ReadingTree Competitive Analysis

The first three are book-related sites geared towards children. BookForager is a book recommender for adults, while FreeZone is an online community for kids ages 8 - 14, offering chat and bulletin boards. Neither usernames nor passwords were required at any of the book-related sites. None of the book sites supported direct kid-to-kid interaction and none offered personalized recommendations. Although some sites featured new reviews or flagged award-winners, none provided easy access to newly published or popular works.

The matrix below summarizes our findings. Explanations of the ratings and design recommendations appear in the sections following the matrix. For detailed information about each system's performance relative to specific tasks, please see Appendix. The Appendix also includes information about a study on adult preferences related to book recommender systems.

Level at Which Goal is Supported:
High - Fully supports goal. (Identify system elements to include at ReadingTree.)
Medium - Mostly supports goal.
Low - Partly supports the goal.
Not - Does not address this goal or works against it. (Identify system elements to avoid.)

Goals	Personas	Bookhive	World of Reading	Just for Kids	Book Forager	FreeZone
Find books for fun	Ayisha, Jenny	High	High	Medium	High	Low
Find books for school	Danny, Jenny	Medium	Medium	Low	Low	Not
Find books for information	Julio	High	Medium	Not	Not	Not
Find lots of books he/she hasn't read yet	Ayisha	Medium	High	Low	Medium	Not
Find books quickly	Danny, Julio	High	High	Not	Medium	Not
Find what's brand new or forthcoming	Ayisha, Jenny	Not	Not	Low	Not	Not
Spend time with friends	Jenny	Not	Not	Not	Not	High
Do something that friends think is cool	Jenny	Medium	Medium	Low	Medium	High
Not feel stupid when using computer	Ayisha, Danny	High	High	Low	High	High
Not feel stupid about his reading abilities	Danny	High	Medium	Low	Medium	High
Be independent in locating books	Danny, Julio	Medium	High	Not	Danny - Medium Julio - Not	Not

Bookhive

Summary: Bookhive allows children to read book reviews and submit book reviews about books they've read. The site uses a bumblebee mascot named Zinger to tie together the different features. Bookhive's home page features "Zinger's Choice"--a book cover image along with a quote from a child's review. Each time you revisit the home page, a new book is displayed. In addition to book reviews, Bookhive also offers activities such as the Harry Potter Quiz, coloring pages, and links to kid-friendly websites.

What works well: ReadingTree might emulate the simplicity of the interface (few results displayed at one time, large images of book covers, a simple search form, and accessible subject headings) and consider adding a mascot/tour guide. The fonts are large and readable, the graphics simple but effective, and the screen layout uncluttered. The ability to narrow search results by "audience" is a nice feature, as is the "If you like book X, you might also like book Y."

What to do differently: Search results are not displayed in any particular order. Items flagged as "new" are not necessarily new titles, but just new reviews. Although search by subject is supported, Dewey Decimal numbers are not provided, which would be helpful to users like Julio.

World of Reading (WoR)

Summary: World of Reading is designed to encourage kids around the world to read stories by others and write their own. The site consists of three sections: "Book Reviews" (where kids can read and submit reviews), "Wired Books" (where kids can directly access complete books available online at other sites), and "Reading and Writing Sites on the Web" (a list of sites providing further information on reading, writing, book award winners, and libraries). No login is required, and the site asks that children submit reviews under direct adult supervision (the kid is required to put in a adult's name and e-mail address in order to submit a review). WoR allows kids to search by "kinds of books" (subjects with descriptive titles that are explained in further and good detail once accessed), "kid locations" (by the country and location of kid reviewers, in order to see what the kids in Australia are reading for example), subject, and author (through a search engine or by sorting a "kind of books" list by author).

What works well: The ability to search and sort by author or title and to browse by subject satisfies the different searching preferences of our personas. The navigation is very simple, as is the screen design, using both words and images to communicate. The fonts are large and the instructions are brief and clear--this would especially benefit Danny. Allowing users to see book reviews by region is an interesting feature--this might appeal to Ayisha in her search for new book titles. Finally, the fact that there are so many people contributing to the site means that there are many books (and book reviews) to choose from, increasing the chances that all of our personas will find a book they like.

