Evaluation

For this assignment we were given the task of creating an iBook based on 'wonder of nature' which had several topics to choose from and the topic we got we had to do research into the topic and have a certain amount of chapters and sections which briefly in depth about the topic. We could choose what we wanted to focus on within each of the chapters and sections. In this iBook we also had to create interactivity and add widgets to do so in order to give the user a better user experience since these iBooks are meant for the iPad which has a lot of interactivity.

My chosen topic for the iBook was earthquakes and was quite excited to get stuck in because I find earthquakes quite interesting in how they are caused and overall the topic is just a more interesting and engaging topic to do an iBook for and do research for it.

When we started this project I began doing research into earthquakes as, along side that I did some brainstorming for ideas of what I wanted to cover in each of my chapters and my sections. I decided that chapter 1 would more or less cover what earthquakes actually are and tectonic plates and the primary and secondary outcomes of earthquakes. For the second chapter I decided to cover more about the Richter scale and what it is along with the top 5 strongest earthquakes and also covering and discussing small earthquakes and how they are more common and don't stand out as much compared to higher magnitude earthquakes. For my third chapter I wanted to go more into about the ways which which people have been able to be safer during earthquakes, covering the common places of earthquakes, along with people who practice drills and also buildings that are constructed to withstand earthquakes and also ways which to be safer and what to do before, during and after earthquakes. For my fourth chapter I decided to focus on a famous earthquake and the first one that came to mind was the japan earthquake in 2011, as I remember hearing so much about it on the news when it first occurred. What I decided to cover in this chapter was what caused the earthquake/tsunami and also what impacts it had on their country as well as how the managed to overcome the earthquake along with the support they go from other countries and lack of support from their own country. I also decided to look into someones experience who was affected by the earthquake.

All of this is pretty much what I decided to research and cover in my iBook, trying to avoid using too much on the pages on the iBook, so it wouldn't make it too overwhelming. I decided to add quite a lot of interaction with the use of many widgets as I wanted to put focus on the user and the user experience they gained from using my iBook and I wanted to make it more interactive and fun, as a lot of the iBooks i researched were very uninspiring both visually and interactively.

When I was researching different iBooks I was really disappointed in the visual style or lack of trying to make the iBooks interesting or engaging. Most of the ones I found were very plain in not much interactivity. This really made me want to create my iBook in a very inspiring way both through the visuals but also creating a good user experience for the user. When I was researching for inspiration I ran into a lot of cool visual pieces of work which uses a very flat design style making it look minimalistic but this made it simple but effective. I decided based off this that instead of just using imagery for my visual style of my iBook that I wanted to create the visuals myself in illustrator. I decided to go for a very flat design look, which would look distinctive but visually appealing and add to the theme of earthquakes. I wanted to create my iBook style in a very simple way but also give the feel in of danger and the way I did this was through colour, using different shades of red to give a sense of danger and destruction. I pursued this style throughout my iBook and I'm very pleased with how it looks.

With the navigation structure to the iBook, its quite simple and straight forward, users can go through the iBook through a linear path if they wish and scroll through the iBook in that way, or they can go on the table of contents and click on the chapter and it should take them to it. This leaves opportunities for the user to not go through the iBook in a traditional way through a linear path but to choose what chapters they want to look into in a non linear way. I originally was going to just stick with what I had for iBooks author and creating a table of contents that iBooks author supplies, allows users to go through a non linear path if they wis, which is a nice asset to an iBook and allows better satisfaction for the user as well as a better user experience at the end of the day.

Overall I am very pleased with my iBook through the use of not only visual style but also its use of interactivity with a variety of different widgets from videos, to clickable icons, to interactive diagrams and quizzes. With my time management I would say that I did make an effort to use my time effectively throughout this project, where I even made time over the days I wasn't usually supposed to come in, to come in and continue working on my iBook. I did struggle with this project and the project did feel like it was more derived on getting the research on our topics done more than try to create a visual style or focus on that or the interactivity. Apart from that I spend time, inside and outside of class working on the research and spending most time in class working on my iBook because currently I don' have an iMac or Mac Book Pro, which is one of the reasons I struggled with the project, as I was limited to how much I could do outside of class on my iBook. In conclusion I am very peaked with how my iBook looks after al the time and effort working on the research and looking into the visual style to help get me inspired to create an iBook which is more focused on the design style and the interactivity and user experience, rather than just the text content.