Achieving Minimalism through Interactive Multimedia  

Use interactive multimedia with text-based online documentation to achieve the minimalist model pioneered by instructional design guru John Carroll. Non-linear modules of 'real' tasks help users get started fast, and quickly learn from any errors.

De Yoreo, Dave and Ben Kauffman. STC Proceedings (2004). Design>Multimedia>Interaction Design>Minimalism

Ajax for Media: Use Ajax Techniques to Show Movies and Slide Shows

With the advent of widely available broadband, media, movies, images, and sound drive the Web 2.0 revolution. Learn to combine media with technologies such as PHP and Asynchronous JavaScript + XML (Ajax) to create a compelling experience for your customers.

Herrington, Jack D. IBM (2007). Design>Web Design>Multimedia>Ajax

All the Access Money Can Buy

Just when you think online multimedia will never be truly accessible, someone proves you wrong. In BMW Films, Clark sees a tantalizing glimpse of a better web.

Clark, Joe. List Apart, A (2000). Design>Accessibility>Web Design>Multimedia

Animated Character Likeability Revisited: The Case of Interactive TV  

Animated characters have been a popular research theme, but the respective desktop applications have not been well-received by end-users. The objective of this study was to evaluate the use of an animated character for presenting information and navigating music videos within an interactive television (ITV) application. Information was displayed over music video clips with two alternative user interfaces: 1) semi-transparent information overlays, 2) an animated character. For this purpose, the differences between ITV and desktop computing motivated the adaptation of the traditional usability evaluation techniques. The evaluation revealed that users reported higher affective quality with the animated character user interface. Although the success of animated characters in desktop productivity applications has been limited, there is growing evidence that animated characters might be viable in a domestic environment for leisure activities, such as interactive TV.

Chorianopoulos, Konstantinos. Journal of Usability Studies (2006). Design>Multimedia>Interactive>Video

Animation: Technical Documents on the Move  

Coleman presents a four-step process to develop an animation project while insuring consistency and quality.

Coleman, Mary Ellen. Intercom (2000). Design>Multimedia>Interactive

Authoring and Viewing Hybrid CD-ROMs  

Hybrid CD technology, which allows publishing documents on CD-ROM and placing updates on a Web/FTP server, is the solution of choice for the delivery of time-critical, large technical documents requiring frequent updates.

Lanyi, Gabriel. STC Proceedings (1999). Design>Multimedia>CD ROM

Authoring and Viewing Hybrid CD-ROMs  

Lanyi discusses technologies for authoring and viewing hybrid CD-ROMs. He defines hybrid CD-ROMs as standard CD-ROMs that integrate updates users periodically download from the Web. This combination of storage space and timeliness, Lanyi argues, makes hybrid CD-ROMs an effective means of delivering documentation to users.

Lanyi, Gabriel. Intercom (2000). Design>Multimedia>CD ROM

Balancing Act: Keeping Your Screen Movies Small and Beautiful

Screen recordings are a valuable tool for enhancing training, tutorials, manuals and websites. Companies use this technique to produce streaming and downloadable content. The recording tools are readily available and affordable. In this article, we explore some techniques, tips and tricks for recording sound, mouse movement and happenings from your screen to an AVI file. We will talk in both general terms and use specific examples. The examples pertain to HyperCam, a downloadable screen recording application from Hyperionics Technology. Like most screen recording applications, HyperCam captures the action from your Windows screen -- including cursor movements and sound -- and saves it to an AVI movie file.

Rice, William H. IV. WilliamRice.com (2002). Design>Documentation>Multimedia>Screencasting

Basic Flash Concepts and Terms

Macromedia Flash uses a movie-making metaphor in how they define their concepts and areas of their interface. The basic terms used to describe the animation are the movie, stage and motion.

Kurtus, Ron. School for Champions (2002). Design>Web Design>Multimedia>Flash

The Basics of QuickTime 5

This article focuses on Apple’s latest release, QuickTime 5, both from a user’s and developer’s perspective. I'll also describe the tools you'll need, the creative possibilities, and how to best deliver a project to your intended audience.

Marioni, Reno. Webmonkey (2001). Design>Multimedia>Streaming>QuickTime

The Best of CHI-WEB and SIGIA-L

The chi-web and sig-ia mailing lists are two email based discussion groups on the topics of web usability, design and human computer interaction (the later with a heavier emphasis on information architecture). To subscribe to chi-web, read the info page or to get a better flavor for what happens there, use its full searchable archive. Alternatively, you can join sigia-l from here or view the sigia-l archive . Using the archives for each mailing list, I've compiled a list of the summary postings from useful threads, and a few personally selected favorite postings. Please note: my list below is not an exhaustive list of summary postings. I just picked the ones I found most salient and valuable for reference. Also, these summaries are collections of contributing posts: they are a mixture of opinions and commentary, with some references to reports, usability data, websites or books.

