Motion in print
As an avid book reader, when e-books first came out I was ecstatic. When I first got my Kindle, and had no books on it yet, I remember reading the dictionary it automatically came with, just because I could. The ability to download any book I wanted, and read them whenever I wanted was mind-blowing.
Now that e-books are integrated as an everyday part of our society, from textbooks to fun reads, information has never been more accessible. I like to contribute my success in calculus to the small feature in my online textbook, where you could click on an icon and it would visually walk you through how to do the problem. By utilizing animation and animated graphics, more information is portrayed than through static ones.
I wanted to examine the effects of motion on traditional stationary media through animating various book covers. How might an animated book cover vs a static book cover fair in the e-commerce sector? Would more people be reading?
Ideally, an A/B study would be conducted between the original cover and the animated one. Comparing the number of clicks and conversion rate between the two would give a good indicator to what the user gravitates to more. However, since this was design focused, I utilized my own reimagined book covers as a reference.
Without explaining what they were, 10 students were asked for their thoughts.
Out of the 10 people interviewed, 4 were self-proclaimed active readers. 2 read occasionally while another 4 read rarely. Each participant was asked to rank their likelihood to seek out more information after looking at the original book cover, and then the animated one.
After I averaged the results from the 4 book covers, the trend stayed across the board. The animated covers ranked higher. Participants stated that they overall found the animated covers “more interesting to look at” and found themselves staring at them longer than the static covers.
Animation has been proven to increase the attention span by motivating a person to look for more information. Companies could take advantage of the fact that more and more books are being bought and read online, by utilizing its’ digital advantages, i.e., animation.