CHAPTER FOUR

Multimedia Development

The steps in multimedia development can be grouped in several ways, such as preproduction,

production and postproduction. The phases presented here are planning, creating and testing.

The three phases of multimedia development and the steps they involve are outlined below.

Phase 1-Planning

- Step 1: Developing the concept

- Step 2: Stating the purpose

- Step 3: Identifying the target audience

- Step 4: Determining the treatment

- Step 5: Developing the specification

- Step 6: Storyboard and navigation

Phase 2-Creating

- Step 7: Developing the content

- Step 8: authoring the title

Phase 3-Testing

- Step 9: Testing the title

The Planning Phase

Step 1: Developing the Concept

Every multimedia project originates as an idea. The idea for what was to become a series of very

popular titles. The process for generating ideas can be as unstructured as brainstorming sessions or as

formal as checklists with evaluation criteria. A series of questions might consist of the following:

- How can we improve it (make it faster, use better-quality graphics or updated content)

- How can we change the content to appeal to different market (consumer, education,

corporate)?

- How can we take advantage of new technologies (virtual reality, speech recognition)?

- How can we make it disposable?

One of the tenets of marketing is to “find a need and fill in”. Because manufacturing is market

driven, companies rely on customer and employee feedback to help generate new ideas. This could be in

the form of product lines (help desk) or feedback from retailers on why products are returned.

Ideas can provide the vision, but they must be presented in a way that can guide the

development process. That is, they must be stated clear, measurable and obtainable objectives.

Step 2: Stating the Purpose

Once the concept has been developed, project goals and objectives need to be specified. This is

perhaps the most critical step in multimedia planning. Goals are broad statements of what the project will

accomplish, whereas objectives are more precise statements. Goals and objectives help direct the

development process and provide a way to evaluate the title both during and after its development. The

following are examples of goals and objectives.

GOALS

Broad statements of what a project will accomplish:

“Be the leader in educational CDs”

“Create products that take advantage of emerging technologies (such as the internet)”

“Use multimedia to reduce our training costs”

The goal for a specific multimedia title must fit within the overall mission of the company or

organization. The following are objectives that would be useful to a development team.

OBJECTIVES

Precise statements of what a project will accomplish:

“To develop an entertainment title based on the book Tracks, which chronicles one women’s

journey across the continent of Australia. The title will include an interactive map that shows her

progress and allows the user to view photographs and text about any selected map location.

Sound clips will provide narration of the author’s adventures in her own voice. The title will be

rich with photographs of the outback and music native to Australia. The product will place in the

top five for its category at the annual CD awards this year.”

Step 3: Identifying the Target Audience

The more information a developer has about potential users, the more likely a title can be created

that will satisfy the users’ needs and be successful. Audiences can be described in many ways, in terms of

demographics (location, age, sex, marital status, education, income, and so on) as well as lifestyle and

attitudes. Developers must determine what information is needed and how specifically to define the

audience. Companies want to identify as large audience as possible in order to maximize potential sales.

The larger the audience is, however, the more diverse its need and the more difficult to satisfy their needs.

Step 4: Determining the Treatment

The concept, objectives, and the audience can help determine how the title will be presented to

the user. “Look and feel” can include such things as the title’s tone, approach, metaphor and emphasis.

Tone, many multimedia titles intended for home use, such as games and recreational titles,

include humor, whereas those intended for business use are more serious in their tone. Titles intended for

children tend to be whimsical, whereas training titles are straightforward and conservative.

Approach, some titles, especially children’s games, focus on exploration. For example, clicking

on the sky causes an airplane to appear. Other titles, especially adult-education application, provide a

great deal of direction. Users are provided with menu choices and generally must follow a predetermined

path in order to complete the title. Another aspect of approach is deciding how much help to provide and

in what form. Some titles provide a “host” or “guide” that is available to assist the user.

Metaphor, the Explorapedia title uses space travel as the theme for exploring different areas of

content such as Nature and People. The TOEIC test program uses a mountain-climbing metaphor in

which the user starts at the “base camp” and proceeds to a higher camp until the summit is reached.

