannot offer is the local presence of a shop. Libris has bookstores all over the Netherlands. Expert personnel - Personnel of bookstores are relatively high educated and are generally excellent book experts. Many of them started a bookstore out of their love for books. Bol.com does not have (that many) personnel that can be compared with booksellers.

APPENDIX B

7

Personal contact - Direct contact with employees is not possible at Bol.com, other than via the customer service. In bookstores there is personal contact between the customer and bookseller. Well chosen/wide assortment - Because bookseller do know very much about books, they are very good in making a selection of books for their shops. Libris is well-known for their wide range offer of books in the bookstore. Online offers Libris almost every book that can be delivered by Centraal Boekhuis. Bol.com also offers all books that can be delivered by Centraal Boekhuis, but they are less good in making a proper selection of books other than top selling books. They simply offer all books that are available through a search function. Implement changes - Because so many independent entrepreneurs are affiliated to Libris, it can be difficult to implement changes through the whole chain. The entrepreneurs have to vote when important decisions are taken. Bol.com does not have this problem, so they can implement changes more easily. Finance power - Libris and Bol.com are both large organizations in the book market. The financial power of Bol.com is higher than the financial power of Libris. The total revenues of Bol.com are much higher, because of the sales of other products like electronics.

8

APPENDIX B

E-Marketing power - Bol.com has got a very good e-marketing compared to Libris. Many customers are attracted on the internet to go to Bol.com. Bol. com is for example very good in search engine optimization. E-Commerce - Bol.com is specialized in e-commerce. Libris also sells books via the internet, but this is only a small part of the company. Price perception - Consumers think that Bol.com is the cheapest bookseller in the Netherlands. This is actually not true, because of the fixed pricing regulations on books. And Libris can even deliver books for free. Bol.com also sells second hand books. This could explain the imago of Bol.com of being the cheapest. Range of products - The consumer has the perception that Bol.com can offer (almost) every book you want, although Libris offers the same books as Bol.com.

CONCLUSIONS Important strengths for Libris are those aspects that Libris scores much better than Bol.com and important weaknesses are those aspects that Libris scores much lower than Bol.com: Important strengths

Important weaknesses

• • • • •

• e-marketing power • e-commerce • implementation of large scaled changes • price perception • range of products

local presence expert personnel personal contact contact with publishers the well chosen/wide assortment

STRENGTHS AND OPPORTUNITIES MATRIX Different trends in the society are found in various trend reports [1]. Trends are expected future developments that can offer opportunities or threads or both. It is interesting to see what trends can be opportunities and how that opportunities can be combined with strengths of Libris. This method can be considered as a creative process instead of an analytical process. The method helped to find different design directions. At the next page a matrix is given that combines different opportunities with different strengths. Sources: [1] http://www.cocd.org/nl/node/943

External opportunities Internal strategic strengths

E-COMMERCE

DUTCH CULTURE

HIGHER RENTS

FEAR OF LONELINESS

AFTERSCHOOL CARE

SELFEXPERTISE

IMPORTANCE OF ONLINE IMAGE

PURCHASE OF BOOKS

MARKETING POWER

promote website through magazine

customer thinks along with choosing assortment

GOOD CONTACTS PUBLISHERS

exclusive publucation for the webshop

customers can think of books they want to be published

LOCAL PRESENCE

local pick-up local offers service related to area

move to cheap location

bookstore becomes meeting point

PERSONAL CONTACT

booksellers take care of customer service webshop

book tupper ware parties at consumer’s homes

extend contact customeremployee

EXPERT PERSONNEL

advise via email/twitter/webcam online

WELL CHOSEN/ WIDE ASSORTMENT

booksellers make selection for online assortment

INSPIRING/ QUIET ENVIRONMENT

after-school care in bookstore

coaching lessons/ read skills

SMART PHONES

more study-related products

sell apps

YOUTH READS LESS

LIBRARIES DISAPPEAR

PRIVATE/ WORK OVERLAP

FEAR OF DATA MISUSE

promote books on schools via a ‘boekenbalie’

bookstore place to study

place to work and relax

no need for credit card payment

marketing via apps

video lectures

customers determine assortment local bookstore

showing personal read life to the environment

make internet use personal again

online readers community

advise sharing customer via knowledge internet online

lectures/ study in bookstore

exclusive libris app

publish own book, sell in bookstore

make the online service personal

assistance in writing books

dutch literature

info about assortment on smart phone creative studies

good environment for learning

assistance in reading.

bookstore perfect location to write books

browse onEXPLORATION OF NEW BOOKS line instead of search

customers recommend/review books in-store

COLLABORATION KOBO (=TECHNICAL KNOWLEDGE)

customers can

build digital community for Libris readers

SELF-LEARN- SELF PROFESSIONING/EDUALITY CATION

give advice to each other about books

read-aloud club for children

special etutorial’s readers with in making complete ePubs content for schools

info about assortment on smart phone

Kobo reader complete with cool books for kids

APPENDIX B

9

APPENDIX C OTHER DESIGN DIRECTIONS In this appendix, different design directions are presented. Most of the design directions originated by the linking of strengths and opportunities. Some direction also originated for example from issues found in e-book use and weaknesses of internet webshops.

THE BOOKSTORE BECOMES A PLACE TO STUDY, WORK AND RELAX Libraries Libraries suffer a lot from the economy measurements by the Dutch government. In 2009 existed 78% of the revenues from libraries from governmental subsidies. The expectation is that the economy measures of the government have a great influence on the back and front offices and collections of libraries. In 2013 26% of the libraries even expects to close.[1] This trend could be an opportunity for bookstores. Bookstores can be the new libraries. Libraries are places to study and to lend books. Students go there nowadays with their own laptop to use the Wi-Fi and to have a quiet work place where they can concentrate optimally. The study part of the library could be integrated inside the bookstore. The bookstore is also a quiet and inspiring place to people, which makes it a decent location.

Social community Besides a place for study, the bookstore could 10

APPENDIX C

also become a social community. This direction is derived from the trend that there is a certain fear of loneliness and a certain pressure to participate in the society. The bookstore could fulfill the function of a social community, because of its local presence, the personal contact from employees and its pleasant environment.

Work versus leisure Another trend is that work and private for many people do overlap more and more. A place where they can go to work and relax will fit in this lifestyle. The bookstore can be a perfect location for this, because of its unique environment.

THE BOOKSTORE HAS TO MAKE USE OF LOYALTY OF CUSTOMERS TO THEIR LOCAL ENTREPRENEUR Dutch media have been publishing that bookstores are having difficult times. Replying to that news, many customers say that do not want the bookstores to disappear. They feel a certain loyalty to their local bookstore, as if it was something they owned partially. Libris bookstores are in general the local hero for many customers. Libris bookstores provide high quality service and products. Customer say that they love to go there. A striking example of how loyalty of customers can even save a bookstore from bankruptcy is the bookstore Kepler from the US: “In the late summer of 2005, Kepler’s, a fiftyyear-old independent bookstore in Menlo Park, California, abruptly shut down. Owner Clark Kepler explained that bookstore chains and Amazon.com

had displaced so much of the store’s sales that he could no longer pay the bills. But before Kepler could file for bankruptcy, the business was swept up in an outpouring of community grief. Hundreds of local residents rallied outside the shuttered store, which was soon covered in forlorn love letters from customers describing how the bookstore had been the center of community life and what a loss it was... ...Five weeks after it had closed, Kepler’s was back, saved by a group of local investors who vowed to return the business to sound financial footing, and numerous small donations from residents.” [2] The loyalty that customers have for their bookstore can be used by the bookseller. This loyalty can be used as a design direction.

THE BOOKSTORE DISTINGUISHES ITSELF MORE AS THE BOOK EXPERT One of the trends that have been found in retail, is that products become more important than its seller. Consumers use the internet to compare products and after they have decided which one they want to buy they decide where they want to buy it. Years ago the name of the retailer was far more important than it is today. In the market of books a similar situation is that the name of the publisher is not very important for the consumer. More important are the author of the book, the title and the lay-out of the cover of the book. A strategy for Libris could therefore be to promote its books more intensively in a loud way. The challenge could also be to attract a customer to the Libris

bookstore (locally or online) after they have decided which book to buy. Recommendations (reviews, social media, etc...) on the internet become more and more important for products. This could be an important point for Libris to focus on.

THE BOOKSTORE MAKES IT POSSIBLE TO GIFT AN E-BOOK One of the problems that consumers encounter in the use of a digital book is that it is not a physical product and that it is therefore not a nice present to gift. Some initiatives to make the e-book a physical product were already applied in Dutch bookstores like the e-book stick. Libris is also planning to do pilots with e-book gifts like the e-boekkaart and e-booq. The goal of these pilots is to see if these solutions would work in the bookstore. The goal is also to create more traffic in the bookstore.

THE BOOKSTORE TAKES CARE OF A SMOOTH DELIVERY SERVICE FOR BOOKS One of the problems that the largest competition of Libris (Bol.com) does encounter, is a smooth delivery service for books. The ordering of books via the internet is a very easy process for the customer, except for the delivery at home. It often happens that the customer is not at home, when the delivery service arrives. After three days/times of failed delivery, the order will be transported to a central pick up point where the customer has to collect the order himself. This problem could be solved by the Libris APPENDIX C

11

bookstore. The customer can order a book online or in the Libris bookstore, and let it be delivered at home, at work, or at the local Libris bookstore. This service is already provided by Libris. This service could be more extended by better informing the customers about the possibilities. A solution could also be to make a 24/7 collecting point at the bookstore.

THE BOOKSTORE IS CONNECTED TO THE ONLINE WORLD Cross-selling is a popular term in retail nowadays. It means that a company both offers products online and in-store. Libris is already providing this service. However, the online sales are relatively low. Bol.com has a significant higher share in online book sales. It is an opportunity for Libris to focus on strengths that webshops cannot offer. In the case of Libris is that they can sell both online and offline. The goal is to integrate these worlds in a way that the offline store promotes the possibilities of the online store and vice versa, to give the customer the best of both worlds. The following quote shows that local presence and the personal contact in the bookstore are things that the internet cannot offer: “The only thing Amazon can’t provide to the customer is a warm, well-lighted nook, surrounded by good books, knowledgeable staff, author signings, good wireless Internet access, and a cup of cappuccino.” [2] A perceived trend in society is that people do get anxious about the dangers of the internet. Data can easily be hacked and misused. The anonymity of internet could discourage people to buy things 12

APPENDIX C

online. The strength of Libris to have personal contact with its customers can be more important in the future. May be it is even possible for Libris to enhance its online environment by making it more personal.

THE BOOKSTORE HELPS ITS CUSTOMERS TO SOLVE E-BOOK HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE PROBLEMS Another issue that consumers encounter in the use of e-books is that downloading the e-book is not always that easy due to, for example, security measurements. Many of the questions that are directed to the Libris helpdesk are related to the security of e-books. Also questions about the interoperability between different platforms (Android, iOs, Windows, etc.) and different devices (tablets, e-readers, pc, etc.) occur often. Especially elderly who do not have that much experience with digital technology could benefit from extra help with using e-books. The bookstore could offer this service.

