WeChat reading product operation analysis report!

In today's fast-paced life, people's time has become fragmented, and paper reading has gradually become a luxury. At the same time, the rise of e-reading meets the fragmented reading needs of urban residents. In this article, the author makes a product experience report on the electronic reading app WeChat Reading and gives his analysis and judgment. Let’s take a look.

This user experience report aims to explain the application characteristics of "WeChat Reading" and its impact on user experience from four major perspectives, namely background overview, product analysis, product functions and structure, product experience and user experience.

1. The background overview section explains the background information of the product, the purpose of the experience, and the environment of the experience;
2. Product analysis defines the product environment and its users from the perspectives of market analysis, industry trends, user analysis (user portraits), and demand analysis;
3. The functional and structural analysis of the product breaks down the product framework and structure, showing the completion path of the user's main tasks;
4. The product experience and user experience section conducts a SWOT analysis of the advantages and disadvantages felt by individuals when experiencing the product, and briefly compares its application (including functions and business models) with its competitors. Finally, based on the five-layer model of user experience, a more in-depth and comprehensive analysis of product construction is conducted.

The full text is about 8,000 words and takes about 20-25 minutes to read.

I. Background Overview

1. Product Introduction

"WeChat Reading" is a mobile reading application under Tencent, first released in August 2015. Although it was launched later than similar products (Ipanema, QQ Reading), "WeChat Reading" has gained over 100 million users in just four years, and its strength should not be underestimated.

The slogan of "WeChat Reading" is "Let reading no longer be lonely", and it focuses on social reading. Through the three methods of [discovering high-quality books with friends], [discussing and exchanging ideas with friends], and [competing with friends in reading time], we promote the exchange of ideas between users and their friends and strangers, thereby deepening the influence on each other and forming a virtuous interactive cycle.

WeChat Reading focuses on in-depth reading, with publications (including various translated books and original books) as the main book category. It continues to attract users through low prices, free unlimited cards, free reading in teams, and free paper books for participating in activities. Based on intelligent recommendations, it continues to recommend good books to users, allowing users to develop good reading habits and maintain continuous stickiness to the platform.

2. Purpose of the experience

Since the author is a moderate to heavy user of mobile reading and has been using Kindle to read books for many years, he is very interested in the e-reading industry and emerging mobile digital reading applications. He hopes to understand the similarities and differences in experience between digital reading applications and Kindle readers.

3. Experience the environment

• Phone model: Huawei FLA-AL20
• System version: Android 9.0
• Application version: WeChat Reading v5.3.6

2. Product Analysis

1. Market analysis

1) Market size

According to iMedia Consulting data, the market size of China's digital reading industry continued to grow from 2018 to 2020, with an average growth rate of more than 15%. However, as mobile reading has been developing for many years and the market has become mature, the subsequent growth rate is expected to continue to slow down. However, the overall digital reading market is still expected to reach 45.39 billion yuan in 2022.

2) Digital reading revenue

The digital reading industry's revenue mainly consists of subscription income, copyright operations, advertising, and e-mail, with user subscription payments being the main source.

However, with the disappearance of the market's demographic dividend and the rise of free reading apps in recent years, subscription revenue has begun to decline year by year, with an average annual decline of about 1.38%.

Copyright (IP) operations (such as the creation of online literature, adaptation of film and television works, etc.) have shown a significant increase, suggesting that people's pursuit of high-quality content has increased and they are willing to pay for it.

2. Industry Trends

1) Free mobile reading

According to iResearch Consulting's "2020 China Mobile Reading Industry Development Special Research Report", more than 60% of reading users hope that the platform is completely free or can be indirectly free by completing tasks.

Among all the tasks, long-term check-in, reading time rewards and ranking rewards ranked in the top three, accounting for 64.1%, 53.3% and 45.5% respectively (multiple choices).

This conclusion indirectly reflects that most of China's mobile reading users are price-sensitive people with middle or lower-middle incomes, and tend to use free or low-cost platforms for low-cost reading.