Emphasis, budget and time constraints may ultimately dictate the relative weight placed on text,

sound, animation, graphics, and video. For example, a company may want to develop an informational

title that shows the features of its new product line, including video clip demonstrations of how each

product works. But if the budget did not allow for the expense of creating the video segments, the

emphasis would be on still pictures with text descriptions that might already be available in the

company’s printed catalogs.

Step 5: developing the Specification

The specifications list what will be included on each screen, including the arrangement of each

element and the functionality of each object. Specification should be as details as possible. The more

detailed and precise the specifications, the greater the chance of creating a title that will meet the

objectives of the project on time and within budget. The goal in creating the specifications is to be able to

give them to the production team and have the team create the title.

Although specs will vary from project to project, there are certain elements that should be

included in the specifications for all titles such as target playback systems, element to be included,

functionality, and user interface.

Target playback systems, the decision of what computer to target for playback is not difficult.

Companies developing commercial titles intended for the business market are guided by the fact that 80

percent of desktop computers are Windows based system. Companies developing for the K-12 education

market are faced with majority of the computers being Apple systems. Many companies targeting the

home market develop for both platforms.

Elements to be included, the specification should include details about the various elements that

are to be included in the title. For example, should the resolution for the graphics be 8 bit, 256 colors?

Should video be designed to play back at 15 frames per second? What are the sizes of the various objects

such as photos, buttons, text blocks, and pop-up boxes?

Functionality, The specifications should include how the program reacts to an action by the user,

such as mouse click. For example, clicking a door it might cause the door to open. In addition,

specification should include how the object changes based on a user action. For instance, when the user

clicks on button, how does the button change? The user needs the feedback that the button has been

selected, such as the button appearing “pressed.”

User Interface involves designing the appearance – how each object is arranged on the screen-

and the interactivity-how the user navigates through the title.

In computers, interactivity is the dialog that occurs between a human being (or possibly

another live creature) and a computer program. (Programs that run without immediate user

involvement are not interactive; they're usually called batch or background programs.) Games

are usually thought of as fostering a great amount of interactivity. However, order entry

applications and many other business applications are also interactive, but in a more constrained

way (offering fewer options for user interaction).

On the World Wide Web, you not only interact with the browser (the Web application

program) but also with the pages that the browser brings to you. The implicit invitations called

hypertext that link you to other pages provide the most common form of interactivity when using

the Web (which can be thought of as a giant, interconnected application program).

In addition to hypertext, the Web (and many non-Web applications in any computer

system) offer other possibilities for interactivity. Any kind of user input, including typing

commands or clicking the mouse, is a form of input. Displayed images and text, printouts,

motion video sequences, and sounds are output forms of interactivity.

The earliest form of interaction with computers was indirect and consisted of submitting

commands on punched cards and letting the computer read them and perform the commands.

Later computer systems were designed so that average people (not just programmers) could

interact immediately with computers, telling them what programs to run and then interacting

with those programs, such as word processors (then called "editors"), drawing programs, and

other interactive programs. The first interactive human-computer interfaces tended to be input

text sequences called "commands" (as in "DOS commands") and terse one-line responses from

the system.

In the late 1970's, the first graphical user interfaces (GUIs) emerged from the Xerox

PARC Lab, found their way into the Apple Macintosh personal computer, and then into

Microsoft's Windows operating systems and thus into almost all personal computers available

today.

Step 6: Storyboard and Navigation

Multimedia borrows many of its development processes from movies including the use of

storyboards. A storyboard is a representation of what each screen will look like and how the screens are

liked. The purposes of the storyboard are:

- To provide an overview of the project

- To provide a guide (road map) for the programmer

- To illustrate the links among screens

- To illustrate the functionality of the objects

The storyboard comprises hand-drawn sketches on 8.5-by-11 inch paper turned sideways to more

closely represent the dimensions of a computer screen. Each frame represents one careen of the title and

presents a rough layout of the elements to be displayed on the screen and their approximate size and

location. It is not necessary to put the exact content, such as a particular photo or graphic. It is important

to show where text, graphics, photos, buttons, and other elements would be placed.

