Moleskine

A Canvas for Connection

Project overview

Industry

Smart Technology

Digital Note-taking

Tools

Figma

Miro

Timeline

3 week sprint

Role

Lead UX Researcher

UX/UI Designer

Team of 3

Project Type

Concept project

End-to-end app

Challenge

Founded in 1997, Moleskine is renowned for its authentic notebooks- loved by artists, writers and thinkers around the world. Fast forward to 2024, Moleskine have shifted their focus to the digital world; with their line of Smart Notebooks, the brand aims to blend traditional elements with smart technology to empower creativity and inspire users.

Our task was to create a platform that fosters genuine connections among users by integrating social networking features into Moleskine's smart notebooks, all while preserving the brand's authentic, tactile experience.

Outcomes

  • A safe and collaborative space for creatives to share their work.

  • Tailored community pages to suit the individual needs of the user.

  • Personalised, secure file organisation.

  • Customisable accessibility page.

  • Evolving platform to inspire and foster connections.

Final product

Watch the video to see the final product in action.

Discover

Research

As the Moleskine Smart Notebook was a fairly new product, we were unable to find many users who had specifically used it; many used other brands. Due to this, we made assumptions to guide early research, fill knowledge gaps, and focus on key aspects of the user journey, which we later validated.

Methodologies

  • Assumptions

  • Competitive and comparative analysis

  • Feature inventory

  • USP

What I want to achieve

Understanding notebook users, both analog and digital.

What content do people create?

How do people create content?

Why are they creating content?

What do they want to do with the content?

What I believe to be true

Moleskine Smart Notebooks are not well known

Most people use an Ipad for similar features + service offered

Users value versatility and value for money

People that purchase Moleskine notebooks buy it for the brand name and style

Moleskine smart notebook is mostly used by business professionals

Older demographic 30+ use similar products

What did we learn?

Conducting both a competitive and comparative analysis, alongside a detailed feature inventory allowed us to identify valuable insights in the product market. It was also clear that our users were using other digital products for similar services; what did these other products offer?

All apps lacked specific social-networking features.

What are users saying?

To understand more we conducted our interviews. The goal was to gain deeper insight into who our users were, their needs and pain points.

There were 13 participants including - Moleskine users, Notetakers, Smart notebook users, Creatives 

As a result we were able to see four trends building:

  • Authenticity

    Users cherish the tactile experience of pen and paper

  • Community

    They desire a community feel; analytics, pressure, and algorithms of social media can stifle creativity

  • Personalised

    Customisable digital features are essential for a personalised experience.

  • Security

    Securely organising work is important to ensure it is safe

“digital feels unsafe, paper copies are real and I know it is safe”

“I wish my social media inspired me more”

“the digital doesn't let me brain dump”

“I can’t stand the algorithms on social media, feels less personal”

What I achieved

Understanding notebook users, both analog and digital.

We had a wide demographic of user; creating diverse content such as art, journaling, and life management tasks; primarily using pen and paper or digital tools like iPads. They do this for work, passion projects, or organizing their thoughts and lives. While creatives often aim to share their work, journalers typically prefer to keep their content private.

What I know to be true

Moleskine Smart Notebooks are not well known

Most people use an Ipad for similar features + service offered

Users value versatility and value for money

People that purchase Moleskine notebooks buy it for the brand name and style

Moleskine smart notebook is mostly used by business professionals

Older demographic 30+ use similar products

Define

Turning point

Two prominent personas emerged from our interviews.

Moleskine as a classic brand had avid paper notebook followers; some who had entire collections. The majority of our users were creatives using smart technology in their processes.

Meet Luna - Primary persona

Goals

Share creativity without analytics pressure in a supportive community.

Access a distraction free digital space that inspires creativity.

Needs

A streamlined platform with organised file management.

Customisable, intuitive workspace that supports her creative flow.

Behaviours

Uses Adobe and Procreate on iPad for work and personal projects.

Seeks inspiration often, starting with paper brainstorms before moving to digital.

Frustrations

Finds social media overwhelming and feels it lacks authenticity.

Social media algorithms dampen her creativity.

Meet Notetaking Nick - Secondary persona

Goals

Maintain a safe, high-quality journaling experience without distractions.

Access notes easily, preserving an authentic pen-and-paper feel.

Needs

A customisable, storage solution that feels secure and trustworthy.

High-quality stationery and notebooks that enhance the note-taking experience.

