Booktailor
The
Bertelsmann funded Booktailor is a website that specialises in books made
on demand. Content is sourced from various publishers and stored in XML format.
Visitors are able to pick and mix this content through a step by step process.
Once their order is placed, the book is printed, bound and sent to them. This
way, customers are able to have a unique book with exactly the information
they require.
Conceptually this is genius: leveraging customisation, a key feature of the
web, and taking it back into the physical world. This is not an online travel
guide, nor a stapled collection of web page printouts; it is a professionally
printed and bound book, tailored to fit your needs.
Revelate provided design and front end coding for the Booktailor Travel site,
the Booktailor corporate site and the Lonely Planet custom publishing initiative
based on the Booktailor engine. The design was focused on clarity and usability
with a each application of the engine having it's own aesthetics, whilst keeping
the actual process.
The result? Well according
to the Financial Times, "the user-friendly site is expertly designed,
with an excellent book-building simulator to guide customers through the entire
enjoyable process". Couldn't have put it better ourselves.
"Site of the week", New Media Age, October 2000 with a total score
of 94/100 (content 23/25, usability 24/25, branding 23/25, monetisation 24/25).
Regretably, due to the current economic climate Booktailor's backers have been obliged to shut down the business.
