Kindle Enterprise Publishing
Streamlining workflows for publishers
KEP is a publishing platform designed for enterprise publishers to manage their book titles in the Amazon store. However, the platform only supported digital books (e-books), forcing publishers to manage their titles for print, digital, and audiobooks with separate tools. This lack of integration in the publisher workflow led to inefficiencies and frustration. Additionally, smaller publishers, who often manage titles alongside other responsibilities, needed a streamlined way to monitor and resolve issues across their catalog
My role:
Lead UX Designer
Facilitation of design sprints
User research
Ideation, conceptual design
Prototyping
Approach
Design sprint leadership: facilitated a three-day design sprint with a cross-functional team to envision the future state of the publisher experience. Collaborated with stakeholders to map the end-to-end journey for publishers, from title creation to troubleshooting.
User research and insights: engaged directly with publishers to gather feedback and identify pain points, such as the lack of an integrated view across formats and the inefficiency of switching between tools. Defined two key publisher themes - “Show me what’s wrong so I can quickly fix it” and “Make it easy for me to add and manage all title formats”.
Iterative ideation: sketched concepts and facilitated a storyboarding session to explore solutions. Prioritized creating a centralized dashboard to surface high-priority issues and provide contextual recommendations.
Prototyping and validation: Designed and tested detailed wireframes, focusing on the:
Publisher Dashboard: a centralized view that provides at-a-glance insights into catalog performance, identifies issues.
Detail pages with inline editing: tools for publishers to quickly fix metadata or content issues without switching between interfaces, reducing workflow friction.
Outcome
Delivered a holistic design concept that integrated title management across all formats, simplifying workflows for publishers and reducing redundancy.
Developed a centralized dashboard that streamlined issue resolution and provided actionable insights, improving efficiency for both large enterprises and smaller publishers.
The inline editing feature enabled publishers to quickly resolve issues, reducing reliance on external tools and enhancing their ability to manage their catalog independently.
Established a scalable framework for addressing publisher needs across formats, laying the groundwork for further platform improvements.
Future vision
This initiative was part of a larger project in the Books organization to bring multiple feature teams together to create a unified publishing experience; that work is still ongoing.