MY ROLE
Strategy
End-to-end design
User testing
TEAM
Scott, design
Lawton, CEO
Michael, CTO
TIMELINE
6 months
RESULT
12k active users
360 school district clients
$200k first-year revenue
$15M valuation
Overview
In a world where student attention is increasingly drawn to fast-paced video, chat, and social media platforms, Literal provides a fresh, engaging reading format for thousands of books. The app’s innovative approach transforms existing books into a chat-style reading experience, complete with customizable “casts” of characters and other interactive features.
Literal enlisted me to help them “make reading as addictive as social media.”
Results
I worked closely alongside the team and CEO to evaluate the existing product, identify opportunities to improve the experience, and then create a brand new design language.
We also worked with Park City High School’s project-based learning course to test and validate the app with actual students over several months. Based on the data gathered there, I led a full redesign for both the web and mobile experiences, including behind-the-scenes workflows for adding books, managing classrooms, creating assignments, and more.
“My two daughters are not readers. I showed them Literal and they didn’t believe it was a real book. The next day, I took them down to the bookstore and showed them the real book they were reading in the app. They couldn’t believe it was the same thing – and they’re already 40 pages in.”
– State educator from Georgia
“My students are more engaged than ever, which makes me very happy. One student came into class and asked to continue reading the book she started on Literal the night before, because she liked it so much. That’s never happened before.”
– Teacher from Utah
“This is pretty much, like, the best way I have ever read a book.”