De Slegte: Interactive Books - digital and analog

I've been to 'De Slegte', a big book store in The Hague, where they have over 3000 different books, and a lot of second hand books.
I wanted to look at 'analog interactive books', what sort of interactions do they facilitate and which of these can you find back in 'digital interactive books'.



This book had nice pull and push cards to create some sort of animation or change in the picture. It also contains furry fabrics that are excellent for sensory play, but which is hard/impossible to create digitally.

This book does it more the other way around. It is an analog book, but it 'suggest' that is is interactive in a creative way that would be better suited for digital media. That makes it fun.

I love both of these, the one above is a book, where they really played with size. The other one I will tell you about in a few seconds.



I've also looked at other media than Interactive Books for the Ipad and online, I wanted to find examples of storytelling that are not referred as as 'interactive books'. These kind of examples could be a good inspiration for my project.

Hobolobo Some sort of webcomic. I just LOVE the way you can scroll through the story. The story is divided into chapters and every chapter is one long page with nice illustations which you can scroll through, text appears ad some points (so it's not always part of the illustration) and the perspective scrolls with you (like in the student game Hollandia). After you read through the chapter, you can click on the next one. In chapter 3, music also starts, in the beginning it's not that loud. But you're actually scrolling towards a point where the music comes from. Also images and animations appear sometimes, which really create a mood.
I think this is one of my favourite examples so far, I just love to play with this 'webcomic'. It is so much fun to scroll though the page, see how perspective reacts on me. I actually already had some ideas that are really comparable to this way of interacting.
Only thing I have trouble with, is the way you can navigate through chapters, I can only go to the next one, while sometimes I want to skip directly to, for instance, the 7th chapter.



PID I'm very inspired by the lightning of this game. Maybe we can use some way of interacting with lights. Or something else. But I do think it's important that there is some 'thin red line' in the form of an interaction that is continius through the story. In games you've also got your 'standard' game play, for instance shooting. And I think in that way a game gets more 'one'. What I see in a lot of Interactive Books is that every page has it's own interaction. Which is okay, but it can be distracting to a story if you have to practise a new interaction every page... I have to test this.

Discovery This game has a fun feature. The story tells you what you need to do, by doing this, the story adjust and continues. It is done very simplistic, but it is a good example of how to create gameplay out of narrativity (or the other way around), it's logical.

Fieldresearch: analogue interactive books

I've been to 'De Slegte', a big book store in The Hague, where they have over 3000 different books, and a lot of second hand books.
I really wanted to choose my target audience this week. So I wanted to get an impression of what age prevers what kind of books. And I wanted to see how the way of playing diverses between age groups.


Piaget stages of cognitive development (Bee and Boyd, 2000)
Sensory-motor period (0–18 months) – the child engages in sensory play and play
that involves moving objects to produce reactions.
Preoperational stage (18 months–6 years) – The child engages in symbolic play.
Rules are not developed (4–7 years) – the child can perceive and imagine.
Period of concrete operations (6–12) – the child engages in more problem solving
play. Play involves classification and rules.
Period of formal operations (12–15) – thought and play become more abstract. Play
becomes more social and refined.

A list of books for children of the age of 11-12
A list of books for children of the age of 7-8
A list of books for older teens
The books in this list give me an indication of the depth of narrative and the seriousness of the story children of that age can handle. It turns out that books for children of the age of 11+ (also teens) are for me the most interesting. But I still want to create a childrens book, so I prefer 11-12. Also because of the stage of piaget (like discribed earlier).




In De Slegte, especially the teenage category got different kind of books suggested, which are way more focused on teenstories. I asked a girl, who turned out to be 14, what book she would like to read. Se wanted to read Kikkers en Tongzoenen (Frogs and French Kisses). When I asked her if she ever read fantasy or old fairytales, she said she read Harry Potter (J.K. Rowling), but not all of them and she still likes to read Mathilda (Roald Dalh) sometimes. Which are stories that are nice to make an interactive story of, but these stories she reads more out of nostalgy, or because the books were already bought and/or suggested by others.



