WeChat reading product operation analysis!

Coinciding with World Book Day, this article provides a guide to solving problems in reading APP products by disassembling 80 pages, 3 theoretical design models, and more than 100 product design details, taking the design strategy derivation of WeChat Reading as an example.

I. Preface

1. Suitable for the crowd

(1) UI/interaction designer

Break out of the executive-level thinking and improve product design analysis capabilities through the process of deriving product design strategies.

(2) Product Manager/Operation

Get design references for reading products through comprehensive product design strategy derivation and interactive demonstration.

(3) Reading product practitioners

Obtain references for competitive product analysis through comprehensive product design strategy derivation and user demand analysis.

2. Derive the goal

Through the disassembly and strategy deduction of the product design of WeChat Reading V6.2.2 APP, we think about and summarize how a reading APP should be designed and how it can be developed into a user habit product, and provide a product design strategy reference for relevant product design practitioners, thereby reducing the failure rate of products.

3. Derivation steps

1. Product disassembly. Through comprehensive design analysis, we delve into the product design details of WeChat Reading.
2. Strategy derivation. We derive design strategies by combining growth models, addiction models, and social psychology, and analyze why WeChat Reading does this.
3. Summarize your thoughts. Through analysis of user needs, motivations, and habits, the design strategy of WeChat Reading is verified, thus providing a reference for product design.

4. Analytical Model

(1) Growth model

Proposed by Dave McClure, it includes user acquisition, user activation, user retention, revenue generation, and user recommendation, corresponding to the five important links in the user life cycle, and is mainly used to analyze the functional value of the product.

(2) Addiction Model

Proposed by Neil Faier, through research on thousands of habit-forming products, it is concluded that if a product is to make users accustomed to and addicted, it can be designed according to four steps: trigger, action, variable rewards and investment. It is mainly used to analyze the functional value of the product and derive the product's strategic design.

(3) Social psychology

It mainly combines Cialdini's six persuasive principles of social psychology "Influence" - reciprocity, commitment and consistency, social identity, liking, authority and scarcity to derive the user psychological design of product design, which is mainly used to derive product strategy design.

2. What kind of reading APP do users need?

According to the "China Digital Reading Product Marketing Insights Report" released by iResearch Consulting in 2020, the market size of the digital reading industry has exceeded 20 billion, and the scale of digital reading users has exceeded 400 million. There are countless reading apps on the market today, but why do users want to read, what kind of reading products do they need, and what difficulties do the design of reading products face? I will combine Neil Faier's addiction model and BJ Fogg's behavioral cognition to analyze and summarize.

1. Why do users want to read?

(1) Pain point analysis

Before reading:

1. The threshold is high. Reading takes time, and requires thinking and understanding, which is not an easy thing in itself, so there are few people who love reading and can persist in reading.
2. Less time. People's pace of life nowadays is so busy. From morning to night, there is almost endless work to do. On weekends, they have to spend time with family or meet up with friends. There is so little time to sit down and read.

Reading:

1. It’s hard to find books. Reading is important, and most people understand that, but they don’t know what books to read in a limited time, what the purpose of reading them will be, and it seems that they have no connection with their current work and life status.
2. Difficult to persist. Reading requires persistence day after day. No matter how thin a book is, it will take at least 3-5 hours to finish reading it. Moreover, if you only read it sporadically, you will not be able to build an effective knowledge system and you will completely forget it after a few days.

After reading:

1. The perceived value is low. Users read too few books and they read them too sporadically, so the perceived value of the books is not high, and they cannot say what they have gained after reading them.
2. Difficult to apply what you have learned. Most people have no method when reading, no systematic reading, and forget what they read, so they cannot apply what they have learned.

(2) User motivation

BJ Fogg, the inventor of behavioral design and professor at Stanford University in the United States, divides user motivations into three main categories: the first is the pursuit of happiness and avoidance of pain; the second is the pursuit of hope and avoidance of fear; and the third is the pursuit of recognition and avoidance of rejection.