EXPLORING AND SEARCHING OF (E-)BOOKS One of the strengths of the bookstore is that it provides a pleasant way to explore books. People like to be in the bookstore and to go through the books. This is also strengthened by the fact that 70% of the sales in a bookstore is an impulse purchase. The strength of exploring books is a weakness for the internet webshop. The purchasing

of books online is a more directed process. It is an opportunity for the bookstore to make it possible for the customer to explore e-books in a pleasant way. The other way around, the searching of books is more easy for customers on the internet. It is an opportunity for the bookstore to make the process of searching a book also easy inside the bookstore.

PUBLISH YOUR OWN BOOKS Nowadays self-professionalism becomes very common because of technological developments. It is very common to make your own photographs with a digital camera, to make your own video films, to record your own music and to build your own website. Through the technology Printing on Demand (POD) it is also possible for everyone to publish his own book. This trend could be an opportunity for the bookstore. The local presence of the bookstore makes it interesting for people to sell their own books locally. The bookstore personnel can help the writer in the making with writing his book. The bookstore itself can be a pleasant surrounding for writers to write their books. The Boekbond is at this moment exploring the possibilities for customers to publish their own books in their own bookstore.

themselves. This image consists of a well chosen collection of photos on Facebook, a well chosen selection of group memberships and friends and an enumeration of favorite brands and music. A website like last.fm builds music libraries of individuals. The music you have listened to is connected to your account. Other can people can see what kind of music you like to listen and can compare it with their own music database. A similar comparison is that many people like to display all their books in their living room. They are proud on their collection and like to show it to the outer world. An idea can be to make it visible on the internet what kind of (e-)books individuals like to read. There is a possible collaboration for Libris with Kobo. Kobo offers an e-book platform that can be completely integrated in the Libris website. They also offer their own hardware and applications. Through their applications it is already possible for the user to get information about his reading habits. A connection to social media is also integrated.

BUILDING AND SHOWING AN INDIVIDUAL’S READING LIFE One of the found trends is that people do more and more profile itself on the internet. Apparently people feel the need to create an online image of APPENDIX C

13

APPENDIX D OTHER IDEAS Besides other design direction, also various concrete ideas for Libris were generated during the graduation project. Most of the ideas are not discussed in the report, to prevent the report from being to extensive. This appendix is add to the report, because some of the ideas are worth to be shown, although they are not elaborated. The sketches shown on this page, and on the two pages that follow up, are ideas that were generated at two creative sessions that were performed by two groups of five industrial design students in October 2011. The creative sessions were lead by Saskia Wyers and Maarten Geraets. The goal was to generate concepts for one of the two assignments: ‘how to sell e-books in bookstores’ and ‘how can Libris integrate its online bookstore with its offline bookstore in a way that it brings the customer best of both worlds?’.

14

APPENDIX D

Left: integration of a touchscreen in bookshelves. E-books are shown between paper books. Down: e-books can be printed (the code necessary for downloading) and sold in the bookstore as physical products/presents.

APPENDIX D

15

Above: sell e-books in combination with e-readers. Let the customer pay on a monthly base, just like is common in the mobile telephone business. E-books can also be sold in packages (every month a ‘free’ e-book) to ensure a steady income for the bookstore.

16

APPENDIX D

Above: introduction of a book with different samples of pages. The customer can use this book to get a better feeling of the book he has seen in the Libris webshop. He can look up the type of paper, cover and size of a book, before he orders it.

On this page a list is presented (in Dutch) of very different and various ideas that were generated during the graduation project. They are given in this appendix, because they may be used as an inspiration source for further projects for Libris. •

•

• • •

• •

•

• •

• • •

Digitale leestafel (a la Microsoft surface): Herkenning van persoon door ledenpasje. Alleen pasje verkrijgbaar als je een e-book aanschaft. Mogelijkheid van persoonlijke aandbiedingen op basis van eerder gekochte boeken. Of culturele tips in de omgeving van de boekhandel. VVV? Digitale kiosk: het aangaan van een samenwerkingsverband met bijv. de gemeente om op verschillende plaatsen e-kiosks te plaatsen, die e-books verkopen. Tafeltjes in treincoupes of restaurants kunnen ook kiosk zijn. Gift products: usb-stick, omslag boekkaart met unieke krascode Apps verkopen in de boekhandel: software die erg handig is op een rijtje. Verkopen op kaartje voor 1 euro. Bijvoorbeeld de leukste spelletjes, musthave apps voor school, de beste leesapps, etc. RFID tag in boek: Herbruikbaar, want teruggenomen bij afrekenen. Tag voor een apparaat houden. Bijv. telefoon (NFC), computer in winkel, e-reader/tablet. Herkenning tag direct naar e-boekpagina. Dan keuze om via ideal te kopen of afrekenen bij kassa, of de deal te mailen naar jezelf, of uit te laten printen als gift card met persoonlijke boodschap. Leenreader: kunnen klanten in de winkel gebruiken om een e-books te previewen. Barcode van boek gebruiken om te laten weten dat boek ook digitaal beschikbaar is. Bijvoorbeeld scannen met scanner in winkel of mob. telefoon en dan krijg je extra info. bijv. video message schrijver waarom ze het boek zouden moeten lezen. Info over soortgelijke boeken, en of boek digitaal beschikbaar is. Kaartenbak: Kaartenbak in de winkel. Voorkant kaart is cover boek, achterkant is flaptekst. Op deze manier laten zien dat het assortiment van boekhandel net zo groot is als online. Kaart kan direct worden afgerekend, boek wordt thuisbezorgd/kan later worden afgehaald. Ontmoetingsplek: spelletjes tegen elkaar spelen, samen lezen, boekenclub Digitaal verlanglijstje samenstellen in boekhandel. Boeken op apparaat leggen (net als in tubieb), identificatie vd boeken. uitprinten of mailen van het verlanglijstje naar de gebruiker. Directe URL naar libris.nl. Bookmarken van boeken. Exclusieve e-books: kunnen alleen in Libris boekhandels worden gedownload. Stufi actie: studenten krijgen korting op studieboeken in de week na (of juist net voor) stufi wordt gestort. Reviewing in boekhandel: Boeken worden aanbevolen door de klant in de winkel. Alleen digitaal zichtbaar via augmented reality. Of juist poster met beschrijving/briefje van klant. Je mening over een boek geven, in de winkel! Net als prikbord albert heijn. Twitter feed display die klantentweets weergeeft. Of wat klant op libris.nl heeft achtergelaten wordt weergegeven op display. APPENDIX D

17

ISBN-SCAN The concept, displayed on this page and the next, is somewhat more elaborated. It represents an app for Libris bookstore visitors and smart phone users in general. The app helps you to easily create a wish list of books. The camera of a smart phone scans the barcode of a book, in a Libris bookstore, or somewhere else, and the booktitle is sent to the email adress of the user. The user will in this way, at a later moment, be reminded to a book he has found interesting. The email contains a link to the Libris webshop where the customer directly can order the book.

18

APPENDIX D

heikefaheikefaber.nl Alstublieft, een kadootje van Libris.

Wij bieden u gratis de app ISBN-scan aan waarmee u heel eenvoudig een boekenverlanglijst kan samenstellen. Met uw smartphone scant u de barcode van een boek(en) dat/die u interessant vindt. De boekenlijst wordt verzonden naar uw e-mailadres of naar die van bijvoorbeeld een vriend/ vriendin. Wij garanderen u dat het e-mailadres alleen voor het eenmalig verzenden van de boekenlijst wordt gebruikt.

Hoe kunt u de app downloaden? Ga met uw smartphone of tablet product (Android en iOs) naar www.libris.nl/isbn-scan

Random covers als background

heikefa

heikefa

Plaats barcodes van boeken in het vierkant hieronder:

heikefa

Vul uw e-mailadres in om te kunnen beginnen: e-mailadres

onthoud mijn e-mailadres

We beloven vertrouwelijk om te gaan met uw e-mailadres. Klik op verzenden om de boekenlijst te sturen naar uw e-mailadres (of die van een vriend/vriendin). Houd op deze manier een verlanglijst bij en ontvang extra informatie per gescand boek!

Kleine icoontjes van de boeken die gescand zijn als feedback voor de gebruiker. Betere optie is om na elke geslaagde scan kort een boodschap in het scherm te laten verschijnen. 15

APPENDIX D

19

APPENDIX E CONSUMER’S QUOTES ON TRADITIONAL AND ONLINE SHOPPING The quotes in this appendix are cite from the following source: Laing, A. 2008. Bookselling culture and consumer behaviour: marketing strategies and responses in traditional and online environments. The Robert Gordon University. Retrieved 21 april 2011 from: http://openair.rgu.ac.uk.

An important factor in the enjoyment of traditional browsing whereas online, browsing seemed to be a more focused, linear experience. Some of the following comments illustrate the general thoughts about browsing:

Liang concludes with: “It seems that online browsing is a much more focused, linear experience for people than is traditional bookshop browsing. Furthermore, it also encompasses many other qualities inherent to online book buying such as convenience and speed. It would seem that many people going online to look for books have a much more specific idea of what it is they are looking for, than those going into a traditional bookshop. There is a much more unfocused, serendipitous approach to traditional browsing. Nevertheless, there was acknowledgement by the research participants that time is a precious but necessary commodity if one wants to browse in a traditional bookshop.”

