For people who loves to read, you might be familiar with Goodreads. Goodreads is a "social cataloging" website that allows individuals to freely search Goodreads' extensive user-populated database of books, annotations, and reviews. Users can sign up and register books to generate library catalogs and reading lists. As an avid fan of Goodreads, graphic designer decided to give Goodreads a bibliophilic redesign approach to the website.

I've been fan of Goodreads since 2010 I use the website almost daily, and I find it an amazing platform for readers, yet it needs a fresh look and feel that enhances the site both aesthetically and usability wise. So I decided to work on this redesign as a personal project.
-Ahmed Alley

As a user, I listed the UX areas of enhancement -from my point of view- and started to research all other social platforms out there to get inspiration for solutions, I picked up the three most important pages in Goodreads -again in my opinion- and decided to renovate them, which was 1- Homepage , 2- Book page and 3- Profile page.
-Ahmed Alley

The stereotype of "people who love reading are nerds and not cool". No, you can be a bookworm and cool at the same time ? If there is an edge of this concept, it's that I was wearing both the designer's and user's hats. As a designer, I crave for users feedback as this is our starting point of any successful project, to listen to users and try to "put ourselves in their shoes", this time the designer is also a user, this doesn't mean that the design is representing all the users expectations off course, but at least it represents a big cluster of them.
-Ahmed Alley

I find it hard to specify my style. I'm in continuous pursuit of improvement, learning and understanding. Plus, I honestly believe that the designer should adapt to the project needs and should be able to change his style and tone accordingly. So, keep exploring and learning, there is no such a thing as perfect design, and that means our journey to fight against the ugliness and find better visual solutions should never stop.
-Ahmed Alley

About Ahmed Alley

Ahmed Alley is an Egyptian currently Dubai based as an Art director with 10 years of experience in graphic and web design, passionate about various design fields including UX, Branding and Animation. Throughout his career journey as full time and freelancer designer, he has been exposed to wide range of clients and projects almost allover the world. See more of his works on Behance.