For most people, reading is a boring, brain-consuming and difficult thing to persist in, so most users read more to pursue hope. What do users want to pursue? This is because with the rapid development of information technology, the pressure in the workplace is increasing, and the requirements for talent have become higher and higher. This era requires more professional and comprehensive talents, and studying has become the best, fairest and cheapest way. So this is the real motivation for users to choose to read.

(3) Expecting Rewards

Reward means reward. What rewards can users get by reading? This is the purpose of users choosing to read.

1. Social rewards: by reading, you can improve your knowledge and skills, gain recognition from friends, peers, and leaders, and apply the knowledge in your work and life.
2. Reward yourself by reading, you enrich your spiritual world and feel satisfied, happy and joyful.

2. User demand for reading products

(1) Time requirement

In the era of mobile Internet, users' time has been cut into fragments, making it difficult to focus on a concentrated period of time to read. Most people read in fragmented time such as in the office while waiting for a client meeting to end, on the high-speed train on a business trip, or half an hour before going to bed after working overtime.

(2) Equipment requirements

It must be a mobile app that can be read anytime and anywhere. Most users no longer have the patience and time to read through notebooks or paper books. Even if the Kindle is well made, the scene of users eating bread on the high-speed rail and taking their Kindle out to read is gone forever.

(3) Book Demand

The books should be complete. Most users download a reading APP because a book is recommended by a friend or because of work needs. They read with a purpose.

(4) Experience needs

The product's user experience should be friendly, the reading interface should be neatly laid out, and reading should be effortless. It would be even better if there were little surprises.

(5) Need for money

Most users are not averse to paying, and many even have the habit of buying physical books to read. When it comes to electronic reading, they prefer good quality and low prices.

(6) Spiritual needs

After users start to persist in reading, in addition to the help that books can bring to themselves, they also desire more spiritual needs, such as gaining recognition for their comments or opinions on books, and even hoping to leave an impression on the outside world that they love reading and are positive and enterprising.

3. Design Difficulties of Reading Apps

(1) Book copyright

First of all, you have to own a large number of book copyrights. If you spend 100 yuan in advertising fees to attract a new user, but he cannot find the book he likes in your APP, then this user will most likely be lost. The copyright of books has become the minimum threshold for reading apps.

(2) User time

For reading apps, the growth and number of product users cannot be the only criteria for evaluating whether the product is successful. Even if you have 200 million users, if the average reading time per week is less than 10 minutes, then this product will find it difficult to achieve the expected value. How to encourage users to read and how to increase their reading time are the biggest difficulties in product growth.

(3) User habits

The essence of reading is a habitual behavior. If users cannot persist and only fish for three days and spread the net for two days, then such users cannot be called active users or habitual users. Therefore, the ultimate goal of reading apps is to establish users' reading habits and encourage users to read every day and every week. Whoever can make users get used to themselves will become the ultimate winner in the industry.

4. Summary

To sum up, the real motivation of most users for reading is to improve their skills and learn new knowledge, so that they can gain more recognition in the workplace and in life, thereby improving their core competitiveness. What users really need for reading products is convenience, and the ability to read anytime and anywhere within a limited time. The essence and difficulty of designing a reading app is how to make users accustomed to using your own product to read. This is a race to seize user habits.

3. Derivation of WeChat Reading Design Strategy

1. Product portrait

(1) Product Introduction

【WeChat Reading】 is a reading APP that grew up on WeChat. With the design concept of reading + social interaction, it has revolutionized the design of reading products. It not only provides users with e-book reading and physical book purchase, but also allows users to post reading ideas and write reading notes. It aims to create a platform for users to make friends through books - so that reading is no longer lonely.

(2) Product life cycle

WeChat Reading, which was launched in 2015, has now entered the mature stage of its product life cycle. According to official data released in mid-2019, the number of WeChat Reading users has exceeded 210 million (conservatively estimated to be at least 300 million as of now); and according to data statistics from iResearch Qianfan in April 2021, the number of monthly active users has exceeded 20 million. Products in the mature stage mainly focus on user retention and monetization. Secondly, they have become stable in terms of functions and interface design, and are more focused on pursuing the ultimate user experience.

