How an audiobook taught me about Product Design
I was so close to the end of the book, then I just couldn’t read it anymore…
A few weeks ago, I rented an audiobook from my county library. I’ve noticed it’s a great way to spend commute time, and makes walking to and from the train more pleasant—like a “detox” time before getting home and switching into family mode.
Today, I was listening to my book and was nearing the end…you know, the part where it gets really good and you start doing an extra circle around the block just so you can finish the chapter…yeah, that part.
Well, when I excitedly picked up my headphones at lunch during work, I opened the app to find that my audiobook had “expired 1 day ago”.
It was gone. I took too long.
I was so close to the end. And it takes like a million years to get back through the waitlist. Needless to say, I was a bit frustrated…for a few reasons:
1—Why didn’t I know before?
One of the most frustrating moments was realizing the book had “expired 1 day” ago when I was literally listening to it like 2 hours before.
From this, I’ve learned that indications are important.
It would have been very useful to get a similar expiration notice, but maybe a day or two before expiration. Think back to grade school days, when all you had was that worn down punch card to remind you when it’s due back…with current technology, we should be able to do better than that.
2 — Was I supposed to remember?
Imagine you bought some ice cream and you finally got down to the tasty waffle cone part. But right as you went for that crunchy cool bite, someone took it away and said you didn’t eat it fast enough.
Stupid analogy maybe, but I’m craving ice cream right now. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Point is, it was a jarring experience to open the audiobook app and suddenly see nothing but an empty screen.
From this, I’ve learned that people could use a reminder sometimes.
Idea:
What if a timer started counting down until the content disappeared? Just like when you click “add to bag” on that shopping site and it starts counting down, as if to say “hey, make a decision…we can’t wait forever.” I think of it kind of like a due date for a book report.
If I’d had at least a due date, I would’ve known to replace Netflix time with listening time. Thanks Netflix, you thieves.
2 — This is a digital version, right?
Back to the empty screen. Okay, I get it…I took too long to listen to the audiobook. Someone else was on the waiting list, it’s their turn now.
That all makes sense when there’s a physical book involved…because that’s maybe the only copy they have. But I struggle with that concept being applied to a digital file.
Yes, maybe the library only has rights to a finite number of digital copies, but I think this comes back to the way they could handle the borrowing of those digital copies.
Audiobooks are broken into segments, sometimes including multiple chapters— this one had 22 of them. So could it make more sense if I allowed someone else to borrow segment 1–5 once I reach segment 10 or 15? I mean, I’m probably done with that part of the book anyway…
From this, I’ve learned the beauty of digital files. They’re easier to distribute in pieces than a physical object.
Could be interesting to leverage that…but yes, it could also spell disaster without regulation. The point is, it’s possible.
I’ve mainly used this a medium (see what I did there?) to vent my frustrations, but I’ve also gleaned some interesting insight into how to better handle product experiences—made for humans—in a digital world.
Feel free to comment with your thoughts or ideas, and a huge high five if you’ve made it all the way to the end of my rant :)
Thanks for reading!
