IDEO SHANGHAI LIBRARY CHECKOUT PROCESS

web design
  • Meteor
  • Angular
  • Amazon API

IDEO Shanghai wanted a web and mobile tool to facilitate its internal library checkout process.

We identified three customer needs, in order of priority -- 1) the checkout process should meet the need of easily checking out books; it should not detract from the experience of using the IDEO library, 2) the checkout process should enforce the returning and tracking of books without making the reader feel like a criminal like most checkout systems currently do, 3) the process should go beyond functionality and encourage discussions and sharing of the content, and 4) the process should also crowdsource keeping the library evergreen.

Given the limited time -- the site was built in a week and was my first time working with Meteor -- I unfortunately could only focus on the first goal, which is to make the checkout process digital, functional, and easy to use. Given the specs of a checkout system is pretty straight forward, I thought the most important feature would be speed. Hence, with the help of Meteor and Angular, I kept the site pretty simple and focused on making sure everything worked snappily.

The data on the book, including image, are pulled in from Amazon via their API.

Each book generates a unique QR code which can then be stuck on each physical book to link back to the checkout page. Given the wide use of QR codes -- most notably through WeChat, the most popular messaging app in China -- users can easily scan the QR code on their phones and check out / return the book.