Existing IBook research

On the IBook store I tried to find the most media rich books rather than just text book styled books.

The Aircraft of the Tuskegee Airmen

Warbirds of World War 2

The way that this gallery works is quite ingenious, the gallery looks as if it is part of the book, it also uses inanimate objects to build up he depth and make the design more interesting. All that is interactive on this page is the gallery but with all the added items and textures the page looks to have more content that it actually does which also makes it more interesting.

The book is designed in a skeuomorphism way, "creating designs and graphical elements that mimic recognisable objects". http://tinyurl.com/cubnb42

This technique is used a lot in apple apps as well, I think that it creates a very real feeling to the book, it's more textured and interesting and has a sense of depth too it.

You can see how they have designed the apps graphical style using real textures like leather, paper and stitching which feels like you are using an actual not pad. This style is replicated in a lot of apple apps like the calendar.

Again they have filled the page with a single widget by adding a textured background and items like photos, rubbers and pencils. These items also fit in with the widget on the page as it is like a test.

One point that i would like to make about this ibook is the use of instructional images, contents and words,  on some pages you may not know what to do but with the use of these instructions it is made clear. Mostly these are targeted at people who are new to the this IBook concept with interactive parts; If they did not have instructions the user has a potential to miss things.

I really like the double page spread images that are shown as chapter headers, these also can be spread across as many pages, this would be good for a timeline feature; you could have each event as a page witch in it's entirety spreads across many pages.

Each main page (information pages) have either a border that frames the page or a plain wood background,  with the wood backgrounds the scene flows from one page to another, there is no join line between the pages as the background is continuos between between the pages.

I really like the schematic type drawings that are used to accompany the images, It makes the overall image more interesting.

Although the ibook does not have a into video it does have a intro page with audio.

Points to note:

Continuos images on background.

Skeuomorphism themed design.

Full screen gallery pages.

Small finishing touches (objects).

Beatles 

Yellow Submarine

This book is the Beatles yellow submarine book, After some research I have found that this is a fixed ebook (epub) publication, a fixed epub is better for more media rich and animated content like children's books as each page can have a specific layout where flexible epub has a continuously flowing format, this means that any text that is enlarged will flow though the entire documents. 

I really like the interactivity of this Ibook, There are objects that move by them selves as well as individual elements that you can drag around which also make sounds. Although I will not be able to reproduce this entirely it is a good insight to the interactivity that you can have in an IBook.

This IBook uses color really well, there is a specific colour pallet that works really well together and is continus throughout the IBook.

This page has the butterflies animated, you can also drag them around.

I mostly looked at this book for interactivity rather than design, I really like how the small touches like the butterflies are not only animated but you can also drag them around. There are quite a few quirky animations which make the page more enjoyable and more interactive. I like all these little touches and want to carry some of these ideas across.

Points to note:

Colourful Ibook style.

Small interactive elements.


E.O. Wilson's
Life on Earth

This is a book that has a lot of interactivity embedded within it. It has some really nice custom made widgets for added interactivity.

The image on the right is a 3D object that spins on its own, you can also drag it around to see it from all sides. The widget left i believe is a custom widget made for the ibook rather than a pre-set.

It has a timeline like navigation feature, when each circle is clicked it plays a video showing you what happens  as you go closer in/over a period of time. I really like this feature, it's clear and easy to use and I very quickly I knew what was going on and how to use the widget.

On some videos instead of having them representative of their actual size within the Ibook they have a different cover image that really works well with the design.

Another custom widget is this one, when you click on the parts of the ant the top images change .

All the photos can be enlarged full screen and also come with a caption. 

The book has this image of a work surface and when you either click the arrows or  on the actual captions you zoom into the page.

Each caption takes you to a different part of the picture, I really like this type of widget, it adds a lot of interactivity to the ibook, it would be good for a map as you could zoom  into a lot of different places.

Point to note:
Custom widgets
High interactivity

Overall, these ibooks have given me a lot of inspiration to what possible and what works well, I really like the idea of a skeuomorphism themed design. I think that real textures like leathers and papers would work really well for a lot of designs. High interactivity is something I want to include, these parts are where the user is going to spend a lot of time as it is more engaging than just having text and images nested directly on the page.