Designing for Interactive Television

We are so accustomed to watching television that we easily overlook the limited resolution of the television screen. Compared to TV, even VGA looks good. Although both use a similar display monitor, they differ in both the way the screen is 'painted' and in how much information can be placed on the screen. To design effectively for interactive television, it is essential to understand the technical constraints of the medium.

Quesenbery, Whitney. WQusability (1996). Design>Multimedia>Video>Typography

Desktop Videoconferencing--State of the Art  

Archee assesses the current state of DTV technology.

Archee, Raymond K. Intercom (2000). Design>Collaboration>Teleconferencing>Videoconferencing

Determining When to Use Show-Me Helps and Demos

The availability of powerful yet easy-to-use multimedia tools enables technical writers to consider a powerful new form of embedded user assistance: show-me help. This paper provides an overview of who is currently using show-me help--some current research, some history, and some definitions. It offers some guidance in choosing tools, designing show-me help, and deciding when to include then, concentrating on consideration of your users, potential topics, subsequent releases, and translation. It also suggests how show-me helps can be reused as part of product education and single-sourced into user assistance from the Web.

Bradford, Annette Norris. WritersUA (2005). Articles>Documentation>Multimedia>Video

Digital Video Design and Production Tips for Technical Communication  

Technical communicators can expect to see an expanding role of video in product documentation, training, and marketing presentations. This is largely due to three factors: (1) digital video lowers the technology and cost thresholds to bring video to the desktop, (2) video makes sense for conveying information involving movement, and (3) video is a popular consumer medium. To technical communicators, video is a new medium in which visual communication is key. Narration and text are subordinate. Technical videographers must learn and apply video design principles and good production practices to create effective video that communicates the information.

Robbins, David B. STC Proceedings (2001). Presentations>Tutorials>Video

Digital Video in Technical Communication: Panel and Discussion  

Digital does not experience signal loss or degradation...what goes in, comes out.

Robbins, David B., Donald Van Erem and S. Martin 'Marty' Shelton. STC Proceedings (2000). Presentations>Multimedia>Video

The Distance Learning Experience: Developing, Transmitting and Participating in Courses Delivered at a Distance  

Distance education comes in all shapes and sizes. Videotaping led to satellite and videoconferencing. Today, web-based videostreaming is gaining popularity in many areas. Back in 1995, a team from Rensselaer and IBM met to discuss opportunities to deliver leading edge user interface design education via distance delivery methods. Join our panel discussion to hear how this program has progressed, and how Rensselaer’s Professional and Distance Education Program continues to work directly with its customers to deliver leading edge distance education.

Brauneis, David, Kim Scalzo and David Hans. STC Proceedings (1999). Articles>Education>Online>Videoconferencing

Don't Hide Your Multimedia Content!  

Rich or multimedia content is, of course, expensive and time-consuming to produce. So publishers that go to the trouble want plenty of their users to see it. Alas, this isn't always the case -- because links to such packages are often tucked away or presented in ways that Web users don't easily see.

Outing, Steve. Editor and Publisher (2003). Design>Multimedia>Online>Video

During the Interview

Remember that when you speak to a reporter, you're potentially speaking to an audience of hundreds or thousands of people. Try not to appear negative or confrontational. A hostile attitude will make it difficult for viewers to take your point seriously.

Media-Awareness.ca. Articles>Interviewing>Video

DVD Menu Design: The Failures of Web Design Recreated Yet Again

Designers of DVDs have failed to profit from the lessons of previous media: Computer Software, Internet web pages, and even WAP phones. As a result, the DVD menu structure is getting more and more baroque, less and less usable, less pleasurable, less effective. It is time to take DVD design as seriously as we do web design. The field needs some discipline some attention to the User Experience, concern about accessibility for those with less than perfect sight and hearing, and some standardization of control and display formats.

Norman, Donald A. JND.org (2002). Design>Multimedia>Video>DVD

E-Chalk Talk

Although electronic whiteboards come in several sizes and shapes, their main function is the same – to capture written annotations, notes and drawings and store them for future reference. This is accomplished with infrared sensors, radio-signal-emitting pens, plasma overlays and other technologies. The end product is a file of digitally stored notes that can be e-mailed, posted online, or printed and handed out to an audience immediately after a presentation or training session. Beyond these basic features, some electronic whiteboards are interactive – letting you connect a computer and projector to the whiteboard to combine its features with common software programs. A Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, for example, can be projected onto an interactive whiteboard where it can be marked up with colored pens to highlight important numbers or trends. Or, using an interactive whiteboard's touchscreen feature, a presenter can navigate the Web using a finger to move the cursor and double-clicking with taps on the screen. Even videoconferencing functions have been integrated into electronic whiteboards in the past year.

