There’s lots of ebooks on the market already like Amazon Kindle, Sony Reader, and iRex Illiad as well as examples from research like Xlibris. Say you’re tasked with designing an new and innovative ebook that’s different than the ones already on the market. Here’s a way to get some inspiration: list all the characteristics of regular paper books. Here’s one possible list off the top of my head:

• Books have bindings that protect them
• Books are bought at bookstores and on the web
• You can borrow/receive books from other people/from libraries
• You can write in books
• Bookmarks / dogears
• Thickness shows length of book
• When you open a book up, you see two pages at once
• You turn pages by flipping them to see more of the book
• You can flip pages one by one or many at a time
• You store books on bookshelves, this is a way people express themselves to others
• Coffee table books are big and for showing off photos and as a conversation starter
• There’s pocket-sized books, like Readers’ Digest or mini-travel guides
• There’s books about everything, grouped into genres
• Books often have chapters to organize them

Now you have to decide which of these characteristics are interesting/important/novel. To do this, you could write these things on post-it notes and make an affinity diagram. Also note that I listed descriptive characteristics (”Books have bindings” as well as details about interacting with books (”You flip pages”).

There’s one particular ebook designed by Nicholas Chen at the University of Maryland. It’s hard to explain without seeing the video (9.15 MB). But Nicholas Chen seems to have chosen the characteristics:

• When you open a book up, you see two pages at once
• You turn pages by flipping them to see more of the book

and created a very interesting new concept (watch the video!). These characteristics might seem like very obvious features for ebooks, but over their ten year history, Chen is the first to create an ebook that has these features. I think this says something for the value of being systematic by making lists to map out the design space.

Of course, new designs should not only be inspired by existing artifacts (books) but should also take advantage of new technology. So in Chen’s work, you can detach the two pages (screens) of the ebook and use them independently, something that you wouldn’t want to do with normal books.

So, use my list of dead-tree books characteristics or add your own characteristics. Can you think of innovative ebook features from that list? Here’s one idea for an ebook business model. How about an integrated dead-tree book/ebook bookstore? So you’re at this bookstore with regular books on their shelves carrying your ebook reader. If you want to buy the book, you can either buy the physical copy or scan the barcode on the physical copy with the ebook reader which downloads the e-version onto your ebook reader.