Berkun, Scott. UIWeb. Resources>Mailing Lists>Web Design>Multimedia

Best Practices in Online Captioning

Use of online video has grown faster than the use of accessibility in online video. Though bandwidth costs for video files can still be high compared to ordinary text-and-graphics Web pages, it is nonetheless easy to digitize video and post it online. It's easier to broadcast your video to the world via the Internet than it is to get the same video on television. Online multimedia are a useful and valid new medium of communication - for most people.

Clark, Joe. JoeClark.org (2004). Design>Accessibility>Multimedia>Video

Better Flash Websites

Alhough Flash has some intrinsic usability problems, designers can respect user expectations about consistency, accessibility, and common sense, and therefore make better Flash websites.

Baker, Adam. Merges.net (2001). Design>Multimedia>Interactive>Flash

Blogs, Podcasts and All That Stuff

I think podcasting is powerful because it gives us the opportunity to reach people in ways we cannot with blogs and websites. Don't get me wrong, blogs and sites have their place. But let's face it, people have information overload! It's often a choice between reading your blog and the 15 other things they need to read. But with podcasts, people tell me that they listen via their iPods while in the gym. They burn them to CD and listen in their car during their commute. They listen on their computer with a headset or speakers.

Morley, Catherine. Creative Latitude (2005). Design>Web Design>Multimedia>Podcasting

Bye, Bye EMBED

Break the chains of EMBED and live free. Elizabeth Casto explains how to embed movies without using invalid markup.

Castro, Elizabeth. List Apart, A (2006). Design>Web Design>Multimedia>XHTML

Captioning for QuickTime

There are two methods for adding captions in QuickTime. There are advantages and disadvantages to each approach. The first allows you to maintain a single file, making the captioned video easier to distribute. The second approach allows you to easily deliver a captioned and non-captioned version of your movie, but requires an understanding of SMIL (it's not too hard).

WebAIM (2003). Design>Multimedia>Accessibility>Video

Captioning for RealPlayer

RealPlayer uses SMIL to combine media content with a RealText (.rt) file. The .rt file contains the captions themselves and information about how and when they should appear. The SMIL file is really just a pointer file. It contains information about where and how your captions and media content should display.

WebAIM (2003). Design>Multimedia>Accessibility>Video

Captioning for Windows Media

Windows Media Player adds captions using Microsoft's Synchronized Accessible Media Interchange (SAMI). SAMI, like SMIL, which is used by Quicktime and RealPlayer, is an XML-based text language. A SAMI file contains the captions and definitions for how and when the captions should display.

WebAIM (2003). Design>Multimedia>Accessibility>Video

Captions and Audio Descriptions for PC Multimedia

This article discusses the various types of captions, when to use captions, as well as the various types of audio descriptions.

Microsoft (2002). Design>Multimedia>Accessibility>Audio

Case Studies in Instructional Technology and Design

Multimedia cases allow novices and experts to explore issues and practice in instructional design. During the course of study in instructional design, often only a few design projects can be completed. Case studies serve as a valuable supplement, providing students with opportunities to experience and respond to complex practice issues in a variety of professional settings. In the process, students reflect on relevant theories and techniques as they attempt to understand a real problem, develop a response, and consider the potential consequences. Once each year, we sponsor a case event, and invite universities across the country to advance a team. Teams analyze the case, while experts pose probling questions, evaluate case responses, and contribute their own perspectives on the cases.

University of Virginia. Academic>Course Materials>Instructional Design>Multimedia

CD-ROM Development At AG Communication Systems: How We Did The Wrong Thing The Right Way  

Time constraints prevented our team from rewriting our user's guide for online use. Early user testing and off-the-shelf electronic tools were key elements that ensured our success in enhancing usability to cancel the deadening effect of data dumping. We added menus and graphical navigation aids for user convenience. Interleaf provided automatic hypertext links and support throughout the project. We included an installation-and-reference guide to inform new-to-online users how to install and use the our product.

McDermott, Roberta J. STC Proceedings (1994). Design>Multimedia>CD ROM

CD-ROM Production: A Primer  

Luongo describes how technical communicators can produce their own CD-ROMs.

Luongo, Al. Intercom (2000). Design>Multimedia>CD ROM

Communicating Effectively With Interaction    

The ability to build interactions that support, enable, and improve communication is a valuable skill for help developers, Web-site designers, multimedia content developers, information-rich user interface designers-anyone who designs and develops information to be used online. This paper presents the basics of interaction design for information products and describes some basic underlying human factors and user-interface design principles.

Ames, Andrea L. ACM SIGDOC (2001). Presentations>Information Design>User Centered Design>Multimedia