“I tend to examine a narrower range of subjects / genres online, but those in more depth. In a traditional bookshop I may find myself in an unfamiliar place and examine books that I would not even think about when online.” “If I want something in particular, an online shop is best. For unfocussed perusing a B&M (bricks and mortar) shop is nicer.” “Online browsing is a way to check out books and read reviews all from the comfort of your own home, ideal if you are ill or work long hours, but not the same as walking in to a bookshop, chatting to the staff, wandering around and taking your purchase straight home with you.” “You generally need a starting point even to browse online. In a traditional bookshop you can mooch and see what catches your eye.” ‘I find that I am much more likely to buy an unknown author in a traditional shop than risk that online’ 20

APPENDIX E

APPENDIX F DIGITAL EXPLORING The internet makes it possible to access loads of information. There are more applications being developed that want to help users to find only relevant information. Applications of digital exploring are presented in this appendix. They served primary for inspiration in the design phase of the graduation project. Other interesting website from which no pictures are available in this appendix are: http://www.scovre.com http://www.nalden.net http://www.last.fm

Flipboard - app for iOS Magazine like display of RSS feeds for iPad and iPhone http://www.flipboard.com

Feedly - app for Android and iOS and website Feedly transforms your favorite websites into a fun magazine-like start page http://www.feedly.com/home#essentials/en-US

Digital bookcase - website Chrome experiment of a digital bookcase based on the Google books API. http://www.chromeexperiments.com/detail/webglbookcase/

APPENDIX F

21

Google Currents - app for Android and iOS (US only) Magazine like display of rss feeds https://market.android.com/details?id=com.google.android. apps.currents&hl=en

22 Tracks - website music experts choose the best 22 tracks of the moment in their music genre http://www.22tracks.nl

TED - app for iPad application for the popular TED movies lets users discover interesting speeches http://www.ted.com

22

APPENDIX F

Zite - app for iPad A personalized magazine that gets smarter as you use it. http://www.zite.com

Pulse Zite Nalden

Pulse - app for iOS and Android A beautiful application that makes reading news fun and engaging http://www.pulse.me

APPENDIX F

23

APPENDIX G TRANSLATING BOOKSTORE ELEMENTS

Bookstore element

Online translation 1


Bookshelves

Categorize books

Place books on shelves (in a grid)

Table displays

Visualisation of books arranged with only pictures of covers

Bookseller advice

chatfunction with bookseller

email form ask for advice

indicate 2 books and a similar book is given (computed)

Bookpromotions by posters and merchandesise

Banners

Newsletters

Pop ups

Events

Announce events on a calendar

Create Facebook event feed

Cover

Covers as main visual elements. just like in bookstore

Interesting title

24

APPENDIX G

Known author

Cluster books from one author

Blurb text

provide blurb text online

picture of back side book instead of liquid text

Recommendation on cover

collect all reviews

picture back side book


Bookstore element




Thickness/size book

photo of book

use a difference in size for the images of book covers

3d representation of a book cover to show thickness

Material of book

photo of book

dummy book with dummy pages

Visual attractiveness book

photo of book

Interesting subject

search on topic

Balance text/pictures

show some pages of the book

Preview book

Read first two chapters

open a book as a pdf

Price

attach label

cluster cheap or low priced books

Tips family/friends

user reviews

share reviews

Reviews television

provide uitzendinggemist scenes

Reviews newspapers/ magazines

include all review articles

Internet reviews

link to other websites

load information from other websites in

Internet forums on reading

incorporate readers community

incorporate user reviews from other websites.

give stars to subjects

link social media

APPENDIX G

25

Bookstore element




link to website

newsletter in e-mail

Atmosphere

show photos of real bookstores

colourful website

Live webcam connection to bookstore

Serendipity

provide many browse options and link options

Organize books randomly

show only one book at a time

Handling the books

photo of book

video of someone going through the book quickly

Website author/ publisher Advertisement Newsletters of bookstores Apps

26

APPENDIX G

APPENDIX G

27

APPENDIX H SKETCHES

28

APPENDIX H

APPENDIX H

29

APPENDIX I CONCEPTUALISATION In this appendix several examples are given of user interfaces, and details thereof, that were produced in the conceptualisation phase of the project. It provides some inside in the design process, and it presents some of the solutions that were considered to implement in the design.

Website met alleen maar boekcovers. Klikken op boek geeft popup met meer info. Klikken op de pijltjes is navigeren door alle boeken.

30

APPENDIX I

En/of, toevoegen van aantal categorieen om de gebruiker bij het browsen iets meer structuur en houvast te geven.

Zelfde concept, maar dan op iPad of tablet. Navigeren is gemakkelijk door over het touchscreen te swipen.

APPENDIX I

31

Eerste scherm van app, laad scherm, geeft een welkomswoord en uitleg van de applicatie. Vervolgens popup menu van de categorieën.

32

APPENDIX I

pagina uit Libris folder: De nieuwe Libris huisstijl, ontworpen door Kesselskramer, kan gemakkelijk worden geïntegreerd in dit ontwerp. Achtergrond foto’s in zelfde stijl als de Libris folder. Kleurrijk geheel, voelt alsof ‘boeken tot leven komen’.

elIZabetH Haynes waaRHeen Je ook vlUCHt PAPERBAcK € 19,90 ---Voor de buitenwereld is Catherine’s vriend Lee de charme zelve. Maar zij weet wie hij werkelijk is: iemand die dwangmatig controle over haar leven probeert te krijgen. Om aan zijn ziekelijke manipulaties te ontsnappen bedenkt ze een plan, dat ze bijna met de dood moet bekopen. In de jaren die volgen probeert ze haar leven weer op te bouwen, maar steeds weer duikt de angst op dat Lee plotseling voor haar zal staan…

RobeRt HaRRIs de anGst-Index PAPERBAcK € 19,90 ---Financiële thriller vol verwijzingen naar de actualiteit. Dr. Max Hoffman werkte ooit aan de deeltjesversneller van Cern. Tegenwoordig beheert de hoogbegaafde wetenschapper een systeem van algoritmes dat de financiële markten kan voorspellen. Zijn systeem behaalt enorme winsten, ook in crisistijden. Dat roept tegenkrachten op, die uit zijn op de vernietiging van Hoffmans imperium.

JoHn GRIsHam Het PRoCes PAPERBAcK € 19,95 GEBONDEN € 24,95 ---Het kleine advocatenbureau Finley & Figg moet het vooral hebben van bescheiden zaken en schikkingen. Maar zoals alle advocaten wachten zij op hun grote kans. Die lijkt zich aan te dienen als ze een zaak kunnen beginnen tegen een grote farmaceutische firma, die een middel tegen obesitas op de markt heeft gebracht. Ouderwets goede Grisham vol rechtbanktheater, machtsmisbruik, intimidatie en suspense.

lee CHIld de affaIRe PAPERBAcK € 19,95 EBOOK € 14,95 ---In deze nieuwe thriller met Jack Reacher in de hoofdrol wordt zijn verleden eindelijk onthuld. De boomlange, ijzersterke beroepsmilitair, altijd rusteloos op zoek naar mooie vrouwen, krijgt het aan de stok met het leger zelf. Bij het onderzoeknaar een moord stuit hij op smerige intriges en wordt hij gedwongen te kiezen tussen twee kwaden. ---‘Misdaadactie in zijn meest verslavende vorm.’ – Focus knack

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Kliken op categorie leidt naar een overzichtpagina ervan. Elke categorie bevat een vast aantal boeken, bijvoorbeeld tien. Dat zijn de tien beste boeken voor die categorie. Is overzichtelijk en niet overwelmend voor de gebruiker.

APPENDIX I

33

Trending book topic kan leuke vorm van alternatieve categorie zijn. Elke dag wordt een boek gezocht bij het trending topic van die dag (twitter). Kan humoristisch of inhoudelijk gekozen worden.

Klikken op boek laat informatie over het boek zien in een popup. Hierboven en rechts het testen van verschillende mogelijkheden om popup weer te geven.

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APPENDIX I

Optie om een boek te ‘hearten’, zorgt ervoor dat het boek ergens anders wordt opgeslagen. Via de categorie ‘my hearts’ of favorieten, kunnen de boeken gemakkelijk weer teruggevonden worden.

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In de pop up is er mogelijkheid om veel verschillende soorten informatie weer te geven, via enkele tabbladen. Zoals informatie over de schrijver en zijn bibliografie.

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APPENDIX I

Recensies die over het boek verschenen zijn in kranten en op bekende websites.

Filmfragmenten, zoals optredens in de media van de schrijver, het voorlezen van het boek, boektrailers, etc.

Ander voorbeeld. Zowel geschikt voor app als website: alleen maar boeken, geen achtergrond. Boekcovers zijn geplaatst in vierkantjes, voelt overzichtelijker en krachtiger dan rechthoekig. Categorieën kunnen naast elkaar worden weergegeven, of juist als dropdown menu. Voordeel van naast elkaar is dat alle categorieën direct zichtbaar zijn, gebruiker hoeft niet te zoeken. Nadeel is dat de boeken onder de categorie naam (de kolom eronder) erbij lijken te horen.

APPENDIX I

37

Klikken op categorie hersorteert de boeken. Boeken springen direct naar linksboven. Overige boeken krijgen een donkere overlay, of juist een witte, om te laten zien dat ze niet bij de categorie horen. Toch blijven op deze manier alle boeken zichtbaar.

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APPENDIX I

Weergeven van de popups kan op verschillende manieren. Geprobeerd is de boeken zo groot mogelijk, full screen, weer te geven, cover komt terug in achtergrond.

APPENDIX I

39

Informatie geven over de boeken is vervolgens lastiger. Waar menu-items te plaatsen? Witte kolommen met tekst komen wel overeen met de stijl in de Libris folder. Leest ook helder.

Hierboven een ander concept dat geïnspireerd is op het browsen van informatie (gezien op verschillende websites). Plaatjes worden op driedimensionele manier weergegeven. Versterkt browse-gevoel. Wel minder overzichtelijk, omdat minder boeken tegelijk kunnen worden weergegevn.

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Het toevoegen van een categorie kan gedaan worden via een knop, of juist door het leeglaten van een rij. Dit laatste heeft als voordeel dat het wellicht makkelijker is om te herkennen dat de optie ‘voeg een categorie toe’ bestaat. Een lege rij met boeken is echter wel een minder aantrekkelijk beeld, de ruimte wordt minder efficiënt gebruikt.

Vanaf nu zijn de voorbeeld concepten steeds meer gerelateerd aan het uiteindelijke gekozen ontwerp. De twee voorbeelden op deze pagina hebben een horizontale oriëntatie van de categorieën, in rijen dus. Als er op het volgende boek geklikt wordt, wanneer de gebruiker in een popup is van een boek, is logischer wijs het volgende boek, het volgende boek in de rij. Bladeren door categorieen kan door naar boven en beneden te scrollen.

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41

Vervolgens is een verticale oriëntatie toegepast. Het vermoeden is dat dit gemakkelijk werkt in het gebruik. Het scrollen naar boven en naar beneden, staat gelijk aan het browsen door de boeken van één categorie. Dit gaat makkelijker dan het opzij slepen van een rij boeken, zoals in het vorige voorbeeld. Browsen door een categorie is hierdoor sneller en dus makkelijker. Dit is ook voordelig, omdat het browsen door categorieën minder snel hoeft te gaan. Een categorie opzij geeft direct zes nieuwe boeken weer, dat is genoeg nieuwe informatie voor een keer klikken/slepen. Verder kan er nog gediscussieerd worden in hoeverre de gelijkenis met een boekenkast het beste opgaat: met een horizontale of verticale oriëntatie. Er is gekozen om met de verticale oriëntatie verder te gaan. 42

APPENDIX I

Hierboven is een voorbeeld van hoe een popup van een boek er uit kan zien. Een simpel wit vlak verschijnt boven de boeken. Grootte en tekstopmaak is vergelijkbaar met hoe boeken vaak zijn opgemaakt.

De menu balk boven de boeken en het rode kruis zijn in verschillende besprekingen bij Libris als negatief ervaren. De rode kleur heeft te veel overeenkomsten met de boekwinkelketen Bruna. Het rode kruis om een categorie doet denken aan “het rode kruis”. Daarom is voor een minder opvallende, niet rode menustructuur gekozen in dit voorbeeld.

