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Right! The whole “shelf” analogy is silly and unnecessary. It doesn’t make the interface familiar and obvious. Real people don’t actually have a shelf for books they want to read, are reading, and have read. We do get those concepts by themselves, so those states should simply be exposed directly, as what they are, no analogy needed. It’s an extra layer and extra mental work, for no benefit.

(Should also mention that the interface I am discussing is the one with which I’m familiar: their current iPhone app as-of 2012–2013.)



Besides the difficulty of marking the status of a particular book, it is incredibly difficult to actually discuss particular books.

There is also no capability to discuss only up to a particular portion of a book or any easy way to read books together etc.

The product has a lot of potential, but there are some fundamental usability issues holding it back imo.




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