#bookapps — Public Fediverse posts on home.social

Rolle Laukkarinen @[email protected] · 2026-01-29 · 20:08 UTC

I can't help it, I love beautiful, modern, minimal designs. Most user interfaces just don't appeal to me. Book apps, in particular, often feel old-fashioned. There's nothing wrong with old things though; retro tech from the 80s and 90s has its own charm, and people really knew how to make beautiful things back then.

But bad UI is a different story, it's clumsy, built with off-the-shelf frameworks without much thought, and often lacks proper design guidelines, plan or structure. That's why I can't use Bookwyrm, for example.

I read a lot and have mostly been using https://getbookshelf.com on iOS along with a CSV file since leaving Goodreads. Right now, I'm checking out alternatives. Even StoryGraph doesn't quite do it for me. https://margins.app looks promising, and Bookcover is okay but missing some features.

So, if in another world I decided to make my own fork and app, contribute to Bookwyrm, and completely refresh its UI like I did for Mastodon with the Mastodon Bird UI - what would you think of that?

#Books #BookApps #Margins #BookWyrm #UI #UIDesign #FrontEnd #BookTrackers #OwnYourData #SelfHost