Guidelines for designing electronic textbooks

This paper presents the guidelines emerging from the EBONI (Electronic Books ON-screen Interface) Project's evaluations of electronic textbooks [1], which describe how e-learning content can be made usable for the UK Higher Education community. The project's on-screen design guidelines are described, including recommendations as to which features of the paper book metaphor should be retained, and how the electronic medium can best be exploited. Advice on hardware design is also provided. Finally, accessibility issues are examined and practical considerations for the creators of digital educational content are discussed.