Litres for
smart watches
The first app from Litres — the largest e-book and audiobook service in Russia and the CIS — built for a new smartwatch operating system that had never been used on the Russian market before. The goal: let people buy, download and listen to audiobooks right from their wrist, even offline.
View original case study →Project context
The client — Litres, the largest e-book and audiobook service in Russia and the CIS. We needed to build the service's first app for a new, closed operating system on fifth-generation smartwatches from a leading global brand, while keeping the core functionality and ease of use intact.
There was almost no ready documentation for the platform — only in English and Chinese — and the OS itself was new to the Russian and European markets.
A brand-new platform with no ready-made solutions
The app ecosystem for the new OS was only just forming, and documentation existed only in English and Chinese. A compact 1.8-inch round display with limited memory and the requirement for the player to work reliably offline — all of this had to be figured out with no comparable patterns or examples to reference.
Move core functionality onto the wrist
Build an app from scratch on the new OS: buying, downloading and listening to audiobooks and podcasts, layouts for a 466×466 px round display with limited gestures, offline operation, the simplest possible controls, sync with the main Litres app, and a streamlined checkout.
How we solved it
- 01
Research and scenarios
We studied how Litres users behave and identified three key scenarios for the watch: commuting, working out, and spontaneous purchases or listening. These shaped the rest of the design.
- 02
Learning the platform
We worked through English- and Chinese-language documentation for the new OS, experimented with adapting UI patterns, and assembled the whole feature set from scratch out of platform components — often by trial and error.
- 03
UI for a round screen
We designed the key elements for use while moving, worked out the information hierarchy — titles, chapter switching, download status, navigation — and made gesture control intuitive.
- 04
Testing and refinement
We tested and refined the app iteratively, chasing down a stable offline player and smooth sync with the main Litres app.
What it looks like
"The app turned out fast and clear even on a tiny screen — the team hit the deadline despite having zero ready-made patterns for the new platform."— Litres team
What we achieved
The app opened up a new user ecosystem for the service, previously unfamiliar with Litres on wearables, increased spontaneous purchases thanks to easy access, and let people listen to books offline — on the road and during workouts.