(3) User Profile

According to statistics from third-party platforms such as Baidu Index and iResearch Qianfan, WeChat Reading users generally have a high level of education, and are mainly college students, office workers, and freelancers. They are relatively young (20-35) and live in first-tier cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen. They like to read at noon and before bed.

(4) User reviews

As of April 15, 2022, WeChat Reading has a score of 4.9 on the APP Store and ranks third in the reading category. WeChat Reading combines the concept of social interaction with the subversive design of reading products. Although it has received mixed reviews, users have relatively high opinions of WeChat Reading.

(5) Iteration process

As of April 15, 2022, WeChat Reading has undergone numerous changes over the past six years, from its initial exploration of reading + social interaction to telling a good story to making reading no longer lonely.

Hundreds of iterations, the latest version is V6.2.2.

On August 28, 2015, the V1.0 version was officially released, initially exploring the concept of reading + social interaction;

In May 2017, it was upgraded to version 2.0, which allows users to view public account articles and supports audiobooks.

In September 2018, it was upgraded to version V3.0 and launched the WeChat Reading Unlimited Card Membership Service;

In June 2019, the version was upgraded to V4.0, and the slogan was upgraded to "Read a good story and make reading easier";

Upgraded to version V5.0 in August 2020, supporting the purchase of physical books in the product;

It was upgraded to version V6.0 in October 2021, and the slogan was upgraded again - let reading no longer be lonely.

(6) Product disassembly

We conducted a comprehensive analysis of the functional information architecture and core pages of WeChat Reading, and then divided the functions into three categories according to the growth model, namely, reading services, marketing services, and membership services, to make final preparations for strategy derivation.

(7) Summary

By sorting out the product portrait, we learned the basic information of WeChat Reading. As a product designed and developed by Tencent, it has natural growth advantages. Relying on WeChat's strong user base and huge traffic, it is a rich second generation born with a silver spoon in its mouth. After nearly seven years of development, its number of users and active users should be at the forefront of reading APP products (since there is no real data to verify, we can only make a judgment based on the published data).

2. Reading service

(1) Reading

2.1.1 Functional value

[Reading] is the homepage of the WeChat Reading APP. It recommends related books and book lists based on user interests and what friends are reading, forming a personalized information flow for each user, reducing the user's time cost in finding books and quickly activating monetization. Secondly, through diverse design, users can maintain a sense of freshness about the product, greatly improving user retention and product satisfaction.

2.1.2 Strategy Derivation

(1) The header displays the user’s [This Week’s Reading Data Dashboard] and [Recently Read Books], which is intuitive and eye-catching, and allows users to focus on reading.

(2) Recommend relevant books and book lists based on user interests, and use the ever-changing information flow to bring users a sense of freshness, which is of great help to user retention; recommend books that friends are reading, and use the herd mentality to stimulate users' desire to read.

(3) Pulling down the page header to enter the second floor not only saves layout space, but also allows customers to quickly disseminate promotional services and activate users.

(2) Bookstore

2.2.1 Functional value

[Bookstore] is a library that provides users with a way to find and select books to read. It contains professional works in many knowledge fields at home and abroad, such as common categories such as economics and finance, social culture, history and literature. Secondly, there are two categories that young users like: boys' novels and girls' novels.

[Bookstore] is an important way to achieve user activation, retention and monetization.

2.2.2 Strategy derivation

2.2.2.1 Bookstore Home Page

(1) Users can enter keywords to quickly search for target books (scrolling to play popular books) and quickly activate users.

(2) Display the bookstore categories to users. [Boys’ Novels] and [Girls’ Novels] are profitable products and are positioned at the front. [Audio Books] is a strategic plan to attract traffic to WeChat audiobooks and form a closed loop. [Book List] adds functions and scenarios to books, making reading less boring and reducing the time cost of finding books. [List] is divided according to popularity to stimulate users’ interest in reading. [Free Books] is a reciprocal promotion to quickly activate users.

