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