The CD-ROM title, The Evolution of Life, won several awards for its aesthetics and innovative communication of the complicated multi-strand science of evolution. The access to the disc was designed in three layers. The first layer was exploring the 3D environment, a huge Bio-Dome, using a point and click navigation. The user would discover the second layer, experiments (including Cybertation which later evolved to become Dancer DNA) and graphic devices to play with, that would begin to break down the various strands of our current understanding of the evidence and science of evolution. These experiments and devices would give access to the extensive database and library, the third layer, in a text heavy format.
The Stripscreens
Throughout the Bio-Dome‘s 3D environment six flowers, which when clicked on would reveal the stripscreen graphical interface, were positioned to allow the user an introduction to six subject categories - Mimicry (what is mimicry), Evolutionary Forces (natural selection and degeneration), What’s in a Gene? (heredity), Half an Eye (natures design skills), Sexual Selection (mating games) and Why Sex? (the two-fold cost of sex). The user would find the information by rolling over half submerged titles to reveal text and images. Within the 6 stripscreens, there were 196 titled pages, 364 images, 14 video sequences and 42 minutes of audio and hyperlinks to the database.
Credits: Evolution of Life with Richard Dawkins (1996-97)
Company: Notting Hill Publishers
to be updated with full credits