To get a sense of what types of interaction will be used in our application, competitor analysis of interactions in other storybook applications was completed. By analysing the interaction in other applications it will not only give me inspiration for the interaction in our application, it will also give me an idea of how this interaction could be facilitated. This post will detail the findings of my analysis of the interactivity of applications including : The Wizard of Oz, Cinderella and Dear Diary.

The Wizard of Oz

This application by Tabtale opens on a home screen that allows you choose whether you read the story or play a paint style game. The home screen gives an option for parents, which gives them information about the application, this is a helpful feature. The story itself comprises of screen and and illustration with a looped animation on the screen. The voiceover of the story is automatically read out the text can not be seen on screen, this would be a disadvantage. The storybook has interactions within the illustration, such as for example you can turn on and off a lightbulb.

Dear Diary

This application allows users to read the diary of a teenage girl, each entry describes different days of her life, as you read you are given option to choose from that will influence the story going forward. There is no voiceover in this application, all the text is onscreen. The buttons you press have sound effects on click.

Cinderella

Another application by tabtale, this one is not dissimilar to the wizard of oz storybook, however this application allows you to have the story read to you, in other words the voiceover plays, or to read the story but yourself. It allows incorporates the game into the story allowing users to play the games as they read. Some parts of the illustration are animated and they make sound effects and play a further animation upon interaction with them. If the user chooses to have the story read to them the interaction is available straight away, if not then the user must read the story before they can access the interactivity.

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Elements that would transfer to our application include the sound effects on buttons, having some onscreen elements animate automatically, having games incorporated in the story and allowing the user to either read themselves or have it read to them.