Op de huidige website wordt reclame gemaakt voor bijvoorbeeld nieuwe acties van Libris. In de nieuwe layout was eerder geen ruimte voor actie banners. In de linker kolom is daar nu ruimte voor gemaakt. De reclame items zijn groter dan de boekcovers en krijgen daardoor meer aandacht.

De zoekfunctie in deze en voorgaande voorbeelden is later weer verwijdert uit de website. Er is besloten om de huidige website van Libris sowieso te behouden en de nieuwe ontworpen website als extra website te beschouwen. Op deze manier is het makkelijk voor de consument een onderscheid te maken tussen de websites: aan de ene kant een vertrouwde website die gericht is op zoeken, en aan de andere kant een nieuwe website waar boeken kunnen worden ontdekt.

APPENDIX I

43

De weergave van de menu’s is nog wat mee uitgeprobeerd. Zwarte menu balk/kader werkt het best. Menu is duidelijk als menu herkenbaar. Rode knoppen passen er perfect bij, zodat de kleur van Libris (rood) toch nog terugkomt, maar niet te overheersend, en niet lijkend op de Bruna huisstijl. Verder is er veel met de achtergrond uitgeprobeerd. Achtergrondfoto van een boekhandel is goed voor de sfeer van de website en laat ook zien dat Libris fysieke winkels heeft. Het was lastig om de achtergrond niet te veel afleidend te maken, van waar het uiteindelijk over gaat, de boeken. Ervoor zorgen dat de achtergrond minder aandacht trekt is geprobeerd door de foto’s te vervagen met een witte overlay, wazig te maken (blurren) en door extra colour 44

APPENDIX I

overlays te gebruiken. Ook is gespeeld met de verhouding van de boeken ten opzichte van de achtergrond. Dit zal in de praktijk ook voor een gedeelte afhankelijk zijn van de afmetingen van het scherm van de gebruiker.

Ook is weer een eerder idee uitgeprobeerd: helemaal geen achtergrond of witruimte; alleen maar boeken. Het zijn beide goede opties en daarom is uiteindelijk gekozen om voor beide te gaan. De gebruiker kan zelf een weergave optie bedienen die schakelt tussen alleen maar boeken, en boeken met de achtergrondfoto van een boekhandel.

Ook zijn wat verschillende knoppen uitgeprobeerd. Uiteindelijk is het pijltje nog heel vaak veranderd, voor het definitieve pijltje werd gekozen.

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Een donkere overlay op de boeken (onder), behalve waar de muis zich bevindt, werd ook geprobeerd. Dit geeft de gebruiker een goede focus voor het navigeren. Andersom kan ook (links). Alleen de kolom waar de muis zich bevindt, wordt donker, en het desbetreffende boek wel weer full colour. Hier kan veel mee uitgeprobeerd worden, ook met kleuren bijvoorbeeld. De uitstraling van de website is echter het kleurrijkst (uiteraard) wanneer de meeste boeken full colour zijn weergegeven. Daar is voor gekozen.

Witte lijntjes zijn aan de kolomen toegevoegd, om duidelijker aan te geven welke boeken in welke categorie horen. Met het logo zijn ook enkele animaties uitgeprobeerd, om zo de slogan het beeld in te laten rollen. Dat trekt de aandacht.

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APPENDIX I

APPENDIX J PROTOTYPE SCREENSHOTS AND EXPLANATIONS This appendix displays a series of screenshots of the clickable prototype that was build of the new website and is accompanied with comments. The prototype itself (flash) can be found on the disc accompanied with this report.

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APPENDIX J

name / location Libris store. link to ‘shadow website’ and/or drop down menu to select other stores.

BACKGROUND

photo (blurred) of the Libris store, nearest located to ip-address

visibility background varies per browser

link to ‘about’ page APPENDIX J

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ZOOM

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APPENDIX J

Display option to switch between ‘only books’ view and the current view.

ZOOM This option can become very convenient for tablet users.

CHAPTER X

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BROWSE

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APPENDIX J

or drag left/right to see more categories

HOVER

show description of category

option to remove category

APPENDIX J

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POP UP

photo of the book

blurb text

go to previous book in column add to favorites return to all the books by clicking somewhere outside the cover and text frames

general information

add to a category

order the book

go to next book in column

READ

read a couple of pages

REVIEWS

reviews from readers

REVIEWS

THE AUTHOR

collection of publicated reviews

biography of the author

Beoordeel zelf

write a review yourself

THE AUTHOR

other books of the author

click to go to this book add the books of the author to a category. new published books will automatically be updated.

MEDIA

interviews, read outs,... all sorts of media belonging to the author and the book

indicate number of steps

ADD CATEGORY

pick one of the category types

APPENDIX K QUESTIONNAIRE TESTING APPEARANCE The questionnaire was sent to via an online webtool (NetQ) and was filled in by 98 respondents. Below you can find screenshots of the questionnaire together with some notes to explain the questions:

Introduction

General questions

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APPENDIX K

Introduction on comparison questions

Five pictures are presented in pairs to the respondent. Every picture is compared to all the other pictures. That means that the respondent in total had to compare 10 pairs for this question. The pictures were presented in a random order. They were random generated per respondent. At the left an example of one of the comparisons is shown. The pictures in the questionnaires appeared to the consumer with a 900 x 561 pixels size (approximately 3-4 times bigger than is printed at this page). Logos and company names were removed from all the screenshots. All the five websites that are shown at the questionnaire are displayed on the next three pages.

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www.libris.nl

www.bol.com 60

APPENDIX K

www.bruna.nl

My design

www.selexyz.nl

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APPENDIX K

Introduction on the second comparison question

From this question on the second (and last) series of 10 pairs are presented to the respondent

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Per screenshot is asked if the respondents knows the corresponding bookseller.

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APPENDIX K

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This question asks what the second choice of the respondent is, and also why. This was done to create more response on the why question. The reasoning of why a website is more appealing is most interesting.

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APPENDIX K

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APPENDIX L RESULTS TESTING APPEARANCE Raw data of the questionnaire ‘testing appearance’ can be found on the disc that is accompanied with this report. In this appendix a large part of this data is also presented, but in a more structured way.

Notes: •

More women than men filled out the questionnaire. It was aimed to have an equal number.

Notes: •

It was aimed to have some respondents of each age category.

Notes: •

98 respondents made 10 comparisons each

•

Every picture occurred in 4 of the 10 comparisons. That means for example that Selexyz was chosen 147 times out of 4*98=392 comparisons. And 147/392=37.5%. So Selexyz was, on average, 1.5 times chosen out of 4 comparisons.

Notes: •

98 respondents made 10 comparisons each

•

Every picture occurred in 4 of the 10 comparisons.

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APPENDIX L

Vraag 1: Geslacht Man 40 / 40.8% Vrouw 58 / 59.2% Vraag 2: Tot welke leeftijdscategorie behoort u? 18-25 jaar 49 / 50.0% 26-34 jaar 12 / 12.2% 35-50 jaar 10 / 10.2% 51-65 jaar 23 / 23.5% 65+ 4 / 4.1% Vraag 3: “Welke website vindt u het meest vernieuwend?” Total times picked: Screenshot: Percentage: 345x My design 88.0% 230x Bol 58.7% 150x Libris 38.3% 147x Selexyz 37.5% 108x Bruna 27.6% Vraag 4: “Via welke website denkt u het beste inspiratie op te kunnen doen voor een boekenaankoop?” Total times picked: Screenshot: Percentage: 337x My design 86.0% 231x Selexyz 58.9%

173x Bruna 44.1% 153x Libris 39.0% 86x Bol 21.9% Vraag 5: Van welke boekhandel denkt u dat deze website is? Bol 91 out of 98 (92.9%) said Bol Selexyz 38 out of 98 (38.8%) said Selexyz Bruna 25 out of 98 (25.5%) said Bruna My Design 6 out of 98 (6.1%) said Heike Libris 6 out of 98 (6.1%) said Libris

Vraag 6: Welke website spreekt u het meest aan?

Notes: •

Only correct answers are calculated above. Some other incorrect answers (like ECI instead of Bruna) were given as well. This was, however, only a small part of all the answers.

Notes: •

7 respondents had quit the questionnaire somewhere after answering the comparison questions. Therefore, this question is only answered by 91 respondents.

Bruna My Design Libris Bol Selexyz

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Notes: •

The respondents were not able to choose the same answer as they gave in the previous question. Only four options remained.

Notes: •

A motivation was asked for both question 6 and 7. This paragraph shows all the given motivations per chosen bookseller.

•

The motivations were sorted and ‘labeled’ in order to make a ranking of the motivations. This was a complicated task to perform, since interpretations can vary as well as the amount and quality of the labels.

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Vraag 7: Welke website spreekt u als tweede het meest aan?

Vraag 6 en 7: Waarom?

My Design

Motivaties bij My Design (B) als eerste keus (72 keer) • Overzichtelijk, gevarieerd, makkelijk kiezen • vormgeving • Ik vind dit het mooiste design, het is weer eens wat anders. Of het ook echt praktisch is, is natuurlijk nog maar de vraag • Strakke website met mooi kleurgebruik. De boeken die je tegemoet komen spreken aan • weinig tekst, mooie kleuren • springt het beste in het oog • “B > Qua ontwerp en qua vrijheid om andere boeken te vinden dan je zocht ACE > hetzelfde principe D > qua bekendheid “ • Ziet er leuk uit • heeft de modernste uitstraling, mooie kleuren. • helder en overzichtelijk • Het is denk ik net als winkelen in een echte boekenwinkel, kaften kijken en achterflappen lezen. • Mooi design • Website B heeft een visueel veel aantrekkelijkere layout. De andere websites lijken erg veel op elkaar. • “weinig tekst lekker plaatsjes kijken en geinspireerd raken weinig andere reclame en super korting acties om door afgeleid door te raken” • kleurrijk. veel boeken • Oogt interessant, veel plaatjes, makkelijke structuur • Vernieuwend, leuke indeling, snel bladeren • ziet er wel vet uit • “ziet er het nieuwst uit, kleurrijk, veel afbeeldingen, duidelijke categorieen, en geeft je een kijk in de winkel zelf door foto op achtergrond” • Het is anders en vooral gericht op boekcovers net als in een boekwinkel. • De website ziet er fris en vernieuwend uit waardoor je zin krijgt om door de boeken te ‘browsen’ en je het meest het idee hebt echt in een boekwinkel te zijn. • valt op tussen de rest, heeft een duidelijke, afwijkende vlakverdeling, is niet schreeuwerig, lijkt professioneel • Anders, meer als een ‘echte’ boekwinkel, erg visueel. • Visueel aantrekkelijk, lijkt op neuzen in een boekenzaak. • Deze website lijkt meer puur gebaseerd op boeken, je ziet gelijk een heleboel boeken die je aanspreken. APPENDIX L