(3) Taking advantage of the mysterious variability, the app recommends books of interest to users based on the books they are currently reading or have read. A "shake" function is also set up in the upper right corner. Each time the user clicks, different books are recommended, helping users quickly obtain "prey" and start reading.

(4) Books are divided into [New Book Overview], [Rankings], [Hot Recommendations], and [Heavyweight Books] based on their release time, popularity, and value, to stimulate user interest and reduce book search costs.

(5) Book lists are divided into three categories based on time and function, namely [Weekly Book List], [Today's Book List], and [Topic Book List]. [Weekly Book List] includes the most popular books, the most searched books, and the most commented books each week. [Today's Book List] selects popular book lists created by users. [Topic Book List] is a collection of books generated for a certain topic. The purpose of the book list is to guide users to read quickly and realize activation and monetization.

2.2.2.2 Book details page

(1) The upper right corner contains [Listen to Book], [Number of Readers], [Share], and [More]. [Audiobooks] is machine reading, and although the experience is poor, it can meet the user habits of different groups of people; [Number of Readers] has added social attributes, and users can view the number of friends who are reading and the users who read the book, and can view and like their friends' reading and ideas; [Share] is fully linked to WeChat, and users can sync their reading status to WeChat status to create a perfect external trigger for communication and drainage; [More] has added private reading to fully respect user privacy.

(2) Based on user ratings and book popularity, the WeChat Reading Recommendation Value is generated to stimulate user interest. Secondly, through Excellent Reviews and Popular Highlights, the trust is enhanced to provide a reference for users to choose books.

(3) Through a comprehensive and complete introduction on the [Book Details Page], we continuously enhance trust and dispel user concerns; at the bottom, you can view other books by the author and publisher, and link related books and book lists to achieve a small closed loop of reading.

(3) Bookshelf

2.3.1 Functional value

[Bookshelf] is like a favorites folder. Users can add books to the bookshelf for easy reading while reading. [Bookshelf] You can view the most recently updated books, books being read, books you have read, and books you have not read. It supports users to categorize books and create book lists to share.

[Bookshelf] refers to the user's content investment in the product, which can effectively help the product achieve user activation and cultivate user habits.

2.3.2 Strategy Derivation

2.3.2.1 Bookshelf Page

(1) The header contains [Search] and [Add]. The search box scrolls to display the latest popular books. After clicking [Add], you can import books from your computer, iCloud, and WeChat.

(2) The TAB column includes [Default], [Update], [Progress], [Purchase], and [Category], allowing users to view their reading progress based on different dimensions.

(3) [Book List] and [Bookshelf] have the same weight, which is mainly to encourage users to create book lists and produce high-quality content for the platform; users can classify, remove, download, etc. books to effectively manage books.

2.3.2.2 Book list page

(1) Users can create their own book lists or search for other people’s book lists;

(2) The official website carefully selects books based on the book lists created by users to solve the pain point of users' difficulty in finding books;

(3) Users can comment on and collect book lists, and give social rewards to the creators of the book lists, forming a closed loop and thus creating higher-quality content.

(4) Reading

2.4.1 Functional Value

[Reading] means that the user starts reading after selecting a book. 【Reading】 has incorporated the social genes of Tencent and provides a rich variety of functions, such as ideas, underlining, personalized fonts, and personalized backgrounds. You can discuss and communicate with book friends while reading. [Reading] is an important way to cultivate user habits, make users addicted to products, and achieve user retention.

2.4.2 Strategy Derivation

2.4.2.1 Reading Page

(1) When a user enters the reading process, a strong reminder [Not added to the bookshelf] will be given to prevent the user from searching again; the user can add the book to the [Shopping Cart]. In addition to opening an unlimited membership card for reading, it also supports the purchase of e-books and paper books for quick cash conversion; using the herd effect, the number of friends reading and the total number of reading users are displayed; [Share] supports synchronization to WeChat personal status, WeChat check-in, and promotion; click [More], the system provides automatic reading, downloading to local reading, etc., and also provides private reading, hiding ideas and other functions that fully respect user autonomy.