What to do differently: When browsing by subject, all titles are displayed in a long alphabetical list. The users cannot readily identify which titles or reviews are new, nor can they tell how many reviews associated with each title without clicking on the title. Also, one cannot access the "search" or "write a review" functions from every page within the site; one must navigate to back to the World of Reading homepage. Navigation icons usually appear at the bottom of the screen, which is a problem when the screen has a long results set. Finally, reviews are posted 2-3 weeks after they are submitted--a user like Jenny might not like having to wait so long to see her words posted.

Just for Kids Who Love Books (JFK)

Summary: This site is primarily a vehicle for children to read book reviews and submit book reviews about books they've read. The site also provides links to websites with book and author information. JFK has succeeded in getting kids to participate in reviewing books; I estimate the site to have around 450 child-posted reviews. It is not clear to me what the motivation for posting is, except that new reviews are "featured" each month, which may appeal to the kids who want fame and exposure. Apart from this, there is not much here we would wish to incorporate into our design.

What works well: The submission process for reviews is worth emulating, in its method of 'pre-formatting' the reviews. Also, allowing users to submit formatted "comments" about their favorite books and authors, where they get books, and where they like to read is a nice feature--especially for those who may want to interact with the site without publishing lengthy opinions on a particular book.

What to do differently: At JFK, the only way to find a book is by title, which discourages all of our personas' search preferences. The site is not laid out in any way to encourage the reading of other kids' reviews. JFK does not support any contact between children, nor does it protect "real-life" identity by asking for pseudonyms or user names. Graphics and fonts are scary and hard to look at, especially the spinning heart. It is possible to find new reviews, but not newly published books.

Book Forager (BF)

Summary: Book Forager (BF) is a book recommendation site designed for adults. Using drop-down sliding bars with corresponding changing images, users indicate the position of their desired book on up to four scales, and plot/character/setting ratings, and BF returns a ranked list of suggestions. Reviews are provided by BF staff, users cannot contribute their own. There is no mechanism to suggest new books for review/inclusion.

What works well: Users select books based on non-traditional categories. User selections are reflected by the animated icons. Along with each recommended title, a link to "more like this" is displayed, with a preview list of related book titles captioned "Where Next." In many cases, BF provides an extract from the recommended book. The interaction with the system is very simple and one may generate a new set of recommendations easily, simply by adjusting the position of one or more of the slider bars.

What to do differently: There is no way to record recommended items. Also, if one has a particular book in mind, one can not search by author or title. Browsing by subject is also not supported explicitly, although the "Plot" and "Setting" selection boxes do allow some degree of control over content. The system does not allow users to add new reviews or otherwise respond to recommendations.

FreeZone

Summary: FreeZone is a highly interactive entertainment site geared towards children, aged 8 - 13. In addition to games, quizzes, postcards, amd articles submitted by "FreeZoners," FreeZone offers bulletin boards and chat (2 features we are considering for inclusion in ReadingTree). There are 6 moderated chat rooms, only during certain hours of the day. Special chats (homework help, trivia, and role-playing) are also featured. Before entering a chat room, kids must agree to the Chat Code of Conduct. Only registered users may view or participate in chat or bulletin boards.

What works well: It is clear that children are visiting and contributing to this site on a regular basis. On each screen children have at least one method for providing feedback to the site, even if only by answering a quiz question. For the most part, the navigation is straightforward-- the same menu bar appears at the top of each screen. Some pages include animated graphics but these are not too distracting. Safety alerts are featured prominently--we should consider adapting many of their safety policies for ReadingTree users.

What to do differently: Chat rooms are very crowded. It is also not clear how to navigate from one room to another once you are inside. Similarly, the bulletin boards are organized by 10 broad subject areas. The threads within each area are arranged alphabetically and there is no preview information available as to the number of posts on each topic. There are boards dedicated to sports, movies & TV, and music, but not to books, although a few kids have posted book comments to the "Hobbies" board.