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Comment by alanh | Hacker News Reader

I have significant issues with the UI (just like the grandparent post). I have frequently (well, as frequently as I use the app, which is slightly less than monthly) found myself wondering: “Wait, how do I mark this book as read? How do I add this book to my reading or to-read lists?” Such fundamental actions should not be so non-obvious.

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I'm obviously just too used to the interface! I do have an issue with the fact that adding a book to your "to-read" list is the default, and gets a huge button of its own on every page, but, yes, I guess if you're not used to the concept that the whole thing revolves around putting books on virtual shelves, then it's not necessarily obvious that you click the little "books on a shelf" icon to put it on your "Read" shelf, or the "Currently Reading" shelf, etc.

Right! The whole “shelf” analogy is silly and unnecessary. It doesn’t make the interface familiar and obvious. Real people don’t actually have a shelf for books they want to read, are reading, and have read. We do get those concepts by themselves, so those states should simply be exposed directly, as what they are, no analogy needed. It’s an extra layer and extra mental work, for no benefit.

(Should also mention that the interface I am discussing is the one with which I’m familiar: their current iPhone app as-of 2012–2013.)

Besides the difficulty of marking the status of a particular book, it is incredibly difficult to actually discuss particular books.

There is also no capability to discuss only up to a particular portion of a book or any easy way to read books together etc.

The product has a lot of potential, but there are some fundamental usability issues holding it back imo.

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