Conclusion:
After some research (reading articles about age and gender) and fieldresearch (going to De Slegte), I've decided I want to make an Interactive Book for boys and girls of the age of 10 to 12. Children of the age of 10 to 12 still play, they like to play with rule-sets, classifications and they like to solve problems. Kids of younger age (6-10) also have these elements, but I want to design a book for a bit older audience, so that narrativity can be more in-depth. I don't want to choose an older target audience (13+), because this audience prefers to play in a more abstract way, play is more social and refined. They are also more interested in stories that are more about children of their own age, experiencing things they are curious about (like drugs, sex, growing up, boy/girl friends, fame, or 'bad' scenarios).

Some great articles about digital books

http://www.economist.com/node/21528611?fsrc=nlw|edh|09-08-11|editors_highlights

http://labs.snowcastleco.com/2011/09/09/content-may-be-digital-it-may-be-multimedia-but-that-doesn%E2%80%99t-mean-it%E2%80%99s-interactive/

http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2012/01/developer-profile-snowcastle-interactive-provides-true-interactivity-for-kids/


Knowledge I picked out of these articles:



When you go digital with analog content you have three fundamental choices:

1. You can treat the content “as is” and simply see it as an adaption of the same content to a new distribution channel. This is both honest and completely fine. Good original content remains good original content whether it is on paper or screen.
2. You can enhance the original content with multimedia, links, annotations etc. This is a more perilous road.
3. Lastly, you can transform the analogue source material into truly interactive content. Welcome to the great new frontier where both risks and rewards are great and native pathfinders are essential!

1: It is worth remembering that the tactile usability experience of a physical book is one of the best, if not the best interface ever made.

2: Enhancement, may be better – or not – depending on how relevant the additional content is, and how well it is done.
Enhancing content, even when the enhancements are relevant, does not necessarily add that much real value to the user.
What is worse is that usability often suffers from these enhancements. A good story is broken up. Multimedia is not really integrated, but patched onto the content, disturbing the smooth flow the user wants.

3: True interactivity happens when the user can interact with the digital content in a seamless way to personalize both the experience and to differing degrees, even the story itself. True interactivity allows a user to return to the same content and experience it in different ways. True interactivity adds real value to digital content.

This (true interactivity in books) is the future; this is digital content as we will see it 5-10 years down the road. And guess what: The media and publishing industry have no clue how to get there. Luckily someone already inhabits this future and has successfully monetized digital content for 30 years plus: The game developers!
So what is interactivity as a game developer sees it? Interactivity is at the core of all gaming content. Successful interactivity has two basic ingredients: A particular form of creativity and a deep understanding of human psychology. Successful interactivity plays to such basic and deeply human instincts as the attraction to challenges, curiosity, capacity for fun and the insatiable demand for rewards and recognition.
To harness the possibilities of interactive storytelling, the media and publishing industry have to borrow heavily from the gaming world and they have to do it fast, because the natives already know how to this and might want to extend their multibillion empire of digital content into story telling too.

lol, according to the last lines, I, as a game student, am on the right track. Although I don't completely agree with the part about using game design as an example for an interactive book. I think it's partly true, game design tools can be used in creating an interactive book, but 'true interaction' doesn't need to rely only on game design. Also game design is only an element of interaction design, so why only use games as an example of a good interactive book? 'Successful interactivity has two basic ingredients: a paricular form of creativity and a deep understanding of human psychology', this is too broad. Art can also be a particular form of creativity and a deep understanding of human psychology. And what is a 'particular form of creativity', or a 'deep understanding of human psychology', how does this create a good game or interactive book? Of course you need to be creative to design and create something and when you're designing for a target audience, you need to know the psychology of your target audience. But I think there is a lot more neccesary to create a fun experience in an interactive book.



Another book I want to read:
Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience
by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Hogworld: Gnart’s Adventures

http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2012/01/developer-profile-snowcastle-interactive-provides-true-interactivity-for-kids/

Numberlys

http://numberlys.com/#

A new interactive book made also by Moonbot!
There's a lot of video's on their site, about how they made it!
Very handy!