2) High-quality content is the key to user payment

Analysts from iMedia Research Consulting believe that after years of development, the types and content of mobile reading works have become homogeneous and formulaic, so content quality has become a key factor in attracting users. The construction of high-quality content, creator resources, and content ecology has also become the focus of competition among mobile reading platforms.

According to iMedia Research data, 78.5% of the users surveyed are willing to spend no more than 30 yuan per month on mobile reading platforms, and only 4.5% of users are willing to spend more than 50 yuan per month.

Improving content quality is the most important factor driving users to pay. 34.0% of mobile reading users’ consumption is mainly driven by content quality, and 30.9% are willing to consume after platform fees are reduced.

3. User analysis

According to Baidu Index analysis:

• WeChat Reading users are mainly distributed in first-tier cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, while second-tier cities such as Hangzhou and Chengdu also rank high.
• The main age groups of "WeChat Reading" users are between 20-29 and 30-39 years old, mainly college students, office workers, and freelancers, with the majority being young people; the proportion of males is slightly higher than that of females, about 10% higher.

The official WeChat Reading report card for 2019 shows that as of December 22, 2019, the average reading time per WeChat reader was about 86 minutes, with peak reading times at 12 noon and 10 p.m., with book readers in first-tier cities being the most active.

According to data from China Literature Group’s 2020 Content Partner Conference, WeChat Reading has accumulated 210 million registered users, of which the daily active users of pure publishing have exceeded 2 million.

Among WeChat Reading users, users in megacities and first-tier cities account for about 84%, users aged 16-35 account for about 45%, and users with a bachelor’s degree or above account for about 79%.

Conclusion: WeChat Reading users are generally highly educated, young (20-35), live in first-tier cities, and like to read at noon and before bed.

User profile:

4. Requirements Analysis

According to the KANO model, users have three levels of demand for products: basic needs, expected needs, and exciting needs.

• Basic requirements (essential attributes) mean that if this requirement is not provided, user satisfaction will be greatly reduced;
• Expected demand (expected factor) means that when this demand is provided, user satisfaction will increase, and when this demand is not provided, user satisfaction will decrease;
• Exciting needs (charming attributes) mean that if this need is provided, user satisfaction will be greatly improved.

In the WeChat Reading App:

① Basic needs: finding books + reading;

Be able to search for the books you want to read and read them (requires the App to have a large library, relatively complete reading functions and a search system).

② Expected demand: social + functional advancement;

Dark mode, intelligent book recommendations based on history, taking notes, changing font size, reading other people's notes and comments and sharing (social functions, historical recommendations, complete functions).

③ Exciting demand: diversification of reading formats + uniqueness of the brand + platform activities to encourage continuous reading + continuous improvement of functions;

Audiobook function; public account management; free reading time, so you can continue reading at a low price; smart tags for book categories, visualization of reading time, interactive easter eggs (function expansion, management, system ecology).

3. Product function and structure

1. Product Framework

2. Product structure

From the perspective of product structure and functions, the "WeChat Reading" App has four tabbed navigations at the bottom: "Discover", "Bookshelf", "Take a Look", and "Me". There is a permanent search box at the top to facilitate users to search for books. The overall classification is clear, easy to find and use.

1) Core Functions

Find and read books quickly. Users can quickly find books through the permanent search box at the top, or directly enter the bookshelf to read the books already on the bookshelf.

2) Main functions

Social interaction (like, follow, comment, rate, share) and various activities (team up to win free unlimited cards, free reading time, free paper books for participation, etc.).

Likes, comments, and ratings can be found on the book details page. To follow, you need to click on the user avatar who is reading the same book as you. Sharing of notes and other content can be done on the reading interface and the note page. Various activities are presented on the default home screen discovery page, which is very eye-catching and easy to find.

3) Secondary functions

Read about personalization.

Reading personalization settings are non-core functions, so their location is relatively hidden, in Me/Settings. You can adjust whether to lock the screen, horizontal or vertical screen, whether to hide other people's thoughts, and set dark mode, etc.