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• • • • • • • • • •

•

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Past helemaal in het huidige tablet tijdperk Mooie lay out. Je krijgt veel informatie, alleen misschien niet handig als je iets specifieks zoekt. daarom Lijkt heel intuitief te werken. Omdat mijn aandacht in de winkel zelf altijd wordt getrokken door de voorkant en de titel van een boek; op deze website kan dat ook. Hij heeft vrolijke kleuren, t is duidelijk dat het over boeken gaat “overzichtelijk aanbod weinig overbodige reclame” Meeste plaatjes v boekomslagen, mooi ontwerp, minste reclame en schreeuwerigheid Vrolijke kleuren. “Rust Overzicht Zelf kunnen zoeken, zonder allerlei aanbiedingen.” Anders dan de bekende websites en leuk overzicht met de covers, net als in de boekhandel. Lijkt overzichtelijker te zijn Vernieuwend, spreekt aan en spreekt voor zich De rest is eigenlijk allemaal het zelfde. Zelfde standaard keuze menu etc. Deze ziet er voor mij uitnodigend uit door alle kaften van de boeken te zien en bij welke genres ze horen. overzichtelijk simpel visueel overzicht van de boeken ipv acties en reclame lay out Lijkt op een tafel in de boekwinkel en ik kan zelf een kategorie bijvoegen. Lijkt op een boekwinkel en zonder geode can reclame en kadootjes. Opmaak springt er uit. Snel zoeken door covers te bekijken obv categorie. meest overzichtelijk “veel afbeeldingen, anders dan andere (innovatief) ik vind de brousse functie vooral zo leuk. Zodat als je niet op zoek ben naar een speciaal boek je toch wat leuks kan vinden.” Prettige lay-out, rustig door de indeling, niet allemaal verschillende stukken tekst/foto’s/popups/ed door elkaar heen gebruikt. Geen onnodige reclame of aanbiedingen, naar beneden scrollen niet nodig door vast beeld waarbinnen naar links/rechts gescrolled kan wordne Veel beelden. Wekt een bepaald gevoel op. Een voorkant van een boek draagt veel bij aan de keuze van de aankoop. “Orginele manier van presenteren. Geen tekst maar boekenkaften.

• • • • • • • • • • •

• • • • • • • • • • • •

Erg duidelijk doordat er niet zoveel verschillende “”boxen”” met informatie zijn” Meest origineel; mooie layout, helder, plezierig om naar te kijken, heeft de informatie die je zoekt. Duidelijkheid Ik vind het fijn om de kaften van de boeken goed zichtbaar te hebben, dat spreek mij enorm aan bij deze website. aantrekkelijk/overzichtelijk duidelijke informatie over een boek Ziet er het mooist uit, weinig leestekst, veel beeld. Doet het meest denken aan de boekentafels in de (echte) boekhandel. Het product ligt direct voor je neus. geen schreeuwerige reclames Het ziet er vernieuwend uit en er staan veel boekafbeeldingen op. Dat vind ik altijd heel prettig, daardoor heb je meer het gevoel dat je echt in een boekhandel bent als je al die boekenkaften ziet. Ik ben aangetrokken door de afbeeldingen. Visualiteit in een website is erg belangrijk. De andere websites zijn erg standaard, niet spannend en B heeft een aantrekking om te gaan uitpluizen voor mij de vakjes, de kleuren, niet standaard “als ik voor een boek ga: - direct thema’s zichtbaar / en ik verwacht achter de thema’s diverste titels/ auteurs e.d. - overzichtelijk (hoef niet te zoeken hoe de website “”werkt”” en is kleurrijk “ Geeft direct visueel informatie over diverse soorten boeken Niet zo standaard ingedeeld met een boom aan de linker of bovenzijde, maar meer inspelend oP intuïtie Mooi overzicht van alle covers. Pakkende titels en een vrolijke uitstraling. Ondanks de hoeveelheid getoonde kaften overzichtelijk. Geen vervelende aanbiedingen als korting etc. Duidelijk en rustiger dan de andere voor het oog. weinig tekst veel te zien Ziet er gaaf uit. Meer een avontuur Wat mij betreft het mooist vormgegeven. Grappig ook we dat je een ‘persoonlijke boekwinkel’ lijkt te kunnen bouwen als je de site vaak bezoekt. Vernieuwend. Helder en kleurrijk Overzichtelijk, mooi kleur gebruik, ziet er hip en luxe uit, laat goed zien welke boeken er te koop zijn en het ziet eruit zoals je ze in een boekwinkel zou zien. Vernieuwend, andere opzet dan andere sites. Veel kleur maar niet verwarrend de layout spreekt me aan en is overzichtelijk ingedeeld. Omdat hier te zien is waarvoor ik naar een online boeken winkel ga, boeken! Informatie over gratis bezorging of ingewikkelde lijsten aan de linker kant nodigen niet uit en ik zou niet weten in welke APPENDIX L

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categorie ik dan ook zou moeten zoeken... B laat gelijk boeken zien, misschien niet degene die ik zoek, maar wel inspirerend om het boek te zoeken dat ik graag wil of naar op zoek ben. in éeen oogopslag te overzien

Motivaties bij My Design (B) als tweede keus (7 keer) • Deze lijkt overzichtelijk, en ik kan er inspiratie opdoen • ook duidelijke informatie • Springt eruit. Soms laat ik me nogal bëinvloeden door de kaft, waardoor ik (als ik een nieuw boek zoek) misschien hier wel veel inspiratie op kan doen. • lijkt het begin van een ontdekkingstocht • Interessante layout • Vrolijke uitstraling • innovatief Motivations ranking ‘My design’: inspire/discover/browsen: 14% little advertising: 16% link to bookstore: 14% originality/innovative: 29% nice layout/design: 33% clarity/overview: 40% many books/images/covers: 36%

Selexyz

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Motivaties bij Selexyz (E) als eerste keus (13 keer) • Ziet er op het eerste gezicht overzichtelijk uit, duidelijk waar je wat kan vinden • Rustig en overzichtelijk, wel met aanbevelingen. • een paar duidelijke aanbiedingen, top 10 lijsten, simpele zoekregel • ben ik al mee bekend • Verteld iets over je aankoop • overzichtlijk • “Meest rustig, alhoewel..... Ze zijn alle te druk.” • Ik denk dat ik via deze site het beste zoeken kan. • Goede indeling, rustig qua kleur • overzicht en rust • omdat ik weet dat deze van selexyz is, en dat is de beste boekhandel • overzichtelijk • Overzichtelijke en rustige uitstraling Motivaties bij Selexyz (E) als tweede keus (30 keer) • Vrij overzichtelijk, duidelijk zoekvak, categoriën, informatie over adres/verzendkosten e.d. • Ziet er uit als een betrouwbare winkel • duidelijk, gecategoriseerd • “thema,s aanwezig Rustige kleur” • Oogt professioneel en lijkt me betrouwbaar. • Overzichtelijk en duidelijk • De website is overzichtelijk en rustig ingedeeld waardoor je het idee krijgt snel te vinden wat je zoekt. • lijkt betrouwbaar • qua kleur en ordening. • Rustig en overzichterlijk • meteen veel menuopties links • Omdat het er overzichtelijk, maar wel warm, uitziet. Zoals het hoort in een boekhandel. • rustig vormgegeven, wel saai, categorieën meteen links zichtbaar • Vormgeving, het gaat om de inhoud, niet zo schreeuwerig • Kleuren spreken me aan. • “Geeft een aardige indruk. Wel veel keuze optie” APPENDIX L

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• • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Overzichtelijk, duidelijk overzichtelijke lay-out, de boeken voeren de boventoon op de site Overzichtelijk. Ik weet dat het een fijne boekhandel is. Goed ingekaderd (niet als A bijvoorbeeld dat het een witte achtergrond is waar wat opgeplakt is). Inhoudelijk lijkt het fijn, links een menu-balk waar je kan kiezen uit relevante opties, rustig beeld Rustig 1 duidelijke kleur gekozen. niet teveel gepruts Iets saaier dan eerste keus maar plezierige kleuren en heldere informatie Ook omdat deze website kaften van boeken laat zien en ik vind de vormgeving en de kleur mooi van de website. aantrekkelijk Overzichtelijk, rustige opmaak, handig categorien-keuzemenu Rustiger dan de andere drie en redelijk rustig - niet zo schreeuwerig. De titels van de boeken hier spreken me ook meer aan dan de overige websites en hun getoonde aanbod. Redelijk rustige layout en duidelijk Omdat je hier ook nog wat voorbeelden kan zien van boeken. En het is minder schreeuwerig dat C of D. Biedt de meeste rubrieken

Motivations ranking ‘Selexyz’: Not showy, simplistic: 46% Clear/overview: 51% Many categories: 15% Top ten: 10% Easy searching: 10% Nice layout: 10%

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Bol

Motivaties bij Bol (D) als eerste keus (8 keer) • Overzichtelijk en niet te veel chaotische lijsten en afbeeldingen e.d. die om aandacht schreeuwen. • Modern, maar toch ook qua informatie beter dan bijv B • Overzichtelijk en bekend • Ik weet niet of dit de bedoeling is; maar ik weet dat de website van Bol.com is. Dit bedrijf staat voor mij, doordat ik daar wel eens wat bestel, voor snelle, betrouwbare en goedkope verzending. Dit komt ook doordat ik nooit bij een andere online boekhandel heb besteld. • “Ben ik het meest bekend mee en vind ik overzichtelijk. Je kunt makkelijk vinden wat je zoekt op allerlei verschillende zoektermen.” • eigentijdse vormgeving, wekt verwachting informatief en uitgebreid te zijn • Simpel en makkelijk zoeken • van ouds herkenbaar en in het oog springende kleuren Motivaties bij Bol (D) als tweede keus (18 keer) • Omdat ik hiermee vertrouwd ben, daarnaast valt dat mannetje goed op. • Heel erg bekend dus je weet precies waar alles staat • ervaring, werkt erg fijn • de vrolijke kleuren • Vrolijk, en ziet er simpel uit • Omdat ik meteen zien dat het Bol.com is. verder heb ik geen andere duidelijk reden waarom ik juist voor die kies. • weet er snel de weg in • dat komt vooral omdat ik deze website ken. Ik vind vooral de functie: ‘andere mensen die dit boek CHAPTER XAPPENDIX L

• • •

• • • • • • • •

kochten, kochten ook.....’ zeer goed Betere vormgeving dan de overige 3 ik twijfel tussen D en A. D ziet er visueel als tweede het leukste uit. Echter valt bij A direct op dat er een top 10 en een top 10 cadeaus is. Het ligt eraan wat mijn doel is. ALs ik een boek weet en die wil kopen kies ik D, als ik iets zoek maar niet weet wat en een tip wil kies ik A. omdat ik deze website als enige van de voorbeelden weleens gebruikt heb Meest overzichtelijk de opmaak Ik weet dat het een goede site is Vormgeving, kleurgebruik. Vrolijk en bekend. Is Bol.com, weet ik zeker en daarom weet ik dat deze betrouwbaar is. Verder vind ik opmaak van de site erg schreeuwerig. Ik weet dat Bol.com goeie acties heeft en over het algemeen niet duur is Ben bekend met deze webshop, vrij vaak gebruik van gemaakt

