Gen 1 Kindle
Building the first UI for books
By the early 2000s, the e‑book dream was on life support.
Multiple companies had tried (and failed) to make digital reading work. Clunky screens, poor battery life, limited content, and a lack of reader-centric thinking had turned the category into a cautionary tale.
Many product designers wouldn’t touch it. But Amazon had something others didn’t: a massive catalog, a loyal base of avid readers, and a chance to invent a new way to consume books.
Amazon’s strategy was unconventional. And intentional.
They formed a small, skunkworks-style team hidden from the broader org, free to explore the problem without legacy constraints.
The first‑generation Kindle was created by a network of collaborators coordinated by a skunk works team at Amazon. Tom was a lead Product Designer at design power‑house Pentagram. He was the sole designer on the team that created the first-generation Kindle’s UI.
The result was instantly iconic:
- A highly legible, no‑glare interface.
- A radial scroll wheel for deep navigation without touch.
- Clear typographic hierarchy and minimal ornamentation.
- A UI that prioritized reading, not browsing.
The Launch
The first Kindle was not a mass-market launch, it was a strategic wedge. A small, intentionally limited run. No press blitz. Just the right audience: people who would use it, love it, and spread the word.
Its success wasn’t just that it worked: it proved e‑books could be real, and it laid the foundation for a product line that would redefine reading for the digital age.
Our approach
Start with the reader not the tech
We designed not for gadget lovers, but for readers, leveraging e‑ink to mimic the physical book. Navigation was designed to mimic the logic of print, not the web.
Lean into the constraints, don’t fight them
The e-ink display gave us the tactile quality of paper, but came with real constraints, so every interaction had to be deliberate, legible, and durable.
Don’t get fancy. Let reading happen.
We wanted the interaction model to mirror the physicality of the device: solid, tactile, and unapologetically utilitarian.
