Storytel

‍Storytel is one of the world’s leading audiobook and ebook streaming services and offers unlimited listening to consumers in 25+ markets. Storytel is a digital platform provider as well as a comprehensive publishing group. The streaming business area offers subscriptions for audiobooks and e-books under the Storytel and Mofibo brands.  
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My role at Storytel
At Storytel, I was involved in several projects with my main focus on the Library and Profiles team. As a Product Designer, I worked to improve the overall user experience by collaborating closely with developers. This included understanding user needs, organizing content for seamless navigation, designing visually engaging interfaces, and ensuring responsiveness across different devices.
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Notifications center:
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Background and Goals:
One of the projects I worked on at Storytel was enhancing the Notifications Center to create a more engaging and user friendly experience. Our goal was to deliver relevant and personalised updates in a way that felt natural and intuitive keeping users informed without being intrusive.

Background:

The project began with close collaboration between the branding and development teams to define the types of notifications to be sent and how they would function technically.

Focus Areas Included:
New Audiobook Releases: Updates about new authors or audiobooks that users 
might be interested in.Chapter Updates: Notifications about newly released chapters.Personalised Recommendations: Suggestions tailored to the user's listening history.Campaigns and Offers: Customised messages about current deals or discounts.User Interactions: Updates related to the user's own activities, such as ongoing listening or marking favourite books.

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Reserch and Discovery
‍At Storytel one of my recent projects involved improving the Notifications center. It began by collaborating with the brand team and developers to identify the types of notifications to be sent and their technical aspects. We focused on enhancing cards of new audiobook releases, chapter updates, recommendations, promotions, and user interactions. On part of my job was conducted user research to better understand customer needs, learning from past experiences and exploring potential improvements.

User Research:
We conducted small-scale user research to better understand customers' needs and preferences regarding notifications. This included gathering feedback from existing users and testing various types of notification systems to determine what was most relevant.

Data Analysis:
We analysed historical notification data to identify which types of messages engaged users the most and had the greatest impact on their behaviour.Some of the findings from the analysis:

We prioritised personalised messages, as they had the highest impact on user engagement.
We optimised functionality to ensure notifications felt relevant and tailored rather than intrusive.

Workshops and Key Questions:
During the Discovery phase, we compiled a list of questions that were discussed in a workshop involving both the development and branding teams.

Key questions included:
What do users need from a Notifications Center?
Which types of notifications have the greatest impact on user behaviour?
How can we balance relevance and frequency?
How do we ensure the notifications align with Storytel’s brand identity?
How can we technically implement our ideas within reasonable timeline.

Technical feasibility and constraints
To create a user-friendly and technically feasible solution, it was crucial to understand the system’s capabilities and limitations early on. We mapped the types of notifications the system already supported and identified those that required new functionality.

Examples:
We discussed how automated notifications for new audiobook releases and chapter updates could be implemented. For personalised recommendations, we needed to develop new features based on the user’s listening history.


User Journey and Trigger Points:
‍Using Miro, we analysed the user journey for each type of message and defined the most effective moments to send notifications.

Examples of Trigger Points:
Reminders about related books or the next chapter after a user finishes listening to a book.
Notifications for users showing signs of losing interest in a book.By carefully selecting the right timing and channel for each message, we ensured that the notifications were both relevant and engaging.

Key Learnings and Collaboration with Developers
- Personalised recommendations generated the highest engagement.
- Generic messages, such as campaigns, were the least effective without personalisation.
- Visual consistency and user-friendliness were essential for creating a harmonious experience.


Example:
When we proposed personalising recommendations based on listening history, the developers helped us understand how data collection and algorithms would need to be adjusted.We established a rapid feedback loop, presenting early prototypes and concepts to the developers to gather their insights on implementation.


Example:
We worked on structuring how metadata for audiobooks (such as book covers, chapter status, or recommendations) would sync in real-time.We regularly checked in with the development team to ensure that our design ideas could be implemented within their resources and timelines.


Pinned Cards
One feature that was important was to let Marketing team pin important notifications at the top of the users notifications. These cards represented messages that was extra relevant or urgent, such as account or bank information, and were designed to always remain visible to the user, regardless of other incoming notifications.

Read and unread notifications
A key aspect of the project was managing read and unread notifications to provide users with better oversight and control. The goal was to simplify interactions by clearly indicating unread messages and keeping users engaged with important updates.

Implementation:
Visual Indicators:
Unread notifications were visually highlighted, making it easier for users to identify important updates.
Automatic Marking: 
Notifications were automatically marked as "read" when users interacted with them, streamlining the experience.
Enhanced Overview: 
This feature ensured users had better clarity and that no important notifications were overlooked.

Conclusions and success factors

Some of the reason way the Notifications centre project was successful

Collaboration:
Close teamwork between design, development, and branding teams ensured alignment with Storytel’s goals and technical capabilities, leading to a smooth execution and user-friendly design.Improved User

Experience:
The redesign made notifications more relevant and engaging by personalising and simplifying them. This led to better user engagement and retention.

User-centred design:
The project focused on user needs, using research and data to ensure that notifications were personalised without being intrusive, which boosted user satisfaction.Iterative

Approach:
We tested and refined the design based on feedback, which helped us create a effective solution for users.Business

Impact:
The new notification system improved engagement and retention, benefiting Storytel’s key metrics by providing a more connected and relevant user experience.

Learnings:
We learned the value of working closely with technical teams to ensure feasibility and alignment with system capabilities. More time spent on testing different notification patterns could have provided additional insights.What We Could Have Done Better:Allowing users more control over their notifications (e.g., frequency and type) could have further improved satisfaction and reduced the risk of overwhelming them with too much information.