Another Analysis

Whilst sifting through some real questionable material on the iBook store, I came across a really cool and interesting Enhanced iBook called "The Senses".

The iBook is made up of a series of pages that contain a lot of interactive images and pop-ups. You work it by reading the text and then clicking on the various X's and circles dotted over the imagery. Clicking upon these brings up additional pages (pop ups) which allow you to interact further and find out more information. If you look the example below, you can see a clickable point on the males cheek. It stands out enough so that you know you're supposed to click it.

Clicking upon this brings up another page that contains an interactive diagram on the same image that we saw on the previous page. There's a good sense of continuity and it highlights what the user needs to do to interact once they see the additional features overlaid onto the original image.

When you click on the small plus by the eye, a small animation starts that visual explains the points made in the accompanying text. I like the way they have chosen to animate what some would just leave as imagery. It creates a stronger, more visual way of the user learning and is more likely to be successful.

I also like the continuity between chronological pages. As you can see above, they've used the either side of the males face to continue to the next page of the same chapter. This keeps a similar layout that the user has already understood from the first page but changes it slightly to avoid blatant, identical pages each time which can get boring. 

Another good example of using animation to explain what could just be a diagram is the following (images below). The idea is that you click the X's and it visually demonstrates what it means by our eyes running to opposite sides of our brains. 

I think this is a really successful way of demonstrating a point, especially by giving them their own pages that are optional to click on. These interactive diagrams are placed, generally, centrally on the page against a very clear (sleek looking) background and, unlike other iBooks, the surrounding is not cluttered by text. They're of a nice design style that fits within the overall style of the book.