iBook Evaluation 

This has been a very enjoyable project because I found it quite straight forward and it gave me many opportunities to experiment with the interactive elements, layout and structure.The research was time consuming because so much is written about the different aspects of the arctic, ranging from the climate to global warming. I had not previously studded the arctic and so my knowledge base was low but it gave me an opportunity for learning about this important region and I am now much more interested in all aspects of the arctic.

I had a good look at existing ibooks but found that i didn't like many of them because they were not very interactive and this made me understand that for a lot of people, this would be an important element of their enjoyment of the ibook, especially as it is aimed at a teenage market. 

I found the website “www.Bookry.com” particularly helpful as it gave a wide range of interactive widgets that could be used in my ibook. In my book people have especially enjoyed the videos that i embedded using the ‘Youtube” widget. As they were taken from authoritative sources (BBC and National Geographic) it shows that they are factually correct as well as being enjoyable. 

As there is so much information written about the arctic one of my problems was to decide what to include in my ibook, I am aware that it dose contain quite a lot of text but as it is designed as a reference book I felt this was justified. 

Initially I struggled with a colour scheme but in the end it naturally evolved from the colours of the snow and ice in the natural environment, lending its self to the use of different shades of blue and lots of white with some stark contrasts such as the bright colours of the Northern lights. 

I also struggled at the beginning of this project when learning how the structure of ibooks works, but by learning the structure of chapters, sections and pages it gave me the knowledge I needed to structure my book and decide on the chapters I would include.

I tried to keep a simple layout as this would help make the book more accessible to the audience. I used a page to show each chapter of my ibook and a page to show the contents of each chapter, this became difficult to show the difference between headings and different sections that were linked to parts of the book. After feedback I had to go back and change this adding a box around each chapter heading separating it from the sections in that chapter. In addition I had to add clear links on each page that would take the reader back to the previous page of my book. I wanted the reader to be able to access any part of the book without always having to go back to the index and this enabled this to work consistently. 

I feel it would have been beneficial to have created my ibook on a subject that I had previous knowledge and interest. This would have allowed more time to focus on the design and structure aspects of the project rather than on researching a topic that I had no existing knowledge of. It would have also been beneficial to create an ibook to a younger audience as the visual language would have been less formal allowing me to be more creative and use different visual aspects rather than sticking to factual and informative images. I realise my challenge is to learn how to be both formal and creative!

If I did the project again i would try to make my ibook more visually creative and still informative as this would attract the audience without taking away from the information offer that is being provided. I would also look at creating pages with less text that would be less overwhelming to some of the teenage audience and would increase the number of pages, leaving room for more interactive elements.

User Testing 

After presenting my ibook to the class I then tested my ibook with someone from the target audience from testing the book. I asked them to open my ibook and read through each page and click on anything they want along the way. Whilst watching I found that several times it took the reader time to return to the previous page and only did this by closing and reopening the book.

 I got feedback similar to the feedback I got from the class crit. Three main points that came up in the user testing is the good use of images that made my ibook interesting and helped make the subject of The Arctic feel realistic. The second main feedback I got from user testing was that my book was simple to navigate through with lots of interesting facts and interactive elements but they couldn't return to the previous page of a book without having to exit the book and re open it which is a problem i am looking to solve. The third main thing that was mentioned was that titles throughout the last section were hard to read as they are whit text on a light grey background image. This is another thing I am also looking to change by changing the white headings to black for the last section of my book.

Ideally I would like to do more user testing on my book by asking other people to look at my book and also asking them to look at my book after I had made changes to see if the changes I made had improved my book or if there were still problems that I could easily fix. By doing user testing on more than one user it allows for any main problems to be seen and anything that may have been a problem for one user but not everyone using the book to show.

I was only able to test my book on one user due to the time seclude for this project and also allowing time to make changes before the deadline but I found the feedback I got useful. Seeing someone use my ibook as if it was a published ibook made clear which problems were most important to solve. User testing made clear not only what the strengths and weaknesses were with my ibook but also gave me ideas of how I could solve them simply for example changing the colour of the heading on some pages to make the text readable.