Motivations ranking ‘Bol’: Familiar with: 56% Clear/overview: 15% Easy searching: 15% Nice colour: 13%

Libris

Motivaties bij Libris (C) als eerste keus (1 keer) • Geen poespas, duidelijk, verzorgde layout 78

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Motivaties bij Libris (C) als tweede keus (1 keer) • De site is helder en overzichtelijk en heeft een groot lettertype. • daarom2 • “overzichtelijk top 10” • “overzichtelijkheid“ • je kan kritieken lezen en zien wat anderen van het boek vonden • overzichtelijk en heldere zoekfunctie • Bij de tweede serie werd gevraagd bij welke website ik het beste inspiratie op zou kunnen doen voor een boekaankoop. Bij website C kan je bovenin heel duidelijk zoeken op prijs, genre, taal etc. Voor mij zou dit belangrijk zijn als ik een boek ga kopen, ik denk dat veel mensen in hun hoofd hebben wat de prijscategorie is en welk genre ze leuk vinden (of wat degene voor ze het boek kopen leuk vind). Het is dan duidelijk als je een aantal categorieën direct kan aangeven en niet nog na je zoekopdracht moet specificeren. • ??? • overzichtelijk Motivations ranking ‘Libris’: Clear/overview: 60% Easy searching: 20%

Bruna

Motivaties bij Bruna (A) als eerste keus (1 keer) APPENDIX L

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•

Omdat deze het meest overzichtelijk lijkt

Motivaties bij Bruna (A) als tweede keus (19 keer) • overzichtelijk • kleur • Rust en overzichtelijkheid • Deze website ziet er clean uit en niet zo schreeuwerig als de anderen. • “omdat ik in de linkerkolom naar de thema’s kan - en een top-10 kan zien ...snel en overzichtelijk “ • Meest plain • Vanwege de suggesties die worden geboden. • overzichtelijk • Duidelijk wat waar te vinden is, mooiste kleurgebruik van de overige 4 pagina’s • in het oog springende kleuren • Geen voorkeur. • Om dezelfde reden, ziet er ook nog wel redelijk overzichtelijk uit • Zelfde reden als bij vorige vraag, maar dan net iets minder. • idem • al overzicht van genres waardoor je makkelijker bepaalde boeken kunt vinden • verteld je iets over het boek • overzichtlijk • op een na minst drukke.. • Op één na beste zoekmogelijkheden Motivations ranking ‘Bruna’: Clear/overview: 56% Not showy, simplistic: 28%

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Vraag 8: Zou u gebruik willen maken van deze website?

Notes: •

The motivations for this question can be found on the disc that is accompanied with this report in an excel file. The motivations are in this appendix only ranked like is done in the two previous questions.

Motivation ranking for question 8: Personalization is appreciated (58%) Fear of overlooking other books (28%) I do not buy books (12%) APPENDIX L

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I do not buy online / prefer the bookstore (10%) Prefer new books (8%) Prefer searching (8%) Depends on quality of suggestions (8%)

Vraag 9: Zou u gebruik willen maken van deze website?

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Motivation ranking for question 9: Quality of assortment is appreciated (33%) May not match my taste (22%) Can be inspiring, out of curiosity (14%) Up to date overview (10%) Fear commercial interests (9%) Easy for buying presents (7%) I do not buy books (7%) Prefer searching (6%) Depends on quality of suggestions (6%)

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APPENDIX M NOTES USABILITY TEST 22 February 2012 a usability test was performed with 5 participants. This appendix presents notes of the tests (in Dutch). At the CD-rom that belongs to this report, the original audiofiles and screenrecordings can be found. Deelnemer 1 Intro: Koopt vaak boeken via Bol, maar soms ook in de boekwinkel. Wel eens naar amazon en bookdeposit gekeken, maar Bol vindt hij het makkelijkst. Naast studieboeken leest hij voor zijn plezier graag boeken die de man booker prize hebben gewonnen. Eerste indruk website: “De boeken zijn verdeeld in categorieen. Layout is anders dan de gemiddelde boekenwebsite. Meestal staan de boeken onder elkaar en niet naast elkaar. Ook wordt vaak meteen de prijs weergegeven van het boek.” Bij leesboeken vindt hij dat ook niet belangrijk. Bij studieboeken zou hij het wel belangrijk vinden, maar voor deze website niet. “Je krijgt veel informatie te gelijk te zien. Kan niet direct bepalen of dat juist goed is of slecht is. Aan ene kant weet je ook niet direct of je geïnteresseerd zal zijn in alle boeken, maar tegelijk krijg je wel meteen een inzicht in hoe veel boeken er zijn, en dat er vast iets bij is wat je leuk vindt.” Interactie mogelijkheden vanuit home page: Browsen door categorieen weet hij meteen te vinden. Begrijpt ook hoe het prototype zou moeten 84

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werken. Klikken op pijltje naar rechts zou meer categorieen moeten weergeven. Opties in achtergrond waren niet direct opgevallen. Denkt dat boekhandel menu te maken heeft met informatie krijgen over een boekhandel bij jou in de buurt. Daar kan je misschien het boek ophalen als je dat wil en misschien krijg je ook een agenda te zien met activiteiten. Functie alleen boeken wordt wel direct begrepen. Denkt dat de achtergrond dan verdwijnt en dat je dan alleen boeken ziet. Hij vindt de achtergrond wel toevoeging aan website. Geeft wat rust. Alleen boeken zou te veel zijn. Voor hem is de functie niet nodig, maar hij weet niet precies hoe het werkt. Hij zou het eerst willen proberen. Over de popup: Hij klikt op een boekcover en verwacht dat hij dan meer informatie zal krijgen over het boek. Bij het openen van de popup beschrijft hij direct correct welke informatie beschikbaar is. De meeste informatie vindt hij interessant. Over de reviews zegt hij dat het een bonus zou zijn wanneer de reviews van buiten de site komen, bijvoorbeeld vanuit Goodreads. Nu zie je vaak op Nederlandse site dat er nog geen reviews zijn geschreven, erg irritant. Zeker wanneer een nieuwe editie van een boek verschijnt. Deze krijgt dan vaak nieuwe pagina, waardoor alle oude reviews meteen zijn verdwenen. Lezersrecensies zijn vaak heel handig. Krantenrecensies zijn ook goed. Ook fijn om te weten of een boek een prijs heeft gewonnen,

zoals man booker prize. Verlanglijst functie is duidelijk. Weet niet precies waar het boek dan wordt opgeslagen, maar principe is duidelijk. Zou het fijn vinden wanneer verlanglijstje ook per email zou kunnen worden verzonden naar bijvoorbeeld zijn moeder in de periode van kerst. Vermoedt dat ‘voeg toe aan categorie’ is dat je zelf ergens categorieen kan samenstellen (verwijst naar link ‘voeg categorie toe’). Denkt dat zelfde werkt als verlanglijstje. Kan je ergens later terug kijken. Knoppen ‘vorig’ en ‘volgend boek’ verwacht hij ook direct dat ze naar het volgende boek in de kolom, in de categorie dus gaan. Vindt alle informatie leuk, vooral ook media. ‘Over de schrijver’ is misschien overbodig voor hem, maar wel leuk dat het er bij staat. Had niet direct gezien dat bij een stukje lezen uit het boek ook een passage werd weergegeven. Lijkt hem wel goede optie. Inkijken boek is sowieso goed. Docent vertelde dat het beste is om pagina 99 uit een boek te lezen om te beoordelen of het goede literatuur is. Boek is dan meestal ook al voor eenderde onderweg en daar niet vaak een nieuw hoofdstuk. Was niet duidelijk dat boeken gekozen werden door boekhandelaren. Zou het wel leuk vinden. Maar zou dat dan doen in een paar categorieen. ‘de keuze van onze boekhandelaren’ met een recensie erbij doen en niet alleen een interessante passage. Bij

waterstones in engeland wordt bij sommige boeken in boekhandel op briefje handgeschreven recensie gegeven. Dat heeft wel wat. Idee van een foto van het boek maken voegt niet veel voor hem toe. Foto waarbij persoon te zien is, is wel beter en grappiger, maar hij vindt het geen toegevoegde waarde.

leuk vinden. Vindt het leuk dat de site interactief is. Houdt er niet zo van dat een website als Amazon voor jou suggesties doet. Vind het leuker om dit in eigen handen te nemen. Terugvinden van toegevoegde categorieen Zou het leuker vinden om in een overzicht alle categorieen die hij heeft aangemaakt te zien. Dus via een knop. En daarna kan je weer teruggaan.

Wegklikken van popup lukt direct. Categorie toevoegen Stap 1: Verwacht dat er een nieuwe kolom met boeken kan worden toegevoegd. Verwacht dat boeken automatisch worden ingeladen, bijvoorbeeld de boeken uit zijn Goodreads account. Lijkt hem een handige functie. Vindt het leuk wanneer sites samenwerken. Net als aanmelden met facebook account. Wil niet heel veel accounts aanmaken. Zou ook goed zijn als dat bij deze site kan. Lijkt hem ook leuk om te laten zien op facebook welke boeken hij aan het lezen is. Stap 2: Suggestie is om een aantal auteurs uit te lichten. Om een idee te geven, helpt mensen op weg. Onderscheid tussen nederlandse en buitenlandse auteurs zou ook ok zijn. Of tabbladen met literatuur en andere genres. stap 3: Hij had verwacht dat hij een voor een boeken zou kunnen toevoegen. Dat hij uit een lijst verschillende boeken zou kunnen selecteren die dan in de kolom terecht komen. Sorteerfuncties op ranking met sterretjes zou hij

Suggestie is ook een functie te geven waarmee je in een keer naar een bepaalde categorie kan gaan. Zou een dropdown menu kunnen zijn. Deelnemer 2 Intro: Is verslaafd aan goodreads. Eerste indruk website: Vindt het een mooie vormgeving. Veel informatie in een keer, je wordt echt naar de covers getrokken. Catgorieen met een beschrijving ervan. Gebruik is makkelijk, doordat mouseover meer informatie geeft. Denkt dat de website echt voor boekenliefhebbers is om lekker te browsen voor een uurtje. Interactie mogelijkheden vanuit home page: Denkt dat mogelijkheden zijn om op een boek te klikken en om op een categorie te klikken. Verwacht dan meer boeken in die categorie te zien. Ziet hoe naar rechts te gaan om meer categorieen zichtbaar te krijgen. Icon ‘meer boeken’ zou proefpersoon graag op willen klikken om te zien wat er gebeurt. Optie voeg

een categorie toe is ze ook heel benieuwd naar. Boekhandel icon denkt hij dat het meer informatie zal geven over die boekhandel. Na het klikken op de boekhandel naam, verschijnt dropdown menu. Had ze niet verwacht. Scroll balk is duidelijk. Suggestie voor pijltjes voor mensen die geen scroll functie op hun muis hebben. Denkt dat de achtergrond foto uit de boekhandel zelf komt. Vindt dat mooi gedaan. Functie alleen boeken weet ze niet wat het betekent. Na uitleggen functie, wordt het wel begrepen. De achtergrond foto lijkt haar wel mooi en speels. Zou functie wel willen gebruiken, vooral op een tablet. Verwacht dat er meerdere categorieen zijn en weet ook knop te vinden om te gaan naar meer categorieen. Hoeven er niet heel veel te zijn. Kan een beetje zijn zoals in de boekwinkel. Niet te veel, want je hebt misschien niet de behoefte om helemaal naar rechts te klikken. Ziet ook hoe je in de categorie naar beneden kan gaan om meer boeken te zien. Vraagt zich wel af hoe lang zo’n hele categorie is. Als dat er 100 zijn of misschien wel oneindig, zou een optie om te zoeken wel nodig zijn. Over de popup: Noemt alle mogelijke informatie op. Vindt de opvallende passage erg goed gekozen. Krantenrecensies ook belangrijk. APPENDIX M

