The first thought that comes to mind when I think about a target audience for an interactive story is children. The reasoning for this is because children are easier to please, and therefore I could make a simple yet effective interactive story.
Here are some examples of successful interactive stories for the iPad:
http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-31747_7-20002462-243.html To begin with I found this website which is based on reviews of interactive stories for the iPad.
With this interactive book, I would say that it is aimed at older children and young adults mainly because a younger children normally would not be able to read this amount of text, and would probably get bored easily, however, adults may also enjoy this story too because of the layout and nature of this book, as well as the sophisticated interactive points within this app.
In relation to my application idea, I could use some of the techniques that are used here, especially if I pick a story that will allow me to have these sorts of graphics.
This arrangement of stories are targeted at mainly toddlers or young children who are learning to read and reognise words. Each of these use bright colours, to keep the child interested and alert to the story, as well as using big writing, with highlighted words, which allows for the child to either read the story or have the story read to them. Also the interactive points are easy to find, and in more successfull iPad books, especially for children, the more interactive things you have going on the better, however, the interactive things need to enhance the story telling experience and not distract from it.
With this story, I would say that again aimed at younger children, probably between the ages of 3-6, mainly because of the nature and look of the application. This book down contrast with the other books that I have shown, but I have chosen this because, I want to show that you don't have to have all bright colours to keep the attention of the child. This book is more concentrated on the child's learning and reading skills, as well as having quite a lot of interactivity to keep them amused. The creators have used a white background, emulating a book, with the same layout as what you would see from this author's books. This may allow for the child to recognise the illustrations and therefore want to see what other things this interactive version may have to offer.
iPad Applications for adults:
I have done quite a lot of research into interactive books that are aimed specifically at adults, and as you can see I have only been able to find one iPad book that has been a success. Richard Dawkins - The Magic of Reality. With this book I have found that not every page in interactive, there are some beautiful graphics which help with enhancing the story. As you can see with this first snap shot, everything in this story is animated. There are also games which the viewer can play, which are again relevant to the story that he has talking about.
If I was to do an interactive story for adults, then I would try and reference this book as it is a successful interactive story that is aimed at adults.
Application Tools:
This video is mainly for research, in the respect of what kind of tools and added extras I could have in my book. I think using this video as a guide I could include things that would enhance the viewers experience when they are reading the interactive story. For example, being able to hightlight specific areas, allowing for people to then go back to them another time, when they might need a reference, or if they have a section that they like. I would say that this tool is mainly for an adults book, as I don't think children will appreciate it.