(2) Users can switch to the [listening mode] according to their own habits; they can quickly enter the [small circle] associated with the book to communicate and share with book friends; users are encouraged to input [ideas] and communicate and learn with book friends.

(3) Click to view the book's [catalog] and quickly jump; provide [note] and [underline] functions to help users record and increase user investment; freely drag the reading progress and switch to [automatic reading] mode; provide a variety of reading backgrounds, support members to use special skins, induce monetization; users can freely adjust the font type, font size, margin, line spacing, and provide a variety of font effects, support members to use special fonts, induce monetization.

(5) You can quickly view the opinions expressed by users on the current page. Users can comment, like, and retweet. After users underline a book, they can comment, like, and share the underlined book.

2.4.2.2 Last page

After finishing reading a book, it will be linked to the corresponding [small circle] to form a small closed loop. The purpose is to use social rewards to grab users' time and keep them on WeChat Reading; recommend similar books to users, guide them to continue reading, and start the next reading closed loop.

2.4.2.3 End Page

(1) Mark the content as completed, automatically generate posters, and use social rewards to guide users to share and spread the content.

(2) The system displays selected reading notes, encouraging users to write high-quality reading notes on books to gain likes and retweets.

(5) Small Circle

2.5.1 Functional value

[Small Circle] is a community for book lovers to communicate and learn. Users can join small circles with different themes (officially created), express their ideas, like, comment and share. [Small Circle] can help products achieve user retention and increase user activity.

2.5.2 Strategy Derivation

(1) Based on different topics, the official creates different interest circles. Users can join according to their interests, post ideas, like and comment, obtain social rewards, and increase user activity.

(2) When users express their ideas, they can link to officially created topics to form discussions, enrich the content of the circle, attract users in return, and create a high-quality and healthy community atmosphere.

(6) Friends’ thoughts

2.6.1 Functional value

【Friends' Thoughts】 inherits the genes of WeChat Moments. The thoughts expressed by friends while reading books will be updated synchronously. Friends can retweet, comment, and like to obtain social rewards, which effectively increases user activity.

2.6.2 Strategy Derivation

In order to save users' time, enrich product content and increase usage frequency, users' reading ideas are synchronized to the idea circle by default; users' published ideas are automatically associated with books, and friends can directly enter to read, reducing usage costs.

(7) Notes

2.7.1 Functional value

[Notes] refer to the data and information users input into a product. When users read a book, they will take a lot of notes. As the number of notes increases, the user's dependence on the product increases, and they become completely accustomed to the product and become loyal users.

2.7.2 Optimization Suggestions

Judging from the current version, the note-taking function is still a bit thin and has not yet fully attracted users to make more investments.

(8) Summary

From the perspective of reading services, the product design concept of WeChat Reading is to fully combine reading and social interaction, take advantage of the unparalleled advantages of WeChat, fully connect the WeChat ecosystem, and turn the somewhat boring activity of reading into a platform where people can communicate at any time and make friends through books.

3. Marketing Services

(1) Daily Answer

3.1.1 Game rules

There are two ways to play [Daily Answer]. The first is that users can take part in the answer challenge every day. After answering 12 questions correctly in a row, they can participate in the opportunity to [share unlimited cards] and [book coins]. If they answer incorrectly, they will lose the opportunity, but they can get a chance to resurrect by [resurrection card props] or share with friends to ask for help; the second is [Question and Answer PK Competition], which adopts a season system and lasts for two months. Users can invite friends or play randomly. The winner can win points. After the season ends, the champion will be determined based on the points, and different rewards will be given to players in the end.

3.1.2 Functional value

[Daily Answer] Jump directly from the APP to WeChat, which is not only convenient for operation experience, but also can combine with the WeChat ecosystem to attract traffic and create a reading activity for everyone to learn and answer questions. Secondly, through rich and varied gamification methods, we can maintain the freshness of the users, form a small closed loop of reading and entertainment, grab the users’ time, improve the users’ retention rate, and enhance the users’ satisfaction and loyalty, which is an important way to cultivate the users’ habits for the products.