After looking at some books that are being used to learn and revise by students similar to my target audience I started to think about how they could be improved. I didn't like the books I looked at because they all seemed to focus on being a formal reference book rather than trying to appeal to the target audience that would be using the books. They included very little visual elements and any images that had been used were often small and difficult to see detail. This made some images pointless as the audience would pay little attention to diagrams which could help explain something in a clear, visual way. I found that along with being text heavy books they had a problem of looking dated which makes them unappealing to a modern audience. This has in forced my idea of using lots of photos to create my visual style because it would increase the appeal of my book and also as they are real photos would still be informative. The advantage of using real photos is that the images will stand out and not be created in a style that could become dated or irrelevant over time. Another way to make my ibook more appealing would be to include lots of elements that would not be in a book for example videos and interactive images that students would find enjoyable and could be in addition to information/text.

iBook Feedback 

After i presented my ibook about the arctic to the class this is some of the feedback I got. 

Positive feedback was that i had a good use of images and videos as I had included mostly photos which worked well and videos from a reliable source. Feedback also said that I had included lots if useful information and that the images and videos were relevant.

Some of the things they said I could work on were navigation as there is no obvious way to go back to a previous page, this making the ibook difficult to navigate. 

The second big thing to change is the text being hard to read on the background image. This would benefit from ether having a text box background, change the text colour so it stands out more on the background or a lower opacity on the background which would decrease the background visibility. 

The 3rd main problem with my ibook is the basic fonts that have been used. I am planning to change these to be a heading font of snow and a serif font as the main text font as this is easer to read in larger pieces of text like books compared to a san-serif font.  

Links to the Web

I am planning to add links in to my iBook that will let the reader explore websites that relate to the subject of the arctic. The two links I am planning on adding will be to the World Wildlife Found (WWF) and Greenpeace which these sites both have pages about the arctic.

Greenpeace

www.savethearctic.org

This is the first link I will be adding that links to the saving the arctic campaign that was started by Greenpeace. This would be a relevant to add in to my book as it is from a charity that is campaigning to protect the arctic. 

World Wildlife Found

This is the second link i will be adding to my book as this is also a charity that is working to protect the arctic. The WWF website provides information on the arctic and the work they do to help, they also provide a means in which you can donate. 

Both these links come form valued charities that would be seen as reputable sources for information and resources. They are both known for the work they do to help save animals and the environment so would be a reliable place to turn to when donating or volunteering to help.

Adding video

This is one of the videos i am planning on using in my iBook. . . 

I will be using this video in my iBook as it shows a family of Polar Bears emerging from their den. 

I have chosen this video i found on youtube as it will fit well after the page where i have written about Polar Bears in my book.  I also chose this video because it was added to youtube by the BBC Worldwide youtube account and is a clip taken from a documentary film by David Attenborough. 

This makes the video perfect to use in a reference book like mine about the arctic because it has the gravitas of being from a well known documentary series rather than being a video recorded by an un reliable source. 

The start of my iBook 

This is the first page i created in iBooks author it gives a clear view of how I plan for the style of my books to look, it follows my chosen design with having 1 main background image and a title for each chapter on the left of the page that are each in a box. 

Each box that is used for each chapter has a different opacity level that would help the reader see each separate chapter. I am planning on linking each heading to the chapter it relates to and having a heading in a similar way for each part of the chapter. 

This will help the reader drop in to each sub topic of the book and would keep with my idea of a book that dose not have to be read form front cover to back cover.

Space

When the book opens it starts off with an intro video which is a countdown before the take off of the spaceship. This works well as it is extremely relevant to the subject and also works as a countdown before entering the book. The audience will be attracted and want to find out what happens after take off and what is in the rest of the book.

This also follows the “Contemporary" template with one background image across the chapter page, a heading and room for a opening sentence or paragraph that for this book it has been left empty. This to avoids over complicating the design of the book and makes it easy for the audience to use it to full potential. 

The next page jumps straight in to interactivity by including a gallery that with big images takes up half of the page leaving the rest to another image and an the first paragraph. This shows they have thought about the audience and how they can make the book interesting and attention grabbing from the very start.

The next page of the book is very similar as the page is decided in to 2 parts the first being an image on the left of the page and the second being a 3d model of the same object on the right. This works extremely well providing content that could not be included in a normal book. It also helps attract the audience as if it is giving people a tour round the object. To show more than one side of an object in a normal book it would have taken several photos and taken up a lot of room in the book or the images would have been smaller reducing the detail seen.

