Last month Richard Branson released the iPad only magazine Project. As one of the first in its class it has the potential to set the standards for magazine based interaction on the iPad. Although Wired, Popular Science, Oprah and many others have released iPad versions of their magazines. Project is the first iPad only magazine.

Project has a really informative ‘how to use’ screen, however, there are a lot of different interactive elements and it still runs the risk of being overlooked as it comes off a little too complex.

After sharing with a few friends, I noticed they were having some issues with the interactions. There are sections on the page that contain numbered screens which hold different content when the numbers are selected, and without reading the how to, I can see a lot people missing this really unique area. I also found that some of the galleries are not labeled as galleries, so it does take some exploring to get a feel for the magazines standards.

Once you get used to the interactions however, the magazine is quite amazing. You can fly through it easily and the interactive nature of the content is engaging and informative. This is the new way of viewing magazines. I’m confident that the interaction issues will be ironed out in future issues, and this is one iPad magazine I can’t wait for every month.

As the iPad is still a new medium, it is interesting to see the variety of interaction standards between apps and magazines and it will be fun to keep an eye on which ones  develop the standard for interaction.

Darren is an Information Architect in our Calgary office.