DIRECT COMPETITOR (Story Book Formats)

LITTLE STORIES

The tone of the competitor

A happy and fun tone is being portrayed by this particular apps UX design. The use of bright colours and fun characters are helping create this tone. When you click into a story there is music in the background of the story to help set the tone of the particular story you were reading. For example I read a story about a young eagle who is afraid to fly, the music in the background was very calm and inspirational, which fit with the story perfectly and really helped set the tone.

All the graphics in the story were also full of fun characters and bright and lively colours, which will really help in capturing a child’s interest.

Good and bad features

Good features.

Features I really liked on this app, was their use of colour. They used bright and lively colours which really helps set the tone of the app itself, as well and engage a young audience.

I also really like the characters and various illustration designs used in the app itself, moving from story to story you see various styles of illustration, which in my opinion is a great idea as this will help keep the app interesting to children.

There is very little navigation in the app itself which I like, to turn pages you swipe and as well to look through books. You can also choose to go to any page you would like which I thought was an interesting feature of the app.

There is also an option to email the app company with comments within the app, which is only accessible by putting in a code which they ask to put in, this would stop them recieving nonsunual emails from young children, which I thought was a very clever idea.

They also provide you with a preview of each book which contains a short paragraph about the book along with some imagery from the book itself.

Arguably the best feature of this app is the fact that it includes the child in the story, once you enter the gender and name it then puts that name into the story. This is a fantastic feature to keep children interested in the app itself.

Bad features
The main thing I didn’t like about this app was there was a lot of in-app purchasing. They provide you with one book for free, and then if you want any more you must buy them.

I also felt the font itself was a bit small for reading for a child.

As well as swiping to turn the pages there are buttons that can be pressed, but they are almost invisible as they are so unnoticeable.

Another feature I didn’t like was there were a lot of different fonts, there seemed to be no consistent font throughout the app itself.

User Reviews

The app has 4.7 stars out of 5 on the Itunes app store, out of 41 ratings. With the lowest anyone giving the app being 3 stars out of 5.

Wait/load times

The wait and load times of the app were very short. Everything loaded quickly and when you went from page to page or book to book everything appeared quite quickly on screen.

Design

I really liked the overall design of the app itself. I thought there was a good use of colour used, and the way they introduced characters into the app was fantastic and would really appeal to children. Although there were a few navigation issues I came across overall I believe their design was quite successful in what it was trying to achieve, a fun and engaging app for young children. Even the design of each book and the transitions from homepage to book and page to page were all done very successfully. Buttons and Icons as well were all very clear and well designed.

BEDTIME STORY

The tone of the competitor

The tone of the app is a very boring and dull tone in my opinion. The use of very muted colours, little to no imagery and each story is very text heavy. The UX design of this app is very simple, with just a list of stories and when you click into the story you are provided with the audiobook and text of the story. The little graphics that are used seem to be images taken straight from the internet and there is no visual correlation between each story. That is why the design of the app sets a very disengaged tone.

Good and bad features

Good features

A good feature of this app is that there are a lot of stories on the app, you can read or listen to anything from fairytales to educational stories, they are also all free.

It is very easy to navigate through, everything is layed out simply.

The voice overs are very engaging and easy to listen to.

You can also listen to the stories without using the app, which is a great feature.

Bad Features

The UX design of the app is very poor. There is very little colour used throughout the app and it is quite boring to use.

There are a lot of ads in the app also.

Again there seems to be an inconsistent font type used throughout this app also and the font that is used is quite plain and boring.

The stories are very text heavy and I would not suggest using this for a child for reading  as they would not be able for all the text.

User review

The app has no reviews in the Itunes App store.

Wait/load times

There is not a lot of wait or load times, once you choose a story it is almost instantly playing and you can read the text. Going between sections and stories is also quite quick and easy.

Design

In my opinion the design of this particular app is quite poor. From using the app I believe there was a lot more thought put into the content rather than the overall look of the app. It is not unusable and the navigation is quite easy, but again the overall user experience is quite lacking with the overall look of the app being quite boring and lackluster.