4) Highlights

• There are Easter egg pages in the "Discover" and "Bookshelf" drop-downs. The "Discover" drop-down is a collection of activities presented in the form of cards, and the "Bookshelf" drop-down has a function similar to WeChat's shake function, except that the "Bookshelf" shake function is used to randomly recommend books.
• The reading interface is very consistent with the user's mobile phone usage habits. For example, pull down to add a bookmark, swipe up to display the interface settings, swipe up again to exit the reading interface, and swipe left or right to turn the page.
• The visual summary of reading time allows users to see their own growth.
• It takes into account the needs of reading and organizing public accounts, making it convenient for users to manage public accounts.
• The marking function of the reading interface imitates the handwriting of real markers and is vivid.

3. User's main task path

1) Reading

2) Time-based benefits

4. Product Experience and User Experience

1. Product experience SWOT analysis

summary

Overall, "WeChat Reading" is a social reading software with an excellent user experience, but due to the lack of a customer service team, feedback is often ignored and some of its functions need to be improved.

As a mobile reading product, "WeChat Reading" has a very good user experience: the reading interface is complete, the search is convenient, and the navigation is clear. Although free users have to face pop-up ads from time to time while reading, the frequency is not high and does not particularly interrupt the user's reading experience.

However, there are still many areas that need improvement in "WeChat Reading". For example, many users generally complain that the AI ​​reading voice is unpleasant; "WeChat Reading" itself lacks a customer service team, and feedback often falls on deaf ears; the public accounts and books in the bookshelf are a mixed bag, and manual movement and sorting are not supported; the dark mode of the application is not linked to the dark mode of the reading interface. In addition, the content quality of the "Take a Look" section is low, and the content may be offensive and damage the brand image; the sign-in and book coin activity lacks intelligent updates and has a one-time nature.

The potential opportunities of WeChat Reading are:

• It can imitate some applications, provide daily reading reminders, and add a daily sign, so that users can gain something every day;
• Cooperate with Douban, join Douban e-book column [Current version available...], and attract traffic by selling e-books at low prices.

Since WeChat Reading was launched relatively late and has no first-mover advantage, the market has been largely divided up by industry giants. WeChat Reading can only hover at the 10th position in the app rankings, trying to gain a share of the market by offering free services. However, is a business model that relies solely on membership and advertising sustainable? As the growth rate of the mobile digital industry slows down and the market becomes saturated in the future, it remains to be seen what the future holds for WeChat Reading.

2. Competitive product comparison (brief version)

1) Competitors

iReader, QQ Reader, Qimao Free Novels, NetEase Wugu Reader, Douban Reader, Kindle Reader, etc.

2) Competitive product positioning

• iReader, QQ Reader, and Qimao Free Novels mainly focus on online literature and recommend articles on the homepage based on traffic rankings. Therefore, most of the articles are refreshing, and it is difficult to find an entry point for serious literature.
• NetEase Wugou Reading and WeChat Reading are targeting serious literature (published books). The ranking list will calculate the matching rate based on the user's reading history and recommend related books.
• Douban Reading mainly promotes novels by Douban authors and some Chinese and English publications, combining the advantages of the interconnection between Douban's website and App to promote traffic and purchases.
• Kindle reading mainly targets e-books sold on Amazon, which has the most complete book categories. At the same time, it can be purchased on one platform and synchronized with multiple clients.

3) Competitive business model

As a to C product, the basic functions of the product are almost free.

The main business models of iReader, QQ Reader, and Qimao Free Novels are membership and advertising, with the main forms including splash screen ads, ads at the bottom of the reading page, and ads after chapters.

NetEase Wugou Reading and WeChat Reading are relatively restrained in placing advertisements. Although its business model is also based on advertising and membership, the advertisements do not cause excessive interference or misleading (accidental touches), so its reputation ranks high among free reading applications.

NetEase Wugu Reading also provides users with one hour of free reading time every day. If the reading time exceeds the limit, users need to pay 1 yuan to unlock the remaining time for the day. If users become members, they can have 6 days, 25 days, 168 days, or 298 days of reading time.

