Multimedia Design

Multimedia Design

Table of Content • Multimedia Development Process • Navigational structures • Storyboard • Multimedia interface components • Tips for interface design

Multimedia Development Process • Take a long time to be produced. • Include four stages: • Planning and costing • Designing and Producing • Testing • Delivering

Planning and Costing • Plan to fulfill the expectation of the audience. Steps to start a project: • Define the objectives and scope • Target audience • Set the content • Estimating cost • Hardware • Software • Build a multimedia team

1. Define the objectives and scope What is the purpose of creating the project? • Try to achieve the objective. Define the scope or the boundary of the project. • Consider how much time to develop the project. • Consider the knowledge and skills needed • Consider the how to organize the project

2. Target audience • Target audience – applications users or information recipient. • To whom the project is created for • Consider the following factors: • Age • Knowledge or educational background • Technological background • Language • Gender • Economical background • Profession

3. Set the content • Content or information will determine the size of the project • Content production depend on the availability of the existing resources or the need to create new materials. • Consideration before determining the content are: • Digitizing pictures, audio, and video. • Produce materials including text, graphics, audio effects and animation

It will take longer time to develop multimedia application if developer team (people) and money is less. Time Money If there is a large number of developer team, time and money (cost) to develop multimedia application could be reduced. Money Time People Time Money People People 4. Estimating cost • Three general elements that can vary in project estimates: time, money and people. If we decrease any of these elements, we may generally increase one or both of the others. Money (cost) can be saved if we decrease the number of developer team and time duration in multimedia application development.

5. Hardware Requirement • Developer side. • It is also for the end user expectation – the type of hardware platform. • Several types of hardware components that need to be considered: • Memory and storage device • Input devices • Output devices(monitor size, projectors ) • Communication Device (optional)

6. Software requirement • Expensive software offer advance and powerful features which requires higher skill. However, there are software that can help to save time and to organize a project which are less expensive. • Several types of software: • Text Editing and Word Processing Tool • Painting and Drawing Tools • 3D Modeling and 2D Animation Tools • Image Editing Tools • Sound Editing Tools

7. Build a multimedia team • Require a specific set of skills. • Most of the time, multimedia project involves a lot of people to be produced. Each person has their own specialized skills required to do specific task. • The examples of multimedia team members and their roles: • Project Manager • Multimedia Designer • Audio/Video specialist • Multimedia programmer

Multimedia team Project Manager • The leader of a project. • Strong in both technical and management aspect of the project. Multimedia Designer • Deals with visual aspects of the project, graphic design, illustration, animation, interface design and image processing Audio/Video specialist • Focus on the audio and video production - shooting, capturing and editing video, digitizing and audio recording. Multimedia programmer • Responsible for integrating all the multimedia elements using authoring system or programming language .

Testing • Test or review the project or Web site to ensure it is bug free, accurate, operationally and visually on target, and achieving the objective or target. • Every feature and function must be exercised, every button or link must be clicked - will be repeated again and again with different hardware and under various conditions • Two phases of testing • Alpha testing • Beta testing

Testing phases Alpha testing : • Often performed only by users within the organization developing the software as a form of internal acceptance testing. • The product is evaluated relatively in the early stage of the development phase. • The main interest is to review the concept, format, user interface and the layout. Beta Testing : • The product is evaluated just before the final release. • It is a fully functioning product and should be relative bug free. • The testing group should be represented by the real users and should not include the people who have been involved in the project.

Delivering • Final stage • Know the medium you want to use. • Web site: can just upload to the servers and adjust some settings then it is ready. • For more complex application where installation into the user’s computer is needed. Installation should be smooth, easy and fast. • Documentation - need to provide a clear step-by-step procedure for the users to follow. • Troubleshooting guide - potential problem that can occur and how to solve it. • A file name README.TXT is good thing to include in the CD distribution of your project.

