Project Background
There’s an outdated process at PRH in regards to comparing book sales between US and UK.
There are books that have open market rights where PRH US and PRH UK are competing against other. This project is to provide a way to track the activity with PRH UK (our sister company).
PRH need to automate the way they share books and dates. Right now it’s very repetitive. They are looking for a way to see lists from both companies and identify titles and properties that they share with links at a family ID level. Titles may not be the same so there needs to be logic that can compare and flag possible matches.
UX Challenge
They contacted the UX PubOps team to help design a platform that would not only combine the US & UK database but allow users to match titles.
Matching Titles allows the Sales Employees to find Titles and manually approve their counter parts overseas. This ideally would be done automatically by system but the human process would actually be faster in this first phase. This application will also allow users to match and track their own list of Titles but also allow them to view their colleagues matches. This results in a shared database of matched US & UK titles.
User Feedback
We interviewed the Sales and Merchandising Director of Penguin Random House who was not only sponsoring the project but was also the main super user. He mentioned that the sales team does not know which titles and title families are selling in UK, so he created his own application to help him match US and UK titles. However, the product was subpar and it’s not being used by other employees.
Current Process
The current process is not efficient. The Sales teams from US and the UK each have a spreadsheet of titles they are responsible for. Their goal is to make sure the metadata of their books within their region matches the metadata from other regions such as the UK. What follows looking up is an array of interactions with different internal platforms as well as external ones such as Amazon. However, the information is never cut and dry and sales teams call each other across regions in order to confirm on consistency of their title’s metadata.
Objectives
Build a database that combines all PRH US and UK titles (regardless of matching, publishing status and rights) and the corresponding data elements
Flag potential shared works and editions and once confirmed, link them
Provide ability to search on any combination of US or UK ISBN, title, author, and data range, but allow the exclusion of select formats and editions ( i.e. Audio, Digital…)
Goals
Streamline the identification of shared titles between the US and UK to decrease time and effort and help facilitate intercompany coordination
Highlight key metadata changes (including additions) in regular reports
Ability to run reports that show key data elements for both US and UK titles
Users
The target users were international sales employees within Penguin Random House US and UK. The site would be used by publishers, export and digital sales, and marketers.
My Role
Lead UX Designer
I started on this project at the Define phase. Prior to UX team’s involvement, there were meetings with stakeholders and users on the project scope conducted with the BA and project owners. When UX did join the project, a BRD a long with user stories were shared with us as a starting point.
Application Requirements
Flagging matches at the title family level; system should help identify possible links (there could be a one to many potential mapping)
Generate reports onscreen and downloadable, sortable by US and UK data points
Ability to store comments related to individual ISBNs
Backend database would contain feed from US daily and UK weekly
PRH Core titles only
Cover pricing
Ability to manually link or unlink US and UK ISBNs (separate from Work matches)
Create a “watch” list of titles on a user by user basis
Flag changes to certain metadata elements like price and OSD for a period of time (35 days) for items that are on a watchlist
Ability to search by ISBN or Text (title/author), but both will display results at a Work level
Designing the functionalities
The users are sales teams from either the US or UK. When they use the platform they’ll typically start by searching for titles based in their region.
For this MVP, we wanted to allow users to find titles they are tracking, match those titles with exact titles from another region and manage a list of titles within a watch list.
Initial Decision Tree Concept
Exploring the flow
We then started to explore the user flows of the some of the key functionalities defined by our users.
Search Titles by ISBN
Users enters ISBN in Search field US ISBN is displayed on Result page compared with UK ISBN(s)
Searches by Title or Author name
Users enters a text search. If it's an author, the user can click on the author's name to view all of the related Titles or if it's a title, the user can click on the Title they're interesting in.
Match List
The Match list is a shared database of of matches made by all users. This way users can track what's been matched and by who.
Watch List
The Watch list is a database of ISBNs or Title Families the user wants to track or watch. The Watch List can be populated either by importing an existing made list created by the users or adding formats when they are in the compare screen.
User Flows and Product Architecture
We defined the full experience by designing targeted user flows based on the user stories
We also defined the navigation and site structure.
User Testing
This prototype will demonstrate what happens when a user searches for a Title and then continues find ISBN matches between the US and UK regions.
User Feedback
About the Users
4 from the United States
1 from London
All worked in international sales
One moderator and one observer
Recorded using Zoom
Tasks we asked users to perform
Search for books wither by title or Author name
Search by ISBN
Match Titles between Regions
Refine a null results
Find your matches
Remove your matches
Bulk import ISBN into the Watch List
Remove ISBNs from the Watch List
Compare Title details
Recommendations
Button Labeling - Add explicit labeling / tool-tips
Display all search results expanded. This way users can view all of the formats within a Title Family
Add more explicit feedback in the Match screen and Watch List
Add a bulk Remove in the Watch List
Group the stacked search in the Compare page
Add a search icon/button
Display matched titles aligned for easy comparison
Our Findings
Lack of clear labeling (copy)
Misaligned matches
Misaligned Title Details
Adding to the Watch List
Removing from the Watchlist
Finding matches within Matches tab
Lack of refinement in Null search results
Uploaded ISBNs no populating the top of the screen
High Fidelity Mockups
Search
Users can search for a book either by Title, Author or ISBN. Typically users search by cutting and pasting ISBSNs but we provided all options.
Matching Formats between US and UK Regions
Once a specific title has been selected in search, the results then populate the screen both on the US and UK side. The content consists of Title Families from both UK and US with their associated formats. A Title Family such as (Home by Harlan Coban) can have four different formats associated to that book. This allows users to match from TF to TF and Format to Formats between US and UK.
Viewing Matches / Comments and Details
One of the most important part of this application is the Watch List. When matching Title Families and/or formats, users can add their matches to the Watch List.
Uploading ISBNs to the Watch List
Users can upload ISBNs they want to track over the season.
