Unit 10-1 Hypermedia Design

After completing this unit, you will be able to:

• Know when to use a flowchart, a storyboard, and a script.
• Recognize the five basic multimedia design paradigms.
• Understand how the linear list design lets the user move back and forth in a sequence of multimedia objects.
• Understand how the menu design provides users with a choice of items, and how the hierarchical design provides levels of choices by linking menus to menus.
• Realize how the multiple linking in a network design provides the richest form of interactivity.
• Visualize how hybrid designs can incorporate lists, menus, hierarchies, and networks.
• Define the content of a multimedia application and adopt an appropriate navigational metaphor.

Reading

Read Chapter 32 of the Multimedia Literacy textbook to study the concepts covered by this unit.

Online Activities

Now that you have completed the History of Flight tutorial, it’s time for you to learn some techniques that will prepare you for creating more advanced applications in the future.  It is not unusual for a multimedia application to contain hundreds or even thousands of multimedia screens.  Your challenge is to present this material in such a way that the user will not get lost or confused.  From the get-go, you must have a clear notion of how the material will be organized and how the user will navigate from screen to screen. 

Chapter 32 teaches hypermedia design techniques that will help you plan the development of a multimedia application.  You will learn to visualize the flow of your application and imagine yourself running through it as a user.  You will save time and money by learning to correct problems in the design before costly on-screen development begins.

To get more ideas for designing your own custom navigation, follow the Multilit Web site links to examples of navigational metaphors in action.

Assignment

There is no specific assignment required in this unit, which has been provided to help you plan and visualize the structure of a multimedia application. If you are having trouble visualizing the structure of the multimedia application you are creating as your major term project in this course, it may help if you complete the exercises at the end of chapter 32. These exercises are optional, and you do not need to hand them in unless your instructor has told you specifically to do so.