Behaviours

Journals extensively with traditional notebooks.

Avoids social media, preferring a grounded, practical approach to inspiration.

Frustrations

Frustrated by lack of storage space.

Has difficulty locating specific notebooks.

Prioritisation

Luna represented the majority of users interviewed; she also uses smart technology so therefore is much more in line with the brief and business goals and project scope. We therefore designed with Luna as the foundation for our designs and looked at overlapping needs to address universal features and keep our secondary persona in mind.

Insights to HMW’s

Insight

Luna wants to feel inspired during her creative process.

HMW

Ensure Luna has a personal experience that inspires creativity?

Insight

Luna wants to ‘beat the analytics’ by sharing on a platform with like-minded individuals.

HMW

Help Luna feel safe and secure in a collaborative environment?

Insight

Luna wants one platform for all her needs to ensure her creative flow is not interrupted.

HMW

Provide Luna with a seamless creative flow?

Develop

Design studio

It became clear to us that the scope could become large and we needed to really drill down to what our core problem was to be able to come up with some great solutions. 

As a team we timeboxed ourselves to sketch individually with no limitations and then returned as a group to vote on key features. We proceeded with three rounds of ideation before finally finding our focus areas:

  • Tool customisation 

  • ‘Brain dump’ page

  • Personalised Moleskine filing system

  • ‘My Feed’ for inspiration

  • Community page

Information architecture

With focus areas aligned; a sitemap was vital to connect the dots and to ensure our pages not only connected to one another, that it also had a structured, user-friendly navigation.

Designing the Solution

Lo-Fi prototype

We asked users to navigate to the community page for inspiration and react to a post.

Measuring:

  • Hesitations

  • Misclicks

  • Likert Scale (SUS)

  • User feedback

3x

rounds of user testing

6

users per test

3

iterations

Landing page

Iteration 1

Iteration 3

Problem 1

Our ‘brain dump’ page was lost on users. Many questioned what page they were on and its purpose.

Problem 2

Icons were confusing! What were they all for? Two toolbars is too many, especially for a design program, it makes it overcrowded even when they are expandable.

“Is that a paw?” User 6, describing the community button.

Solution 1

The addition of the brain dump logo meant users were much clearer on the pages purpose. It also disappears the moment they begin writing on the page.

Solution 2

Users made it VERY clear which icons they found useful and we used all of their feedback to create one seamless toolbar that tucks away when designing to provide creatives with as much free space to design as possible.

Community page

Iteration 1

Iteration 3

Problem

Our user research revealed that users sought a positive social networking experience, but our focus on positivity unintentionally restricted their ability to express themselves fully, limiting social interaction.

Solution

Providing users with an unrestricted selection of emojis and a comment option provided a more social experience, enabling them to express a wider range of emotions, share their thoughts freely, and engage more meaningfully with the content and other users.

Results

8 less

misclicks

30%

less hesitation

A (88)

Iteration 3
Final SUS Score

D (56)

Iteration 1
First SUS Score

Theme and mood exploration

Moleskine is a reputable company with a longstanding heritage; it was vital that in our design thinking we stayed in line with their overall ethos of authenticity. Our user research indicated that users value the heritage of the brand and the feel of pen to paper. As a result, we focused on infusing our design with natural paper textures and neutral tones. Alongside this, we used the brand’s renowned font to ensure there was an immediate connection between the app and the original notebooks.

"Most of our consumers don't have just one notebook, or just one planner, they would have several. Maybe one for the office, one for their home and one for their bag. And I think they like to play with colours, with patterns and they like a lot our limited editions. They choose maybe the one that is most meaningful to them and to their personality."

CEO Daniela Riccardi

Whilst designing for the user, including safe and secure file organisation; this quote from Moleskine’s CEO perfectly summarised why the Moleskine brand has been around for so long. We loved the idea of our users being able to design in personalised Moleskine notebooks and incorporated this in our homepage design.

Deliver

Final product

Watch the video to see the final product in action.

Key takeaways

Less is more

When working with exciting brands and having such a broad scope for design; it is possible to get carried away and end up trying to design every possible solution. It was such a key learning experience to prioritise the most important elements and design these well; rather than designing many things at the risk of losing quality.

Does final ever exist?

User opinions can change over time, and continuous engagement with users ensures that designs evolve in line with their expectations. What worked for users in one phase of a project might no longer be effective in another, so always be prepared to pivot and adapt.

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