In addition, NetEase Wugu Reading also provides high-quality courses, online and offline activities, book production and distribution, etc., and generates income through multiple channels such as selling courses, community activities, and selling books.

Douban Reading has basically no advertisements, but books on the platform generally require a fee (except for the trial reading section). Its business model mainly comes from membership (divided into continuous monthly subscription, single month, 3-month and 12-month membership, the average monthly price is about 15 yuan, the first continuous monthly subscription is only 6 yuan, and the next month is 12 yuan). Members can read original books and published classics for free, get a 20% discount on some paid books, and get exclusive membership icons.

Kindle reading has no additional ads except for recommending books based on reading or history. Its reading app is highly integrated with the Amazon Kindle Store - it is an e-commerce + reading app.

In addition, Kindle has also launched the Kindle Unlimited membership service, which provides free borrowing services for a limited period of time (trial price 0.1 yuan/7 days, single-month non-renewal price 18 yuan/month, continuous monthly package price 12 yuan/month, super value quarterly card price 9.9 yuan/3 months, single-year/continuous annual package price 98 yuan/year, 160 yuan/2 years).

4) Competitive product features

The free novel reading interfaces of iReader and Qimao have an eye protection mode.

NetEase Wugu Reading has special activities such as leading reading and shared reading, complete customer service (divided into AI and manual customer service, with instant manual feedback), and a good user experience.

Douban Reading focuses on allowing everyone to create, and it maintains an open and inclusive attitude towards creators. It has successfully held many creative solicitation activities on the platform, such as reading essay competitions and long-form rallies, and has linked with Douban. If a book is launched on Douban Reading, it will receive corresponding reminders.

Kindle reading will push promotional information from time to time and give away certain book coupons to encourage users to develop shopping habits.

3. User Experience: Five-Layer Model

1) Strategic level

① Audience and application objectives

The main audience of the "WeChat Reading" App is the younger generation who like to keep their mobile phones in their hands. Most of them are college students, office workers or young parents. They are accustomed to and like to use mobile software. The "WeChat Reading" App provides them with a good platform, allowing them to use fragmented time (such as after school or commuting time) to recharge themselves and read high-quality serious literature (publications) conveniently and at low cost (even free of charge).

② Business objectives

• Customer acquisition: The WeChat Reading App hopes to acquire users through low prices or even free reading (using free unlimited cards);
• Retention: By giving users extra time for reading, users can continue to stay on the app, become dependent on the app, and increase user stickiness;
• Attracting new users and traffic: By forming various teams and giving out free reading cards, users can invite their friends and spread the word by word of mouth, thereby continuously expanding new users and keeping the platform active at a high level.

③ Business model: As a to C product, the basic functions of "WeChat Reading" are almost free.

Its main profit points come from:

• Paid reading card (membership) : (9 yuan for the first order of continuous monthly subscription, 19 yuan/month for subsequent orders; 30 yuan/month for monthly card; 60 yuan/month for quarterly card; 228 yuan/month for annual card; the most cost-effective is the continuous monthly subscription, followed by the annual card (19 yuan/month)): After purchase, users can enjoy free reading of all published books, free listening of audio content, free reading of comic books and 20% off on online novels;
• Advertisements : pop-up (or video) ads that appear during reading and when exchanging unlimited reading cards; after failing the "Daily Answer" game, you can watch a 30-second ad to revive; "WeChat Reading" once tried various advertising models in November 2019, including bookstore banners, unlimited venue banners, mini-program banners, shake within the App, first-screen cards, notification push, private messages, etc. However, judging from the current App version, none of these advertising models have been put into practice. Whether Banner ads will be introduced in the future remains to be seen;
• Book Coin Recharge : When the user's book coin account is insufficient, he can choose to recharge in six levels: 3, 6, 12, 30, 50, and 98 yuan;
• Paper book sales : Sell paper books and get a certain share of the profits.

2) Scope layer

① Product Type

"WeChat Reading" is a social digital reading mobile application that focuses on social reading and electronic reading of publications. Using WeChat Friends Chain as the entry point, a healthy reading-promoting ecosystem is created through likes, comments and sharing among users (friends).

