In lecture 7 with Kyle we looked at the story of eBooks, discussing through what they are, the characteristic behind creating eBooks, the format they come in and how we would go about creating an effective design.

In todays class we covered with Kyle:

  1. What is an eBook
  2. How to create an eBook
  3. Indesign ebook walkthrough
  4. Storyboarding

What are eBooks?

An ebook is a non-editable reflowable book that is converted to a digital format that can be read on any Digital device such as computer screens or mobile devicesĀ or tablet. It is very popular for printed books to be available in a digital eBook and includes fiction, classics, romance, academic texts. Typically an eBook consists of electronic text or may contain extras such as audio, video or with hyperlinks.

How to read an eBook?

Reading an eBook include:

1. Portable eBook – reading devices

These are small hand-held computes that create the experience of reading a book in the palm of your hand. These are designed to be the same save as a typical paperback book and work off battery power and a back lit screen. To receive a book to read you search and then download and purchase from the App Store.

2. PC Devices

Using PC computers gives you access to download free reader software packages from the internet such as Adobe Acrobat Reader or Microsoft Edge Reader.

3. Hand-held computers and PDA’s

There is free software packages that are available for hand-held computers such as tablets. iPads and iPhones .

 

How to create an eBook?

eBooks can be created and save in several formats which would depend of the end-user of the product. Some e-reader are created by the following:

  • EPUB – Electronic Publication are more flexible for an eBook format as they can ‘reflow’ text to adapt to various screen sizes making this format responsive. This then would allow the eBook to move on and off different pages based on the size of the screen of the device that the user is reading on.
  • AZW – This eBook file type is designed for Kindle reader an e-reader device created by Amazon. This format allows user to access it on smartphones, tablets and computers.
  • IBA – This is the patented eBook format used for the Apple iBook Author app and supports video, sounds, images and interactive elements but can only be used for books that have been written in iBooks and is not compatible with other e-readers.
  • MOBI – Mobipocket Reader software file extensions are popular for eBooks as they have compatibility across the major e-readers such as with the new Kindle format. This format protects copyrighted material as it does not support audio or video.
  • ODF – OpenDocument Format, is a file type that is created for OpenOffice a series of open source content creation programs that are similar to Microsoft Office.
  • PDF – Portable Document Formats, are best for eBooks as they are designed to be read on a computer. These document have a fixed outcome meaning that it will no adjust to the screen size that a reader is reading on.

Creating an eBook

Before you begin creating an eBook it is important that you are aware of the main goals you are setting to allow you too have a clear understanding on the correct format to take when it comes to creating the eBook, will the reader be Apple users only, what are the expected screen sizes you are aiming to design for because if the aim is for a mix of screen sizes then PDFs, EPUB or MOBI formats might be the best to consider.

Define space with colours

Use space as a Graphical Element

Maintain interest with pacing

Determine Margins

Advantages from eBooks include:

  • Personalisation of the back lighting to the font sizing through out your eBook which is ideal for those visually impaired
  • Books won’t go out of print if they are electronically distributed
  • Environmentally friendly as paper free books would save trees
  • Interactivity always readers to take notes, underline, search areas of the books, bookmark certain pages and can possible gain further access through hyperlinks provided
  • Portability allows reader to have a number of books with them at all times
  • There can be add ons or plug-ins for certain books to allow readers to search text, or have access to a dictionary.

 

Kyle then brought us through how to create an eBook using Indesign and truthfully my brain shut down after awhile try to understand the steps he was taking to create this his eBook. But it was fun seeing him create it in front of us and I’m sure if I gave it a go after a few attempts I would begin to understand what he was doing.


Storyboarding

Also in this weeks class Kyle took us through some examples of storyboarding and methods behind how to complete these in order to benefit us in our design process. He discussion with us four questions we should consider when creating storyboards:

  1. Does it make sense?
  2. What could be improved?
  3. What isn’t needed?
  4. What is missing?

Creating storyboard allows me to think of how I would expect and wanted new users of my website to gain access to my site and begin their journey through my Apollo story. I completed my storyboards with quick sketches of my website and then a break down of the animation and interact that user would be faced with to access other areas of the site.

Creating the storyboards allowed me to see visually how I would want my users to navigate round my site. It put into perspective the process that would need to take place in order for this service to be successful.

Overall I enjoyed getting to complete these storyboard in class with my peers as I got to see the ways that they were creating and imagining there users navigation through their site. It was a nice break up of the content we were given in this week lecture getting to do some creative and like this that benefit us in the thought process about our users and their needs within our sites.


To conclude this weeks class was an eye opener as I hadn’t ever looked into eBooks before and when Kyle first mentioned they in week 1 I struggled to understand how we would make an eBook on this project for the Apollo 11 mission as the only eBooks that I had ever seen or heard of were all words but with Kyle breakdown and lecture content I understand that eBooks have a lot more too them than I first thought.

The eBook idea I think would be perfect for my idea of a newspaper but I wouldn’t be able to put interaction or animation into it I think for the direction that I am wanting to go down the content I am wanting to include would overpower the design development behind an eBook. I am confident enough with going ahead with the website design idea that I have been working on the last few weeks but with this new understand of eBooks I hope to get the opportunity at some point to bring my design skills to this settings for a change.

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