3.1.3 Strategy derivation

(1) There are many ways to play with [Points]. Not only can you [draw], [exchange for unlimited cards] and [prop cards], you can also directly exchange for books, providing users with a variety of prey rewards.

(2) Entering [Daily Answer], users can choose between two types of questions and answers: [Share Reading Days] (using reading time as an inducement) or [Book Coins] (using money as an inducement). [Rankings] are divided into friend rankings and network-wide rankings. Through the ranking mechanism, social rewards are used as an inducement to attract users to actively participate in Q&A, thereby increasing user habits and becoming loyal fans.

(3) Taking advantage of scarcity, users only have one chance to answer the question every day. However, if they answer incorrectly, they can revive by using a [life-extending card] or by inviting friends to answer the question. If a user fails to pass a level, they can also revive by [purchasing book coins], [resurrecting by watching ads], or [resurrecting by inviting friends] to play games. Through such a varied, rich, and game-like answering format, users are encouraged to actively share and spread the question, thereby attracting new traffic.

(4) The design of [Question and Answer PK] is very innovative. Different from many single-player game modes of answering questions and guessing games, WeChat Reading adopts the season system of sports competitions, allowing users to participate like playing a game. Each season lasts for 2 months, and the season champion is decided through PK. It is exciting and fun, making users completely addicted.

(2) Free books

3.2.1 Functional value

Users can receive books by sharing them, or by reading them for 5 minutes and adding them to their bookshelf. This is very helpful for activating non-paying users and attracting new users.

3.2.1 Strategy derivation

Recommendations are made based on user reading records and interests to stimulate user interest. Users can also add books to their bookshelf as gifts if they read for 5 minutes, which effectively activates users who have not paid and have not formed habits. The variable design means that different books can be picked up every day, which always keeps a sense of mystery for users.

(3) Unlimited membership days

3.3.1 Functional value

Every Monday is [Unlimited Membership Day] (Unlimited Membership is the VIP membership of WeChat Reading). Users can participate in free draws and vote for the [Membership Benefits] they want most. This is a good way to activate new users and retain old users. Attract new users to buy unlimited cards through [lottery] and [membership benefits]. Secondly, give old users full autonomy to allow them to participate in product design, greatly improving user activity and loyalty.

3.3.2 Strategy derivation

Make full use of scarcity, with only one draw per week; combine gamification style design to simulate real slot machine interaction effects, which is vivid and interesting; through research, mobilize fans' participation in product design to meet users' real needs.

(4) Turn over

3.4.1 Game rules

There is one issue per week, each issue has 9 free books, and it is updated every Tuesday at noon. Ordinary users can flip 3 cards, each card can receive a free book, and unlimited card members can flip 6 cards.

3.4.2 Functional value

【Flip It】 is an effective way to promote user activation. Through gamification-style design, 9 books are selected and given to users every week to attract users to start reading and cultivate reading habits.

3.4.3 Strategy derivation

It makes full use of the principle of reciprocity, scarcity and variability of rewards to stimulate user interest and cultivate user habits.

(5) Team up to draw unlimited cards

3.5.1 Game rules

It is published once a week and updated every Saturday. Users need to invite 4 friends to be eligible to participate. After the team is successfully formed, the winning information will be announced at 12 noon every Saturday.

3.5.2 Functional value

[Team Lottery] is a pure sharing invitation form of traffic dissemination, using [Lifetime Unlimited Card] as bait to inspire users to team up for the lottery. Secondly, the lottery rules are also difficult to pass, which effectively prevents users from exploiting loopholes in the rules to participate repeatedly.

3.5.3 Strategy Derivation

By making full use of the principle of reciprocity, everyone can form a group, and the group leader can get an extra chance, thus fully mobilizing the enthusiasm of the group leader to attract new members and traffic.

(6) Reading in a group

3.6.1 Game rules

Three people form a team and read together, using [Unlimited Cards] and [Raffles] as inducements. The points cycle is 21 days, and the reading team can be promoted to a higher level based on the final points of each period, and redeem richer prizes.

