Role: Lead Designer
Sector: E-commerce & artist community app
Time: 2.5 weeks
User group: Zine readers, makers, & zine facilitators
Focus: Branding, User Interviews, Prototypes,
Usability Testing, & Iterations
Overview ↓
“If you find a zine that you love, make sure you make an effort to collect it, because you may never see it again.”
Background
Introducing the tactile to digital
Zines are underground or personal tangible booklets that encompass an artist’s view on a variety of topics. Topics can include popular culture, politics, music, feminism, punk, autobiographical, queercore, or Sci-Fi, just to name a few.
Why bring zines to the digital space?
Zines are a subculture that are highly sought out by indie publishers & zine readers alike. Since zines are typically printed in small batches, you have to come across them by chance or find them strategically within zine communities, zine festivals, or unique bookshops.
Problem
(Limited zine access!)
What makes zines so desirable & coveted is this mentality of being in the know or the right place at the right time. The flip side of this, zines would reach a wider audience if collected on a common zine community platform for both zine readers and zinemakers to share and celebrate this beloved craft. The initial ideas to bridge the gap between zinemakers & eager zine readers were:
Create a way for zine artists to showcase and sell zines.
Allow zine readers to easily access and support artists.
Peek At Final App Solution
A big part of the design process was working within the 2 week design time limitation and hearing exclusively from zinemakers, zine fest planners, and zine readers. The user flow is intended to be fairly simple; the user is able to save zines they are interested in, add to cart/purchase, preview the inside pages of zines (not just zine covers), read a digital zine on the app, and search for zines by genre, recommendation, or artist.
Overview of discovery & research↓
Discovery
User Feedback
The Zine Landscape & Current Zine Buying Limitations
It was important to me to talk to not only zinemakers but also zine fest organizers, & zine readers. A few participants were both zinemakers and zine readers. What makes zines so special is how unique each one is and getting a comprehensive perspective from the broad scope of the zine community was my main focus.
Based from notable & consistent insights from user interviews, the high-priority product roadmap included zine filters by genre and other users’ zine recommendations. A zine collector can also access a participating
artist list to purchase physical zines or read digital zines on the app from their favorite artists.
Another key takeaway was users wanting to easily access an artist’s personal store that can foster easy community sharing.
Why take users away from the app?
The zine community is built up of artists and zine collectors that uphold word of mouth and grassroot efforts. Being able to easily support and share independent artists is a major impetus for zine reading to my core users.
Filters Were A Popular Feature Addition
The platform needed to distinguish if the user is a zine reader, zinemaker, or both as their account settings will be slightly different. The zinemaker has the ability to create a public-facing artist profile for themselves and also track their zine earnings in their private personal account. A zine reader can choose a zine by a filtered approach, add it to their cart, and also read a digital zine on the app.
Is the user a zine reader, zinemaker, or both?
Diving Into the UI Process
Solution: High Fidelity Designs
Ziney Log-in Flow
Finding the Genres’ Filters
& Recommended Filter
Additional Supporting Screens
Reading a Digital Zine on Ziney!
Testing & Iterations
5 users, In-person & Remote
30 min tests, 3 user flows
I initially used a vibrant green for the primary CTA buttons. I used this bright color mostly to capture a punk, DIY aesthetic that a zine-reading/making audience would be drawn to. Once I created the three different prototypes I realized that the colors were a tad buzzy and specifically didn’t highlight the primary “View All Zines” CTA once on the home screen. You can see the original bright green buttons in the ‘Before’ screens.
Artist Credits & Acknowledgments
The next steps would entail adding visual icons for each genre category. I think this would be more immersive and reflect the playful nature already established throughout Ziney.
I would like to define what a free subscription would be for zine readers using the app. In that same breath, I’d be interested in proposing what a subscription cost would be for readers or if I’d just keep it a free app.
I would like to explore a way for zine readers to “follow” an artist’s zine output. The drive for this would be so zine readers would be the first people to know when a new book is available.
I also want to make a single-page application within the learn section, including a tutorial on how to upload your zine to Ziney.
What’s Next?
With Ziney I strongly wanted to convey the heart of zine artists and storytellers while still designing a sleek, almost industrial-appearing app that could be used as a minimally striking foundation to showcase many different styles of art books & zines. Due to social media and zine artists navigating the digital age, I began noticing a lot of different zine communities dispersed throughout the country and worldwide. I found myself discovering more and more organizations that looked so fun and zine clubs I would’ve loved to join if I had known about them. I began feeling a bit overwhelmed and noticed there wasn’t a commonly used app exclusively for the zine community. Having a tiny background in making small art books myself and wanting to advocate for zinemakers far more active than me, I aimed to carve a unique online space where artists could meet their zine readers & vice versa. My goal is to continue further with this concept out of curiosity. I’m curious if this is an app that zinemakers would be up for trying out.