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Gebruikersrecensies vindt ze wel leuk, maar vindt fijn als er daadwerkelijk meningen worden achtergelaten. Denkt wel dat deze site daartoe uitnodigt. Functie van verlanglijstje is heel belangrijk. Zeker omdat deze website is om boeken te ontdekken. Je komt categorieen tegen waar je zelf nog niet aan gedacht had. Weet niet waar je verlanglijstje kan terugvinden. Denkt in de gewone webwinkel. Zou wel fijn zijn als er een knop zou zijn voor ‘uw account/gegevens.’ Wil zeker lid worden van een dergelijke website. Voeg toe aan categorie is ze benieuwd naar wat het doet. Denkt wel dat het te maken heeft met de knop onder in het beeld ‘voeg categorie toe’. Is benieuwd of het net zoiets is als verlanglijstje, of dat het iets is wat openbaar is. Snapt wat zou gebeuren als je op ‘volgend boek’ klikt. Vindt de layout van de popup goed. Heel duidelijk. Goed gebruik gemaakt van witruimte. En mist verder geen informatie. Interessante passage is interessant. Denkt dat het goed is om te vermelden dat deze gekozen is door een boekhandelaar, daar heeft ze wel vertrouwen in. Zou graag zien dat boekhandelaren weer boeken gingen aanbevelen, zoals vroeger. Categorie toevoegen: Stap1: Weet niet precies wat de opties in de popup doen. Is erg benieuwd naar de goodreads functie. Weet niet of de optie juist boeken van het account afhaalt, of er op plaatst. Laatste lijkt ook 86

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interessant. Stap 2: begrijpt de opties. Denkt ook dat het genoeg opties zijn. Verschil maken tussen NL schrijver en buitenlands zou beter zijn. Stap 3: Ziet en bespreekt opties. Na het toevoegen: Knop ga naar mijn categorieen is duidelijk. Lijkt verder ook interessant om categorieen te maken die je helemaal los samenstelt. Verwacht dat eigenlijk ook als je een categorie zelf kan toevoegen. Overig: Suggestie voor een about page waarin vertelt wordt hoe de website werkt. Dat boekhandelaren boeken selecteren. Vindt het mooi objectief dat de boekhandelaar niet zelf recensie schrijft, maar dat kranten en users dat wel doen. Foto van het boek is wel ok, maar niet direct toegevoegde waarde. Wel leuk idee, wel persoonlijk gevoel. Foto met mensen erop vindt ze wel heel leuk. Wel belangrijk dat foto met richtlijnen is gemaakt. Omdat idee het wel heel leuk is, misschien ergens anders op de site. In een apart gedeelte. Deelnemer 3 Intro: Koopt heel veel boeken online. Via bookdepository, soms Amazon en Van Stockum. Heel soms via Selexyz, maar die site is minder fijn. Leest vooral in het Engels. Leest veel boeken.

Maakt veel gebruik van aanbevolen boeken op Amazon. Bij Bol kan dat ook, maar dat werkt heel slecht, en het zijn er weinig. Eerste indruk website: Ziet er mooi uit. Zoveel covers is mooi. Misschien dat andere mensen het een beetje te druk vinden, maar ik vind het zelf wel mooi. Categorie teksten kan wel beter, groter, of meer eyecatchy. De categorieen vallen daardoor minder op. Het patroon wordt misschien niet direct begrepen. Categorieen worden wellicht pas later gezien. Interactie mogelijkheden vanuit home page: Denkt dat je opzij kan navigeren. En dat elke categorie de beste boeken laat zien. Zou zelf een zoekbalk als eerste gebruiken om zo in categorieen terecht te komen. ‘Alleen boeken’ wordt als zoek functie aangezien. In tweede instantie denkt ze dat het misschien om een website gaat die verschillende product categorieen heeft, of een functie waarmee je geavanceerd kan zoeken. Begrijpt dat de achtergrond foto de foto is van boekhandel van deutekom. Na klikken op dit dropdown menu ziet ze dat je kan kiezen voor verschillende boekwinkels achtergronden. Misschien dat foto wel groter mag, omdat je maar zo weinig ziet. Het laten zien van verschillende boekhandels is daarom minder toegevoegde waarde. Begrijpt hoe naar rechts te navigeren met rode pijl knop. Vindt het wel vreemd dat er links geen rode

pijl staat.

andere manier.

Over de popup: Vindt een mouseover dat extra informatie geeft over een boek heel handig. Misschien zelfs uitbreiden met een kort tekstje. Dan hoef je niet steeds heen en weer te klikken.

Leest zelf niet veel users recensies, omdat het toch heel persoonlijk is wat mensen ervan vinden. Kijkt wel naar gemiddelde beoordeling, maar verder vaak niet interessant. Vooral niet bij bestsellers. Dat is ook het geval bij recensies in krant. Dat is ook heel persoonlijk. Gaat ze niet veel op af. Leest ze wel als er alleen een hele korte samenvatting van het boek is, om er meer over te weten te komen.

Is verrast door het klikken op de boekcover. Had verwacht naar een nieuwe pagina te gaan, ipv een popup. Dat vindt ze heel fijn, omdat je dan toch op zelfde pagina blijft. ISBN is vaak handig, verlanglijstfunctie is heel handig. Maakt er zelf geen gebruik van, want dat houdt ze bij op haar goodreads account. Ziet geen inlogpagina of account info. Moet wel makkelijk terug te vinden zijn. Via email bijvoorbeeld. Lijkt het wel handig om in te loggen via facebook account, maar dan moet je niet je verlanglijstje alleen in facebook kunnen opzoeken. Mist ook een winkelwagentje icoontje om direct te bestellen wat je in je winkelmandje hebt gedaan. Begrijpt de ‘volgende’ en ‘vorige boek’ knop.

Optie van biografie en bibliografie wordt gewaardeerd. Mag misschien in een pagina. Media is ook leuk. Mist de icoontje van hyves/facebook etc. Maakt er zelf geen gebruik van, maar dat zie je immers overal. Categorie toevoegen: Stap 1: snapt niet direct hoe het werkt. Had verwacht dat je zelf een categorie zou kunnen samenstellen. Dat je zelf een naam geeft. Misschien beter dat stap 1 begint het geven van een naam.

Lezen van de eerste pagina’s wordt gewaardeerd. Opvallende passage wordt niet direct herkend dat het door boekhandelaar wordt aangeraden. Mag ook korter, meer als quote. Op zich wel leuke optie, maar eerste pagina’s zijn belangrijker.

Stap 2: zoeken op auteur is lastig. Je weet niet goed wat je ook al weer leuk vond. Een lijst met meest gekozen auteurs of iets dergelijk zou wel handig zijn. Zal voor haar minder goed werken, omdat ze misschien andere auteurs leest. Omdat ze vaak engelstalig leest, is een optie daarvoor ook handig.

Menubalk links in popup mag wat meer regelruimte. Lijkt bij elkaar te horen op een of

Stap 3: Begrijpt de mogelijke opties. Naam geven categorie beter in stap 1. Aanvinken van de boeken

tijdens het categorie aanmaken is beter. Na toevoegen is niet duidelijk waar categorie verschijnt en hoe daar te komen. Zou beter zijn dat persoonlijke categorieen beter worden onderscheiden. Door bijvoorbeeld een dikker lijntje ertussen. Of een menu naast het beeld waarmee je snel naar jouw toegevoegde categorieen kan gaan. Importeren van Goodreads account lijkt heel handig. Een eigen pagina voor je toegevoegde categorieen zou ook goed zijn. Overig: Vindt handig aan bookdespository dat bij mouseover van winkelwagentje direct de inhoud zichtbaar wordt. Dan hoef je er niet direct op te klikken. Mist een aantal categorieen zoals kinderboeken, chicklit, biografieen, engelse boeken, filmedities. Maar dat ligt er aan wat Libris wil. En bij toegevoegde categorieen moeten wel suggesties voor nieuwe boeken gedaan worden, anders verkoop je minder boeken. Suggesties voor boeken zijn voor haar heel belangrijk. Gebruikt het internet om nieuwe boeken te vinden. Gaat wel eens naar de boekwinkel, maar dan meer om te kijken of hij het desbetreffende boek hebben zodat ze het kan bekijken. Vernieuwing van de website hoeft niet iedere week. Wel inhoud van sommige categorieen zoals nieuws categorieen. Misschien is het een idee om de toegevoegde APPENDIX M

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boekencategorieen op een aparte pagina weer te geven en dat de gebruiker die dan zelf kan instellen. Andere achtergrond ofzo. Achtergrondfoto zou je ook kunnen aanpassen tijdens kerst, boekenweek, etc.

Denkt dat er ongeveer 20 categorieen zijn in totaal. Wil graag sommige categorieeen kunnen worden verwijderd. Ook wel een optie om een random optie in te bouwen, of veel vernieuwing, zodat je bij elke terugkomst naar de site nieuwe boeken ziet.

interessant zijn voor de meeste gebruikers.

Een snel algemeen menuutje bovenaan zou handig zijn. zoals mijn account, inloggen en winkelwagentje.

Over de popup: De meeste nuttige informatie is aanwezig. Begrijpt meteen de menu structuur. Ziet dat iemand uit de boekenhandel een passage heeft geselecteerd. Is wel persoonlijk. Zou ook nuttig zijn. Pagina uit boek is beter dan een quote. Begrijpt hoe verlanglijst en ‘voeg toe aan categorie’ functie werken. Klantrecensies zijn ook goed, hoewel je liever geen negatieve recensies op je website wil. Biografie en bibliografie zijn ook goede informatie. Geeft beter idee. Media, interview, goed idee. Net als bij websites van concerten die youtubefilmpjes weergeven. Vindt alle gegeven informatie wel compleet. Knop ‘volgend’ en ‘vorig boek’ denkt hij aan boek uit bibliografie. Net als bij wikipedia, naar volgend werk. Maar zou ook volgend boek in categorie kunnen zijn.