AND another interactive book: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=J-4Fj9pvpq8#at=106

The Piramid of Play

http://product.design.umn.edu/courses/pdes3711/documents/Kudrowitz2010.pdf

Sensory play
Fantasy play
Construction play
Challenge play

Fieldresearch

A list of interesting articles, books and examples of interactive books


Articles about designing an Interactive Book
very good article by the designer of the Interactive Book: Alice in Wonderland
The article itself is not that intesting, but I like how people create their own augmented reality, combining analogue books with the ipad or iphone
An interactive book cover.


Good examples of interactive books
Alice in Wonderland, by Chris Stevens - Demibooks
Digital book, Mike Matas
note: I'm more focused on designing a childrens book, but this is still a good talk about the possibilities of Interaction in books)
The fantastic flying books of mr. Morris Lessmore, Moonbot
note: I love the visuals in this book, it's almost an animation (which is not that strange, since this is made by (ex) Pixar animators.
The wizard of Oz (Ozbook) There are a lot of different interactions in this interactive book, using a lot of the possibilities of the Ipad. These interactions are related to the story. It is a very playful book.
Slice of Bread goes to the Beach This is a very playful interactive book, with all the different interactions. I also like the beginning, where you can see the breadroaster car drive away. This is nicely animated and modeled. I like the combination between 2-d and 3-d. I'm not a good modeller myself, but I don't animate that quickly. But this way of animating is much more do-able than The Fantastic Flying Books of mr. Morris Lessmore.


Other examples of interactive books (both good and bad)
Peter Rabbit What is good about this book is the way they allow children to read along, which makes this book also a learning experience. I like the authentic feel of the book, it's beautifully visualised. But (with some exeptions, like the falling leaves) the interactions that are used can be used in normal pop-out books as well. Ofcourse, this is clearly a designchoice, but I think it's more interesting to explore more possibilities in interaction.


Bad examples of interactive books
20 thinks I learned about browsers and the web, Google
note: this is not an interesting interactive book, this is just a simulation of a book
Changing a story I like the idea of having an interactive story, but in this 'interactive book' changing a subject doesn't have any effect in the rest of the story. And again, no further interesting interactions.
ePub3 make your own interactive book again, just another book simulator. You can make your own book, but it is very limited to ePub3's idea of what an interactive book is.
Ebook Well, at least they don't call this an interactive book. But I would like to test this on my targetaudience, see what they think of this, is this really fun?




Books I want to buy for research
The Interactive Book: A Guide to the Interactive Revolution
Celia Pearce

Inspiration
pop up book animation
living canvas
watercolor
another watercolor

Week 22

This week I've explored by using Keri Smiths book 'How to be an explorer of the world'.
I've put on music of horror movie 'The Ring' while traveling.
I went on a stroll and ended at the beach in Scheveningen.
I've been an self-ethnographer, documenting how many times I've said something without thinking.
I've done a questionairy, asked people what their online name was, where they wanted to go, how they think about mustaches and so on.
I've created logo's for all my daily activities.
And I've done some people spotting, sitting in a cafetaria, looking at people that stroll by, checking out what they wear and document this.

I had to present this to Tarek Atrissi, who is probably going to be my mentor (but that is not sure yet).
In this presentation I also had to tell what my qualities, knowledge and skills are (which is visual design and play design) and what I wanted to develop (I want to develop these skills further and combine them into one project).
Together with Tom van der Linden (another Game Artist), I'm planning to choose an existing story and use it to create an interactive book. Tom is mainly focusing on concept art, while I am researching play design and do visual design as well.

First Post, let me introduce myself

Hello, my name is Sonja van Vuure. I'm in my last year at the Utrecht High School of Arts, where I study Game Art.
This last year of my study is devoted to my graduation project. I want to design an Interactive Book and research how to make this a playful experience. Interactive Books are quite new and rarely have an interesting design. So I think I can really add something to the picture, by doing good research and implementing this research in a good design.

Game Art is mostly about visual design for games and interactions. But during my study I've created a big interest in Interaction Design, or better phrased: Play Design as well. I've neven 'only' done the visual design of the projects I've worked on, I've also had a big influence as a designer for play or interactions as well.

Some projects I've done:
Cardboard Mechanics


The Norbits
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwRz1hjtv7Q
http://vimeo.com/10477205

Nonsense
http://magicbean.nu/
http://vimeo.com/35287777


I will give an update at least every week, to document what I've done and what progress I've made.