3.6.2 Functional value

[Team reading] is an important way to promote user activation and retention. By reading in a team, users can not only supervise each other, but also greatly improve their activity.

3.6.3 Strategy Derivation

(1) Using a unique and creative design approach, a single person reading a book becomes a group of three people reading together, greatly improving user activity and loyalty;

(2) We release different shared reading tasks every week, and adopt a 21-day competition mechanism. Through prize rewards, we encourage group members to supervise each other spontaneously, effectively activating non-paying users and thoroughly cultivating users' reading habits.

(7) Co-branded cards

3.7.1 Game rules

We select 6 good books every week and update them every Thursday. Users who share them with WeChat friends or Moments and collect 2 likes can get a 2-day unlimited card. A maximum of 12 days of unlimited cards can be obtained per issue.

3.7.2 Functional value

[Co-branded Card] is an effective way to encourage users to share and spread the word. By sharing and collecting likes, they can redeem corresponding unlimited card days, further activating user monetization.

3.7.3 Strategy Derivation

The extremely beautiful poster design coupled with vivid copywriting allows users to participate in the dissemination more actively, forming interpersonal triggers, with old users bringing in new users and achieving unlimited growth.

(8) Invite WeChat friends

3.8.1 Game Rules

Users who invite friends and users who have not read the book for 30 days can get a 3-day unlimited card. Rewards for successfully inviting multiple people can be accumulated.

3.8.2 Functional value

[Invite Friends] is a way to encourage users to attract new users and awaken users with extremely low activity. The user action cost is low and the reward is not high, but it can effectively activate user dissemination.

3.8.3 Strategy Derivation

The user's reading time and the number of books read are automatically generated. Through such an interesting and clever design, social rewards are used to encourage users to actively invite friends, creating a two-way pressure and killing two birds with one stone.

(9) Reading time

3.9.1 Functional value

Based on the user's weekly reading time, statistics of reading time for the week are generated for the user. Users can also query historical reading time by month or year. This feature is of great help to user retention and is an important way to improve user satisfaction and loyalty.

3.9.2 Strategy Derivation

(1) After clicking Share in the upper right corner, you can share it with friends, generate a reading poster for the week, and set it as [WeChat Status] to help users gain social recognition and attract traffic for promotion.

(2) Provide users with comprehensive and intuitive data analysis. Users can view reading analysis by day, week, or month. They can also view the [Annual Reading Report], which is like a phonograph that stores the user's reading memories. The bottom shows a detailed record of the week's reading, including [Books Read], [Word Count], and [Notes Left]. Such an intuitive and concrete design makes users scream.

(3) We set up [Reading Rewards], which are divided into different small reading tasks to cultivate users’ reading habits, thereby further looking for opportunities to activate monetization.

(10) Summary

Through a comprehensive analysis and deduction of marketing services, we found that WeChat Reading really follows the product design routine of Tencent and has thoroughly studied the users. We make full use of marketing models such as reciprocity, scarcity, social recognition, and variable rewards to encourage users to actively share, learn, and participate, ultimately cultivating the habit of using the product and turning them into loyal fans of the product.

4. Member Services

(1) Personal homepage

4.1.1 Functional value

[Personal Homepage] is the landing page that users show to their friends. It records all the user's investment in WeChat Reading, including [Reading Time], [Number of Fans], [Likes Received], [Medals Received], [Book Lists Created], [Ideas Published], etc. Users can not only check their own reading history, but also generate posters to share with friends, satisfying the user's desire to show off, thereby motivating users to study harder and develop a habit.

4.1.2 Strategy Derivation

(1) Taking advantage of the psychology of showing off, the app displays the user’s [reading time], [likes received], [number of fans], and [medals] in detail, allowing users to perceive them immediately and induce sharing.

(2) [Bookshelf] and [Read Books] are only open to friends who follow you, which fully respects the user's privacy and ensures the privacy of reading. This also explains why user confirmation is required when a new user follows you.