② Core functions of the product

• Find books: A permanent search box is placed on the tab page to facilitate users to find books;
• Reading: The reading interface includes: (main functions) marking (marker, straight line, wavy line), notes (ideas), query (search), bookmarks, font size adjustment, jump to a certain page (or percentage), directory, estimated reading time, add to bookshelf; (secondary functions) dark mode, automatic reading, listening to books and other functions. Functions can be folded with gestures to keep the interface clean and simple.

③ Main functions of the product

• Social: The book details page has a comment area, which allows users to reply and like; the reading ranking list provides a ranking of the reading time of users and their friends, which stimulates users' sense of competition, cultivates reading habits, and indirectly increases user stickiness; the follow function not only displays the followers within the application, but also uses WeChat's own ecosystem to show that xx WeChat friends are reading, promoting attention and positive interaction between people.
• Recommendation: The discovery homepage of "WeChat Reading" has multiple "Recommended for You" cards, which will automatically generate matching scores based on the user's reading history, and recommend books with a matching score of more than 85% every day, allowing users to continue to discover books they are interested in and continue reading.

3) Structural layer

① Interaction Design

Gesture Operation

• Such as click, double click, long press, pinch, stretch, slide, long press, shake, etc.;
• Reading interface - click in the middle of the screen to bring up the menu;
• Stretch outward with two fingers to enlarge a single page (fonts and pictures);
• Swipe left or right/click on the left or right sides to switch to the previous or next page;
• Swipe down to add a bookmark to the current page of the book (swipe down again to cancel the bookmark), and swipe up twice to exit the book reading interface;
• Long press to mark text or take notes;
• If you allow landscape mode in the settings, change the screen orientation and the text will adapt to landscape or portrait mode;
• If the volume button is allowed to turn pages in the settings, you can press the volume button on the right side of the phone to turn pages up and down;
• Navigation tab page - pull down "Take a look" to refresh; pull down "Bookshelf" to enter the bookstore (shake the phone or click the shake icon in the upper right corner to randomly display recommended books [phone vibrates]); pull down "Discover" to enter the welfare field (swipe left to exit the latter two);
• Search - There is a column called "Guess You Like" under the search interface. You can swipe left to delete the specified item (if you are not interested).

Transition effects

• For example, swipe left/right/up/down to enter or exit a submenu, a pop-up window, fade in and out, etc.
• Navigation tabs – There is no animation when switching between the main navigation tabs (no left or right swipe to switch the navigation homepage), and pull down the "Bookshelf" to enter the bookstore (exit animation: swipe up);
• Pull down from "Discover" to enter the welfare field (exit animation: swipe up), switch to "Take a look" (connected to the Internet) to automatically refresh;
• The animation effects of the "Me" submenu and main menu are both to slide left and right to enter and exit;
• Activity page - Activity page switching is prone to lag and has no obvious characteristic animation effects;
• Reading page - Comments: floating pop-up window (background darkened);
• Function area: slide up to exit (directly jump to the audiobook function, slide down to exit;
• Share: Bookmark sharing area pops up | Share with friends or friends circle, WeChat Reading will automatically link with WeChat and jump | Send a private message to a book friend to jump to the book friend list).

② Information Architecture

Navigation system : WeChat Reading uses tabbed navigation, which is divided into "Discover", "Bookshelf", "Take a Look", and "Me".

• The "Discover" section includes book recommendations and various activities;
• "Bookshelf" is used to manage added books (and public accounts), which can be grouped and filtered;
• The "Take a Look" section is similar to the WeChat section of the same name. It is mainly used to recommend popular books (including books that experts are reading, books that people around are reading, etc.) and popular articles from public accounts. You can turn off public account article recommendations in "Me"/Settings;
• The "Me" section mainly revolves around "My" homepage and the settings of the reading page.

Search system : The search system of "WeChat Reading" is divided into bookstore search (global search) and book search (specific/local search).