The next interactive element to be included in this book about space is a timeline. This simple time line showing dates and events thorough time, It works by each click the user makes taking them to the next point marked along the timeline. This has been used to great potential thorough the book with several timelines being used and each timeline including lots of points that include information about an event that happened at that time. This again is something that would have taken up a lot more space in an ordinary book and could have been overwhelming to the audience that opens the book.

There is also interactive images used in this ibook these are useful as they add arrows to show points of the image and add info to expelling what is going on. The book includes lots of strong interactivity even though there is a simple layout. This works well as the audience will be able to navigate through the book easy and focus on its content rather than struggling to navigate between each page and interactive element.

Existing iBooks

This is one of the interactive iBooks I looked at, I chose to look at this book because it is also a reference book that would help people learn about Permafrost. This book may not be aimed at the same target audience as my book but would give me ideas into what an interactive iBook is like and the kinds of things that I would add in to my book. 

Permafrost

This shows the title section for the first chapter "What is Permafrost" by looking at the layout that includes one large background image, a chapter title, heading  and space for the opening sentence its clear how this is still following the "Contemporary" template. By keeping the template for this iBook simple they have avoided making irrelevant changes that could make the ibook less appealing.

This second image shows the first page in the first chapter of the book. This also looks like it has been a section used from the "Contemporary" template with a basic use of fonts and the same layout of a list on the left and text box on the right with a image banner across the top of the page. The image has been changed from the basic galaxy image that was in the template to a picture of the ground. 

Here they have included a video of an animation that helps add interactivity to the ibook. This video works well as it would attract the audience including something that could not be included in a regular book. The video is used to help inform the reader of what Permafrost is.

The ibook about permafrost includes very little interactivity with just videos being used to draw the audience in. The majority of the ibook includes lots of text but they have been carful to balance text with images and videos and have avoided creating a text heavy ibook that would have little benefit of being an ibook rather than a normal book. The images they have used have been presented at a decent size leaving room for text with some images taking up half a page and others being smaller. They have also used diagrams that are mostly covering a page giving the audience a clearer view of detail. 

The last page of this ibook is the credits page where they have linked all the information and sources used to create the ibook they have used a simple and effective way of linking text to an external website. This creating the blue links that show where the information from this book has come from. This also benefits the reader as they will immediately be able to open the site without having to copy the link in to the browser.

Science book

Hear I have looked at an existing science book that is also aimed at a similar audience as my ibook would be aimed at. The cover is formal and includes only the necessary information to tell you about the book and a dark red/black gradient is used as the background. In the top right corner the book has the company logo which irrelevant to the topic and being the only visual imagery could create confusion on what the book is about before the audience stop to read the cover. Across the cover they have used a san-serif font with simple shaped letter that help make the book formal without being difficult to read. 

This is one of the pages from inside the book which has been split up in to sections by a coloured box around parts of the text, which would make large pages of text less overwhelming to the young audience. They have continued to use a simple san-serif font that is easy to read on the small sections of text in each box, this also works well as it gives a more modern feel to the book and is taking a step away from the dated look and feel the book creates. They have also used some small images that are not photo realistic and often just simple diagrams. The small images would attract the reader but by being such small diagrams and illustrations they are hard to see or understand. to include the same amount of beneficial information and larger images this would mean making the book larger which could discourage students from wanting to read it.

Exciting books

GCSE Maths

I have looked in to existing textbooks that are used by the same target audience of teens as my ibook would be aimed at. The books I looked at were both aimed at GCSE level and provided a lot of information on different subjects of science and maths.

The first book I looked at is collins revision GCSE maths it has a plain red background with a large title and a diagram of how it will improve your maths on the front. It also has a tab design down the left of the image which gives a better idea of what the book is about. This is simple and with little visual elements to the cover would not attract the audience as well as it could do. By removing the text from the cover it would not be clear what the book is about their fore it would not be noticed on a book shelf among other books, the audience would be forced to read some of the text to find out that it is a book about GCSE higher maths.

This is one of the pages from inside the book it shows how the layout of the page is simple and split in to sections by a coloured outline around that section of information. There is no background but plain white behind all of the content and some boxes have light blue over the text. This book is really simple and uses little colour to highlight different parts of the content making them stand out. The book follows the same as the cover giving little visual clue to what the book is about, leaving most of the information and content down to the text. by including few visual elements this book requires more effort to read compared to a book full of visually appealing images that the reader would have more interest in. This book is full of mathematical questions that require the readers input but apart from them the book is written in large pages of text.