Delivering medium CD-ROM • It is also an optical storage and considered the most common form of packaging for multimedia products. • It started out as a read-only technology in which user could store data once only and access it many times. DVD • It is the latest format for optical storage up to 17GB. • At the moment, DVD is increasingly popular for DVD-Video for its high quality audio and video.

Multimedia Design • When you are done with the planning stage, it is time for you to organize your content. • Computer screens are better suited to show concise chunks of information. • Very long content/pages are disorienting because the user has to scroll long distances and remember what was off-screen. • Organize your information into short categories.

Navigational Structures

Navigational Structure • Linear • Hierarchical • Non-Linear • Composite

Linear • Sequential navigation (sequence of step by step procedures) • They usually go Forward or Backward. • E.g. slides and video presentation

Hierarchical • Based on the logic of the content • Structured through menus and the user makes a choice that leads to another menu.

Non-linear • Navigation is unbound by pre-determine routes. • E.g. website

Composite • Mixed structure • Users may navigate freely, but are occasionally constrained to linear presentations of movies or critical information and/or to data that are most logically organized in a hierarchy.

Storyboard • Storyboarding is literally building a story or sample page on paper that describes roughly the layout. • This is a process lifted from other media development including movie making, cartoon animation and marketing. • A visual representation of the different frames, or screens, that will be included in your production. • The storyboard page is used to describe specific frame of time within a multimedia presentation..

Storyboard • Sample page is drawn on paper to describe the rough layout • Used to describe specific frame within a project.

Continue… Represent the components • Sketch the components that will be displayed on each screen, including text (rough sketches will do for a first draft). Add the navigation structure: • draw the buttons, • show the links (e.g. with arrows or numbered screens) Annotate the drawings: • show where animations will occur, • indicate which sound files will play and where, • add any other effects (transitions, text effects etc.).

Multimedia Interface Components • Background and texture • Buttons, icons and picons • Rollovers and sliders • Hotspots and menus • Feedback

Components Background and texture Buttons, icons and picons Rollovers and sliders

Hotspots and menus • A section of an image which when clicked invokes an action • In one image there can be multiple clickable area. • Menu are used such as pull-down menus usually place on the top or the side area of applications

Feedback • Immediate response triggered by user’s action. • E.g. After user answered a question, a pop up window will respond whether the answer is correct or not.

Tips for Interface design • Make sure your information is readable without straining your eyes. Use appropriate background and foreground colors. Do not overuse color and limit the use of strong colors(red). • The navigational controls should have indication or visual cues of what are their function. • Make sure users do not have to click too many times to look for specific information. • Do not put too many things/information in one place. It will make the screen too ‘busy’. • Create your interface as simple as possible. • Make sure the size of text and graphics are legible. • Be consistent in the use of symbols and color. Your navigation controls should be at the same place so that users will always know where they are.

Keep Screen Content Simple and Clear

Good use of Margins and White Space

Avoid Excessive and Improper Use of Color • Uses of Type • Serif type • Ideal for large headlines • Difficult to read in long blocks of text • Looks best when surrounded by lots of white space. • Sans-Serif type • Works well in smaller sizes especially in body text • Looks busy and cluttered in large size. • Uses of Type • Serif type • Ideal for large headlines • Difficult to read in long blocks of text • Looks best when surrounded by lots of white space. • Sans-Serif type • Works well in smaller sizes especially in body text • Looks busy and cluttered in large size.

An image should not distract from the main message on the screen Unobtrusive images Obtrusive images

Make sure there is enough contrast between foreground and textured background User will not be able to read this easily User will be able to read this easier

Careful use of special effect.

Use Dark Type on a Light Background Easier to read Harder to read

Employ Consistent Layouts for Related Materials Don’t Change Formats in the Midst of a Concept

Use Effective Cropping and Image Placement Most of the trees and part of the building are cropped, emphasizing the student Uncropped image

Avoid Hyphenation and Underlines Underlined and hyphenated Clear

Multimedia Design