It is a week into the new semester and after a few days filled with introductions and at least a night or two spent googling for "mobile magazines", "mobile magazine apps" and somewhere between "e and electronic magazines and/or books", I realized the semester has officially begun and I'm feeling slightly disoriented -- as usual!
In all my googling about interactivity for mobile magazines, what I have concluded is that interactivity is just a practical extension of the concept: Experience... The experience of browsing, of interacting and receiving a response from the other end. All the concepts we learnt about with Processing last semester. And after reading the first chapters of our textbook, Head First Mobile Web, a call for the responsiveness of design mixed with the excitement and curiosity of the users together have seemed to push the browsing experience beyond anything anyone could have anticipated.
And I think essentially its the survival instincts in people that really fuel all these advancements. The fact that people want to be able to do things themselves, take things into their own hands and create. Be creators and express themselves. Be the authors of their lives. All these apps that require people to mix the perfect coffees, draw pretty pictures and travel the world over, for example World Atlas, all fuel this inner-aspect of users. And then again, having everything at the tap of a button or the touch of a screen, well how could that not be something people would be interested in?!
So getting to the point, our first assignment is to create a mobile magazine feature article about Zulu Love Letters, with an interactive component that allows users to create their very own Zulu Love Letter. This assignment is intriguing for a number of reasons, partly technical but also creatively. So a big thumbs up to our lecturers who came up with it. On a technical level, we're doing mobile. It's something I haven't taken the time to look at before, so I'll be learning something new and also something completely relevant to the times we're living in. The prospect of mobile web design was intimidating at first, as I wasn't sure how much of what we've done needs to change and how exactly that transformation occurs. Also probably largely all the above-my-head technical chatter about android devices and different operating systems for phones requiring different scripts for apps freaked me out. However, now that we're over the introduction to scalability and getting into the swing of Responsive Web Design using fluid layouts, I feel a whole lot better. I'm pleased to say that though my first fluid layout is hideous, it's successfully scalable and percentages are making a lot more sense to me now.
So on a closing note, I just wanted to say I am excited about getting this mobile web assignment started and I hope to learn as much as I can in the short time we have to execute it, and also to share the (hopefully) cool things I come across along the way.
Visit my blog post here: http://www.mendilab.co.za/FAM3007F/2012/ryklai001/?p=78
Below are a list of sites that I managed to come across in the mean time, related and just interesting and interactive apps:
Best Interactive E-books: http://www.bestinteractiveebooks.com/
About Interactive E-books: http://uxmag.com/articles/interactive-ebook-apps-the-reinvention-of-reading-and-interactivity
Examples of apps ~ Since it all of these are about the user having the opportunity to create something (much like our Zulu Love Letters), they just seemed relevant... conceptually anyway o.O!
Starbucks Coffee Master: http://itunes.apple.com/za/app/starbucks-coffee-master-for/id436466118?mt=8
Glow Coloring: http://itunes.apple.com/za/app/glow-coloring/id360776513?mt=8
How to make Origami: http://itunes.apple.com/za/app/how-to-make-origami/id472936700?mt=8
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