(2) Reading Rankings

4.2.1 Functional Value [Reading rankings are] automatically generated based on the user’s weekly reading time. The purpose is to use the user’s competitive psychology through rankings among friends to stimulate users to read, increase their reading time, and cultivate user habits.

4.2.2 Strategy Derivation

By utilizing the coupon effect, [Reading Time] can be exchanged for reading benefits; through rankings, using the psychology of comparison, users can be motivated to increase their reading time; a reading ranking poster can be generated in the upper right corner to spread the word.

(3) Medal

4.3.1 Functional value

The badge system of WeChat Reading is very rich, including seven types of releases: [Continuous Reading], [Reading Time], [Reading Days], [Books Read], [Complete Book Reading], [Likes Received] and [Ideas], which fully stimulate users' interest in reading, retain users and cultivate user habits.

4.3.2 Strategy Derivation

(1) The classification of the [Medal] system is very creative. Based on the time dimension, there are [Continuous Reading], [Reading Time], and [Reading Days], which are rewards for users' reading time; based on the number of books read, there are [Books Read] and [Books Completed], which are rewards for users' reading of a group of books; based on ideas and likes, there are [Likes Received] and [Ideas Posted], which are rewards for users' content investment. Through such multi-dimensional design and variable rewards, user freshness, activity and loyalty are improved.

(2) Click Share in the upper right corner to share with friends, synchronize WeChat status, generate medal posters, and attract new traffic.

(4) News

4.4.1 Functional value

[Message] is the external trigger of the product. When a user receives a comment or likes, the user will be notified immediately. Secondly, users can communicate online through [Private Message] to establish friendships, increase user relationship investment, and thus cultivate user habits of using the product.

4.4.2 Key Findings

In the [Private Message] dialogue window, click the [Push] icon, you can not only push books in the [Bookshelf] to your friends, but also send them directly through the [Bookstore] search. This function fully combines user scenario design and the experience is great.

(5) Summary

Through the analysis of this chapter, we can feel that the WeChat Reading team’s understanding of user reading is no longer reading in the traditional sense. What they strive for is not only to provide users with more than millions of books to read, but also to make reading a lifestyle habit. Not only can you view the weekly reading time analysis, you can even view the reading records and reports from two years ago. Isn't this a time machine that records your growth? Oh my god, I feel like I've gone from being a die-hard fan to a complete lunatic.

5. Strategy Summary

(1) Variable rewards

The WeChat Reading design team has mastered the art of versatile design. Whether it is recommending books to users or reading, which is a rigorous task in itself, it can always keep users feeling fresh and mysterious. Users' reading behavior is no longer just pure reading, but a way to make friends through books and share knowledge for fun.

(2) Convenient reading

It’s just a reading page, but WeChat Reading has designed countless details. It can not only help users take notes and mark lines, but also switch to listen to books, view or share ideas. Even the font and background of reading support personalized customization, so as to do the small thing of reading to the extreme.

(3) High frequency trigger

Through rich marketing gameplay and sharing mechanisms, there are hundreds of ways to trigger users to read in the WeChat ecosystem. Can you imagine that when you see your colleague's WeChat status show that he is reading "Growth Hacker", you are not thinking about how to make a reading plan next?

(4) High investment in users

The high investment of users will completely increase the loyalty of users to the product, because users will generate a lot of data during the reading process, such as marking lines, notes, ideas, and even reading time, reading records, etc. Can you make a user who has 18 medals on WeChat and has a reading time of more than 1,000 hours become your reading user? It's harder than climbing to the sky!

4. The last words

The 27th World Reading Day was written when the full analysis was held. When the People's Daily and other official media were calling on the whole people to read, as an entrepreneur who needs to input a lot of knowledge every day and output it repeatedly, I am very glad that I can keep reading every day through the Reading APP. Through comprehensive deduction of WeChat Reading’s design strategy, I think WeChat Reading is really a great reading APP. Their product design strategy not only hits users’ pain points, but also conducts disruptive and innovative designs. It is not to give users a faster carriage, but a Ferrari that can accelerate to 400 yards!