• Bookstore Search (Global Search): Bookstore Search is located in the fixed search area at the top of "Discover", "Bookshelf" and "Take a Look". It is used to search for books, authors and keywords. Its search scope covers e-books, audiobooks, WeChat audiobooks, authors, full text, book lists, public accounts and articles. Except for the "Bookshelf" search box where the search button is a plus sign, the other two are bookstores (see the title navigation interface). In addition, for books that are not included, there is an information supplement button at the bottom. Click it to add the book title and author.
• In-book search (specific/local search): In-book search is located in the catalog function of the reading interface. It can search the entire book for keywords and automatically jump to the paragraph where the corresponding keyword is located.

Disadvantages: The bookshelf page lacks specific/local search functions. If there are many books and they are not well organized in the early stage, it is easy to lose track of the books.

Solution: Merge with global search and add a bookshelf column in global search to make it easier for users to find books.

For more framework information, please refer to the product framework in Part 3, which will not be repeated here.

4) Framework layer

① Product layout

"WeChat Reading" mainly revolves around activities ("Discover"), reading ("Bookshelf"), recommendations ("Take a Look") and personal settings ("Me"). The specific detailed structure and layout are also listed in the product framework and will not be explained in detail here.

② Product details

According to Jakob Nielsen’s ten usability principles, I think WeChat Reading has a good user experience design in the following aspects:

• Flexible and efficient : the bookshelf page automatically puts the most recently read book first, making it easier to read next time; public account updates are notified with push notifications;
• The interface status and changes are visible : when a book is finished, a completion mark will appear in the upper right corner; when downloading a book, a gray circle and a white check mark will appear in front of the book name on the bookshelf to indicate that the download is complete; the font setting and page turning mode of the reading interface are both WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) and can be modified by clicking on the options, which is clear at a glance and allows users to choose freely, killing two birds with one stone;
• Respect users : Allow users to freely choose whether to share notes, whether to make book reading records public, whether to hide other people's ideas, whether to recommend articles in "Take a Look", etc.

5) Presentation Layer

Interface visual design

• Color: The interface color is consistent with the WeChat ecosystem color (the unique blue fill of the "WeChat Reading" logo is used when switching the bottom tab, and the other colors are mainly black, gray, dark gray, and light gray, which are consistent with the WeChat ecosystem and have brand recognition), while maintaining the elegance and freshness of the interface;
• Icons and cards: The cards continue the rounded (long) rectangular design of the "WeChat Reading" logo, giving users a warm and comfortable feeling, while the icons are more circular.

Bottom title navigation interface:

Reading interface:

Sharing interface:

Comment and like interactive interface:

Activity interface (part):

V. Conclusion

In general, "WeChat Reading" is a user-friendly and excellent social reading application for all. It allows college students and office workers to read high-quality publications at low prices or even for free, and through mutual sharing or PK, a good reading and communication environment is formed to promote mutual communication.

WeChat Reading relies on the WeChat ecosystem to attract users and establish a good reputation through activities such as high experience, low prices, and free reading cards. It uses membership, advertising, recharge, and paper book sales as its main business models, and has gained a firm foothold in the e-reading market with the help of its huge user base and user stickiness. However, compared with the pioneers who entered the industry earlier (such as iReader), WeChat Reading still has some shortcomings. Whether the business model of free and low-cost reading can be sustained in the long run remains to be seen.

However, in terms of user experience, "WeChat Reading" has adopted the WeChat ecosystem and design model, has an excellent user experience, and takes into account many detailed needs. However, due to the lack of a customer service system in "WeChat Reading", user voices often do not reach the ears of product managers, so the page logic is not clear, the content quality is not high enough, and the functions are not perfect.

In the future, "WeChat Reading" needs to maintain the advantage of excellent user experience on the one hand, and continue to improve existing problems on the other.

On the other hand, "WeChat Reading" can cooperate with Douban (add Douban e-book module) to divert (book purchasing) traffic, and expand the "WeChat Audiobook" business section (according to statistics, the listening time is about twice the reading time), introduce more original creators, maintain high-quality content output, and let users willingly pay for high-quality knowledge.

Author: Kris

Source: Kris