Shelf
Redesigning reading as a collective habit.
YEAR
2026
ROLE
Product Designer
TOOLS
Figma
STATUS
Complete
Overview
Shelf is a reading app designed to encourage people to read more and stay connected to others while doing it. Users can track their books, discover new titles, and join reading groups.
This project was developed as part of the Digital Product Design course at Aprender Design, by a team of five designers. Our starting point was a concerning reality: 53% of Brazilians hadn't read even part of a book in the three months prior to a national survey, the first time non-readers became the majority.
Rather than designing another app focused on tracking and performance, we asked:
What if reading felt less like a personal achievement and more like something you do together?
"
My role
One of five designers in the Digital Product Design course at Aprender Design. I worked on the research phase (competitive analysis, synthetic persona interviews via AI, and user flows) and contributed to ideation and design, with focus on the Invite, Club Profile, and Current Reading screens, plus the Recap explorations.
Understanding who reads and who gave up
We combined competitive analysis with in-depth interviews across three distinct reader profiles. The personas were built from real behavioral data and simulated through AI.
Mapping the competitive landscape: where reading apps stand on social engagement and content organization.
What the interviews revealed
Some patterns emerged: community works as audience, not conversation. The "Strava for reading" concept split reactions sharply, motivating for some, anxiety-inducing for others.
The hypothesis
If community already exists as a latent motivator, but the tools available end up being used to perform, not to connect, Shelf could turn reading into a collective experience without turning it into competition.
Reading in groups with light structure increases reading frequency without increasing anxiety.
Design
The design started from a single constraint: every feature had to serve the reading, not compete with it. No streaks, no leaderboards, just the book, the group, and the conversation it generates.
The entry point is an invitation. A notification, a splash, a book cover, a club to join. The red signals urgency without pressure — someone is already reading, and there's a seat at the table.
Current Reading is the core. Progress tracking, calendar sync, discussion threads, and page marking, all tied to a specific book a specific group is reading together. The individual experience and the collective one live in the same screen.
Discussion Rooms turn passive reading into active exchange. Highlights become conversation starters. A quote from the book becomes a thread. The community stops being a stage and starts being a room.
When the reading ends, the club updates. The group photo, the shared moments, the next chapter. Completion feels like a milestone, not a finish line.
Left: Highlights become conversation starters. A quote from the book opens a thread.
The Recap was the most experimental part. We explored Spotify Wrapped-style storytelling (minutes read, messages sent, cities connected, reactions shared) before landing on a version that felt personal without feeling performative. The final screen belongs to the group, not the algorithm.
Result
Shelf ended as a fully designed prototype, from the entry flow to the Recap, with a clear point of view: reading clubs, not tracking apps. The project proved that a social reading experience can feel light and personal without relying on gamification or performance metrics.
Reflection
Using AI to simulate user interviews opened up a new way of thinking about where the tool fits in the research process, not as a replacement for real conversations, but as a way to stress-test assumptions early, before jumping to solutions. And only as good as the questions you bring to it.
If I were to continue, I'd want to test the hypothesis with actual reading groups, not to validate the design, but to see whether the structure holds when real people bring real books and real schedules into it.