Critical Steps for Interactive E-Books

By: Justin Ferriman • April 9, 2014
Filed Under:

seo-top-of-google-resultsOne of the first forms of elearning was the ebook. It its simplest form, this was just a book that had been transposed and delivered online. Today, the landscape is a bit different.

As our elearning tools have evolved, so has the ability to add interactive components to the static ebooks of the past. No more are we taking an in-print book and just re-typing it online using Microsoft Word and saving it as a PDF.

Many of the rapid elearning development programs make interactive ebook creation pretty simple, but if done incorrectly, the interactions can become more of a distraction.

4 Critical Steps for Interactive E-Book Development

Step 1: Use instructional design best-practices. Creating an interactive ebook requires that you scope and organize content for digital delivery. Just like any elearning project, you should utilize storyboards for optimal results.

Step 2: Interactive design and styling should be consistent. This can be easily accomplished by creating a simple digital design style guide for developers. From there, you can build out the ebook’s templates. Make sure that the designs you create are responsive so that they can be used across a variety of devices.

Step 3: Build the ebook only after the first to steps. This may seem intuitive, but jumping to development is what often happens, especially with smaller projects. If you do the first two steps thoroughly, then the development portion becomes a lot easier (and far less time consuming).

Step 4: Test everything and allow for quality assurance. Perform internal audits on the ebook looking for broken links and misspellings. You should also test using multiple devices to ensure functional consistency. After internal review, identify beta testers that can also perform a thorough QA analysis.

For more information regarding proper elearning design and development, have a look at this popular method.

Reference:
aptara

Justin Ferriman

Justin started LearnDash, the WordPress LMS trusted by Fortune 500 companies, major universities, training organizations, and entrepreneurs worldwide. He is currently founder & CEO of GapScout. Justin’s Homepage | GapScout | Twitter