Posted on Jul 21

Supporting Fellow Engineers: The Paiges Book App

#webdev #beginners #paigesapp

The Paiges Book App - How I use it, what I like, and why the app works.

Book lovers to the front

I have loved reading for as I long as I can remember.

I can still remember how much I enjoyed reading the Bernstein Bears and Babysitter's Club books when I was a child. In elementary school, I remember having to write book reports regularly as a way to practice my writing skills. In my later school years, book reports were replaced with essays and papers.

Discovering reading apps

I didn't continue logging my reading progress again until college - thanks to an app called RIP Shelfari.

Shelfari was a social media site built for book lovers. You could catalog your books, connect with friends on the app, and categorize your books onto different shelves. I remember liking the user experience enough.

At some time after joining Shelfari, I heard about a new bookish app called Goodreads. At the time, Goodreads was led by a small team and offered better UI/UX along with the ability to catalog even more books using their search functionality.

I joined Goodreads, and it's been the one book app that I have stuck with since the aughts.

Over the years, I have tried some of the new, shiny reading apps that I have come out:

StoryGraph - I love the way StoryGraph shares data with users. You not only see how many books you have read, but the app show you your typical reading pace, and helps you plan to reach your yearly reading goals.
Pocket - My foray into this app was brief because I was terrible with keeping up with it.

My favorite non-reading reading app

I do most of my reading tracking and sharing about books on Goodreads. But Youtube was my favorite non-reading reading app for a long time. The "Booktube" community shaped an online space where I was able to learn about new books and watch book reviews from fellow book lovers (called 'Booktubers') who filmed Youtube videos. I keep a long 'to be read' (TBR) to this day thanks in part to Booktube.

My personal reading pandemic

My reading habit slowed down a lot during the onset of the 2020 pandemic. Although the pandemic offered a break from normal day-to-day activities, dealing with social distancing and wearing personal protective equipment (PPE) created new distractions. I took lots of walk, binge watched some TV shows, and worked. But I did not read as much as I was used to.

Tiktok took off during the pandemic since people all over the globe were forced to stay home. I avoided Tiktok as best as I could... until 2024

How I Booktok

Eventually, I discovered on TikTok that the BookTube community had migrated to the platform, giving rise to BookTok. Booktok is a similar community for book lovers - where you can learn about books, watch book reviews, and connect with other community members - all through bite sized short videos. Booktok feels more far-reaching since Tiktok lets users from around the world jump into each other's algorithms via their For You page (FYP). I follow Booktokers who read discuss books about Black and urban fiction, romance, history, historical fiction, contemporary fiction, and history and culture nonfiction. I've even dipped my toe into thrillers and sci-fi and follow some of the Booktokers who enjoy those genres.

Introducing Paiges

Last week, I caught a video on my TikTok FYP that featured a Booktoker talking about a new app. The app's UI looked customizable and pretty in pink. I put it in the back of my mind because I had other work to do throughout the week.

This week I finally downloaded Paiges to my phone. The app is currently available for iOS and will be available for Android soon. Paiges lets users to customize their reading profile page with a banner of their choice, and I was able to register an account that uses only my first name as my username. I name is not super common but is also not very uncommon. But I rarely am early enough in a userbase to grab it as a username. Score!

A few things I love about the Paiges app:

The ability to customize parts of the user profile - I love a hot pink accent anywhere. So being able. to add banners and select pink for app accents is a plus.
The ability to search for and add friends by username or email address - You can easily add friends and build your community within the app
The ability to pull in book information from Google Books - Google Books has digitized and indexed over 40 MILLION books. Most users will find the majority of their books are easily searchable and can be added to their reading log in a breeze. I love that Paiges does not rely on Amazon for their book database.
Paiges feels more like a friendly social media community rather than something massive like Goodreads or Tiktok. Because the app is still in its early stages, it still feels like a tight-knit community of your cool friends who are in the know. IYKYK.

Some other fun things about the Paiges app:

The app is created by Jeniah Richbow, a young Black woman computer scientist and first-time mobile developer.
Because the developer is solo developing the app, you can see progress and changes almost in real time.
The developer is open to user feedback (per her Threads account), and she makes app improvements per user's suggestions.

Overall I really enjoying using Paiges. But there's always room for improvement especially on a new project that has the potential to be used by millions of people.

Some areas for improvement on the Paiges app:

The experience when adding books by indie authors is slower than I prefer. I'm hoping user input will inrease the indie books that are available in the platform.
Adding friends - Right now, I have to know someone's username or search for their approximate username. A member's directory on the app would be helpful.
The current app feels better suited for an iPad or another tablet. I used my old trusty iPhone to download and use the app. It works fine. But the app just feels like its meant for tablet users in its current iteration. I think finding a way to make it faster and give the UI a snappy feel would improve the usability on phones.

I'm enjoying the Paiges app, and I will continue adding books and tracking my reading there. Fellow readers, meet me over on Paiges: