Gemspread Books is a mobile reading platform that combines a digital book library with a social book review community. Readers can explore and read full books in app, post structured book reviews, interact with other readers, and filter content by genre, author, or title. The app was built for both Android and iOS using Compose Multiplatform, meaning one codebase runs across both platforms. I designed the full product solo from concept to developer handoff.
Most reading apps do one thing. They either give you books to read or a place to talk about books. Gemspread Books needed to do both in a way that felt seamless and did not make either experience feel like an afterthought. The reading experience needed to be immersive enough to keep users coming back. The community section needed to be organised enough that users could find relevant reviews without drowning in a random feed. Both had to feel intentional and distinct while living inside the same app.
I was the sole designer on the project working directly with the product lead. I was responsible for the full UI and UX design of the app covering both the community and library sections, the reading interface, onboarding, authentication, user profiles, notifications, search and filter, settings, and all error and accessibility states. The completed designs were handed off to the development team for build.
The app had two distinct sections that needed their own design logic. I approached them separately before bringing them together.
For the community section the priority was organisation. An endless unfiltered feed of book reviews is not useful to anyone. I designed a clear filter and categorisation system at the top of the feed so users could sort by genre, author, or book title immediately. Each review post followed a strict structure covering title, cover image, body text, author, genre, date, likes, and comments. The composition interface supported rich text and image uploads so reviews felt substantial rather than quick takes.
For the library section I took cues from how Netflix surfaces content, using a down scrolling feed with clearly labelled sections like latest releases, trending, and popular across tabs for All, Ebooks, and Periodicals. Book detail screens gave readers everything they needed before committing to reading. The reading interface was the most critical screen in the entire product. I designed it to be fully immersive with customisable typography, brightness control, night mode, bookmarking, chapter navigation, and reading progress tracking.
Throughout the project I was careful not to let the Material Design 3 framework make the app feel too Android specific. The goal was a product that felt at home on both platforms.
The completed designs were handed off to the development team and the app is currently in build ahead of launch. The project demonstrates my ability to handle a complex, multi surface mobile product from a detailed brief all the way through to a complete developer ready handoff.