Stap 1: is benieuwd hoe het werkt

Verwacht dat icon boekhandel deutekom meer informatie geeft over deze boekhandel. Had niet verwacht dat dropdown menu zou komen. Denkt daarna dat je je eigen boekhandel uit de lijst kan kiezen. Suggestie om er iets bij te zetten als: selecteer hier uw boekhandel

Overig: Vraagt zich af of er een aparte zoekfunctie bij komt. Zou hij wel fijn vinden. Zou duidelijker moeten zijn dat de boeken geselecteerd zijn door boekhandelaren. Hoewel hij zelf liever zelf zijn boeken kiest. Net als bij American bookcentre worden boeken geselecteerd door de staff, dat is goed. Denkt dat de website goed werkt voor de algemene

Deelnemer 4 Intro: Koopt boeken waar ze het goedkoopst zijn. Liever bij van stockum of selexyz waar hij geen verzendkosten hoeft te betalen. Weet van te voren wat voor boeken hij wil lezen. Vaak Nederlandse literatuur. Eerste indruk website: Ziet er heel anders uit en modern. Meteen duidelijk dat het een boekenwebsite is. Covers vallen meteen op. Verdeeld over categorieen. Misschien dat categorieen niet direct bij iedereen zullen opvallen. Interactie mogelijkheden vanuit home page: Alle mogelijkheden voor navigeren worden direct correct genoemd. Verwacht dat logo een link is naar een about page. Verwacht dat ‘alleen boeken’ de categorieen zal verwijderen en dat er random boeken worden gepresenteerd. Achtergrond is leuk, laat wel zien met welke boekwinkel je te maken hebt. Er is wel weinig van de foto te zien. Jammer. 88

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Een aboutpage met info over libris algemeen en het filiaal is wel ok. Een andere about page zou niet heel

Categorie toevoegen: Verwacht dat je de site hiermee kan personaliseren. Dat je categorieen misschien kunt vervangen.

Stap 2: begrijpt hoe het werkt Stap 3: ziet dat er een nieuwe categorie bij komt. Vraagt zich wel af of het de nieuwste boeken zullen zijn, of hoe ze gesorteerd zijn. Idee om eerst categorie een naam kunnen geven, en boeken te kunnen selecteren. Wel goed idee, maar denkt dat dat niet past bij website, want dan weet je al deels waar je naar op zoek bent. Dan kan je net zo goed naar Bol.com gaan. Deze website zou je meer moeten interesseren voor nieuwe boeken die je nog niet kende. Vermoedt dat de website is gericht op impuls aankopen. En niet zoals Amazon of Bol. Vindt het lijken op een boekentafel in een boekwinkel waar je ook geinteresseerd kan raken in boeken.

gebruiker. Die wordt wel getriggered door boekcovers. Zou graag knoppen in de categorieen willen hebben om ze weg te kunnen klikken. Deelnemer 5 Intro: Bestelt eigenlijk altijd boeken bij Bol.com. Of anders in de boekhandel. Koopt vooral schoolboeken. Soms een roman. Weet meestal van te voren wat ze wil kopen. Wordt soms beinvloed door aanbod van boekwinkel. Heeft nederlands gestudeerd. Leest niet veel bestsellers. Gaat af op wat ze van anderen gehoord heeft, of als ze iets bij de wereld draait door heeft gezien. Eerste indruk website: Denkt dat het een site is om boeken aan te prijzen is en om te verkopen. Ziet meteen verschillende categorieën met uitleg erbij. Interactie mogelijkheden vanuit home page: Denkt dat boeken aangeklikt kunnen worden en verwacht dan een vergroting van de cover met de achterkant van het boek, met de flaptekst en prijs, etc. Vindt de indeling van de categorieen wel makkelijk. Maar niet als je al weet welk boek je wilt hebben, dan weet je niet waar je moet zoeken. Mist hier een zoekfunctie.

Denkt ook dat sommige mensen over de categorie namen zullen vallen, zoals literatuur van nu. Wie bepaalt dat dan? Daar heeft niet iedereen zin in. Durf te lezen klinkt onduidelijk. Lijkt op thrillers oid. Als een uitdaging. Zou ze zelf gewoon spanning noemen. Hoewel, het is ook wel weer anders dan gewoon. Is juist wel weer leuk. Trendic tocpic, of trendy, krijgt ze rare bijsmaak van. Omdat veel mensen het lezen, wil ze het misschien al niet meer lezen. Maar misschien andere mensen wel. Navigeren naar nog meer categorieen is duidelijk. Denkt dat er heel veel categorieen zullen zijn. Wel lastig omdat de categorie literatuur heel groot is. Daarbinnen vallen ook veel categorieen. Ziet ook meteen categorie toevoegen knop. Browsen door categorie naar meer boeken wordt meteen begrepen. Ziet dat er een half boek wordt weergegeven. Achtergrondfoto is van libris boekhandel. Optie boekhandel deutekom wordt bijna direct begrepen. Dan kan je je beetje thuis voelen alsof in de boekhandel. Vindt alle boekcovers leuk. Leuker dan zoeken op Bol.com bijvoorbeeld. Icon alleen boeken werd eerst niet opgemerkt. Verwacht wel dat achtergrond verdwijnt. Vindt de achtergrond foto wel heel leuk, maar het is niet per se nodig. Daarom is de optie om te switchen wel goed. Over de popup: Ziet de meeste informatie direct. Flaptekst, prijs, isbn, winkelwagentje. etc. Begrijpt ook hoe

‘volgend/vorig boek’ knop werkt. Vindt recensies goed, maar denkt dat negatieve recensies misschien niet goed zijn.Vindt de andere info ook goed en interesant. Begrijpt verlanglijstje en ook ‘voeg toe aan categorie’. Gebruikt winkelwagentje vaak als verlanglijstje. Zou wel account willen aanmaken voor de website, ook voor nieuwsbrieven. Vindt zelf biografie wel leuk, maar denkt dat andere mensen dat misschien niet nodig vinden. Pagina lezen is niet belangrijk. Vindt passage niet interessant. Weet niet of een boekhandelaar dat wel kan bepalen. Bepaalt zelf welke passage het mooist is. Maar kan wel voor andere mensen werken. Categorie toevoegen: Stap 1: Verwacht dat het een soort zoekfunctie is. Snapt het nog niet helemaal. Stap 2: Begrijpt het na uitleggen wel beter. Stap 3: Denkt dat je categorieen op kan slaan. Als een soort winkelwagentje. Na uitleg van de functie begijpt ze hoe het werkt, maar vraagt zich af waarom het een categorie wordt genoemd. Misschien is het beter om ‘mijn boekenkast’ te noemen. Goodreads functie lijkt haar handig. Overig: Sommige categorieen zouden altijd zichtbaar moeten zijn zoals literatuur. Dubbele boeken kunnen beter worden voorkomen, maar een paar is niet erg. Misschien kunnen alle categorieen beter vast zijn. Zijn ze makkelijk terug te vinden. APPENDIX M

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APPENDIX N

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RESULTS USABILITY TEST Figure A - Home page 1 The bookstore menu was in most cases not recognized as a drop down menu. The meaning of it was not clear too. After explaining, the participants liked the idea, but did not consider it as an important option. 2 One participant wondered why this column was partially displayed and why it did not contain a red button in its heading.

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3 One participant noted that the type used for the category could be more outstanding. More large, or more eye-catchy. One would might not notice the categories immediately.

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Fig. A - Home page

4 Function of this icon was not clear for all participants. Logo was also seen as a search function, because of the magnifying glass. After explaining, the function

2 1

4 3

The background photo was considered as an addition to the website, because it show a real bookstore. That may give a personal feeling. However, only a small part is visible, which is too bad.

6 5 Fig. B - Pop up

was valued as okay. Most of them really liked the background photo and they would have wanted to try the ‘only book’ view.

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5 Browsing to next categories was also recognized by all participants. Some expected that many categories are available, other thought of a number around 20 categories. According to them, there

should not be too many. Otherwise one might get lost. 6 This option was noticed by all participants. Not all of them could imagine what this function would do, but they were curious to what it would do.

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7 All participants expected that the books could be clicked. 8 Browsing through the books in one column was recognized by all participants The noticed that some books were shown for 50%, so that beneath it, probably would be more. 9 This was expected to be an ‘about page’ by one participant. Fig. C - Pop up 2

Figure B - Pop up 1 Most participants do make use of reader reviews and they all think that it would be a good thing to present them on this website. Some of them would, however, be afraid of negative reviews. A couple mentioned that they do not like it when this option is available, but that no one has reviewed the book. This is often the case with e.g. Bol.com. A suggestion was to connect the website with Goodreads, to make use of their reviews. The problem that all reviews disappear when a new addition of the book is published, would be avoided in this way.

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2 Everyone recognize that this was a menu and they all could explore all the information about the book. Fig. D - Add category, step 1

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3 Some participants mentioned that they really liked the clarity of the popup. 4 Everyone understood how to close the popup immediately 5 This option was clear to almost all participants. One thought that it could be next book of the author, instead of from the category.

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Fig. E - Add category, step 2

6 This option was clear to almost all participants. One thought that it could be previous book of the author, instead of from the category. Figure C - Pop up 2 1 One of the suggestions was that the shopping basket could have a mouse over effect that quickly shows its content. 2 It was not directly clear to the participants that the passage was quoted by a bookseller. After explaining, most did like this fact. 3 Reading a quote was variously seen as a beneficial item. Some participants only read the blurb text, and are not interested in other pages. The other participants were actually very pleased with it. The striking quote was also valued. 4 One of the suggestions to better indicate that booksellers recommend books was to mention it in an about page and to make separate categories with the title: ‘choices of our booksellers’.

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APPENDIX N

Figure D - Add category, step 1 1 Some participants missed log in options at the top of the page. Suggestion for a Facebook login were also made. That would be convenient.

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2 Most participants understood that the ‘add a category’ function had to something with personalization. However they did not expect the first step to appear in this way. Some expected that first a category name could be given. And that books could be add manually for this category. 3 Most participant were curious for the Goodreads functions. Most of them use Goodreads a lot. One participant wondered if it would information to Goodreads, or that it would retrieve information from it.

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Fig. F - Add category, step 3

Figure E - Add category, step 2 1 The possibilities of this step were completely clear. A suggestion was done to also include some featured authors in this page. Different tabs can also be used to make a distinction between Dutch and foreign authors. Figure F - Add category, step 3 1 The possibilities of this step were also completely clear. However, an option that makes it possible to select books for the category (or to remove them) could also be included. 2 The button, that becomes visible after confirming the category, was not understand well, or not seen at all by the participants. A better solution to jump to the personal categories should be designed. APPENDIX N

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Author: Heike Faber Master: Integrated Product Design Specialization: Retail Design Graduation date: 5 April 2012 Contact:

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