Another feature of the storyboard is the navigation scheme. One of the most significant aspects of

multimedia is the nonlinear interactivity. The linking of screens through the use of buttons, hypertext, and

hot spots allows the user to jump from one screen to another. The links are represented on the storyboard.

There are three types of navigation schemes including sequential, topical, and exploratory. A

sequential navigation scheme takes the user through a more or less controlled, linear process. Example is

games with a story line that has a beginning, a middle, and an end. To keep the user on track, interactivity

might be limited to clicking on objects that cause an action, such as playing a sound or animation or

displaying a graphic or text.

A topical navigation scheme allows the user to select from an array of choices or even search for

specific information. Examples are multimedia encyclopedia, interactive shopping catalogs, and

information kiosks. Topical navigation schemes often have many layers.

An exploratory navigation scheme provides little structure or guidance. It relies on user

interaction, usually the clicking of objects displayed on the screen. Many games use some form of

exploratory navigation.

The Creating Phase

At this point the focus changes from planning to production, including creating the content and authoring

the title.

Step 7: Developing the Content

The specifications indicate the content to be incorporated into the multimedia title. There are

numerous content issues that need to be addressed:

- What is the level of quality for the content (photorealistic graphics, stereo sound)?

- How will the content be generated (repurpose existing content, hire content experts to write

text, employ graphic artist and other professionals)?

- Who will be responsible for acquiring copyrights and licensing agreement?

- How will be content be archived and documented?

This chapter discusses the sources related to these elements: libraries of clip art, sound, and video. If the

multimedia repurposed existing content obtaining the material might be relatively easy. If the original

content must be created, especially animation and video, the process is more involved and often requires

contracting with outside supplies. Graphic designers and photographers would be contracted to create

original artwork and pictures: actors would be employed for video production and narration.

Step 8: Authoring the Title

If the planning phase has been completed properly, the authoring requirements would be fairly

straightforward. It would be a clear indication of what needs to be done. There are several considerations

before using any authoring system.

1. The playback system (Macintosh and/or Windows-based computers)-some authoring programs

work with only one platform.

2. The emphasis placed on animation-certain programs have fairly sophisticated 2-D animation

tools.

3. The expertise of the programmer-programs differ greatly in the approach they use (metaphor) and

their scripting language.

Authoring a multimedia title can be simple as creating an electronic slide show using presentation

software such as Compel. You could select a background, type the text, scan some graphics, and import

clip art, video, and sound. You could even create buttons with hyperlinks. These types of titles might be

appropriate for in-house training, lectures, conference presentations, and sale presentations. If the goal is

to create a commercial-quality stand-alone title, authoring plays a significant role. Scripting becomes a

focal point in order to provide the functionality called for in the specifications. It is critical that the

programmer work closely with those designing the user interface and those providing the content to help

ensure that the specifications are being met.

The Testing Phase

Step 9: Testing the Title

Testing can start at the very beginning during the concept stage. Small groups of potential users

could be shown a prototype of the proposed title. The prototype could be as simple as an electronic slide

show presentation with enough content and interactivity to demonstrate the concept and determine its

feasibility. Throughout the creation phase of the title, it is important to test the design and the function.

Testing the design involves how the user interacts with the title and asks questions such as; does the user

understand the navigation scheme, terminology, icons and metaphors? This allows the developer to see

what users do, why they interact the way they do, and what their feelings are as they progress through the

title. Testing the function of a multimedia title involves making sure it works according to the

specifications. There are two formal processes of testing which is Alpha testing and Beta testing.

Alpha testing is usually conducted in-house and is not restricted to the development team. Beta

testing is the final functional test before release. It involves selected potential users that could number in

the thousands. Companies try to make it easy for beta testers to provide feedback by giving them an e-

mail address to contact or a disk containing a questionnaire that each tester fills out and returns in a

prepaid package. A goal of beta testing is to get feedback from a variety of potential users.