Regenold, Stephen. Presentations (2003). Articles>Education>Multimedia>Videoconferencing

Review: e-Video: Producing Internet Video as Broadband Technologies Converge

e-Video is divided into four major sections: Opportunity, Production, Compression, and Delivery. Although these can (and must) get a bit technical to be useful, I found Alesso's style understandable.

Boeri, Bob. Boston Broadside (2001). Articles>Reviews>Multimedia>Video

Early Home Cinema    

Current developments in high-definition technological systems for home viewing link definitively with early Home Cinema, as practised from the late 1890s, as an alternative to public spectatorship. The traditions of Home Cinema, in encompassing degrees of informality, interaction and control within domestic exhibition, served to lay foundations for a televisual experience which, today, having come full-circle, is defining itself once more as `Home Cinema'.

Chalke, Sheila. Convergence (2008). Articles>Multimedia>Video>History

Enhancing Documentation with Video  

Presents guidelines for developing videos from technical material and discusses the process of video production.

Steiner, Leonard T. Intercom (2004). Articles>Documentation>Multimedia>Video

Expanding Blurring Titles

The effect where titles spread out and then blur away to nothing has become a popular way to make 'plain old text' look more interesting. It's really not that complex: What we do is 'expand' the text by animating the tracking (the space between the letters).

Mac Design Magazine (2005). Design>Multimedia>Video>Typography

Exploring Technical Communication

Exploring Technical Communication is a 30-minute documentary video introducing the profession. It consists of interviews with faculty and students in the University of Washington's Department of Technical Communication and with professionals in the STC.

Garrett, Mick, Paul Foy, Robert Frantzen, Charlie Selk and Erik Willis. EServer (2002). Resources>Multimedia>Video>Documentaries

Exporting to QuickTime or for use with iDVD

You have this great project that you've just finished, and you need to bring it into another program, display it on your web site, or turn it in on CD or DVD. To do this, you will need to export your movie. iMovie has several 'built-in' configurations that take much of the guesswork out of compressing your video for optimal playback on one of those media types. I often find, however, that the standard choices are not quite what I want or need. This is when the Expert options come into play.

Iowa State University (2003). Design>Multimedia>Video>DVD

Final Cut Professional

An introduction to using Final Cut Professional 4.0 for multimedia video production.

Eisenbraun, Michael and Amanda Metz Bemer. Studio for New Media (2004). Presentations>Multimedia>Video>Final Cut Pro

From Project Manager To Producer: A Guide to Creating Multimedia Deliverables  

As technical communicators tackle multimedia projects, they realize the importance of using a process that can handle the dynamics of multimedia. This paper presents a multimedia development process that was developed and implemented by a team of technical communicators at IBM. It incorporates the basic elements of a standard information development process, and helps guide a team through elements introduced by new media, such as video production and deliverable distribution.

Anderson, Amy. STC Proceedings (1995). Presentations>Multimedia>Video

Fundamentals of Digital Video Production  

This paper discusses tips and techniques that you may want to use in your multimedia tasks. Initially, it discusses the technical aspects of the skill and then discusses key areas of the process. Last, it concludes with a brief discussion of resources.

Lippincott, Richard J. STC Proceedings (2004). Design>Multimedia>Video

The Future of Technical Documentation 2000-2010

The need for TCs with traditional writing skills will remain fairly stable, but the need for TCs in total will grow. The new technical communicators will come from the world of game design, where they know all about 3D-vector animation, and they will come from the world of TV and video production.

TC-FORUM (2000). Careers>TC>Documentation>Video

How to Change Interlaced Video Into Progressive Video

CGM DVE Vol. 3+ contains a tool which changes interlaced video into progressive video, making your footage look more like 35mm film.

Mac Design Magazine (2005). Design>Multimedia>Video

How to Select Your Web Conferencing Tool

New conferencing and collaboration solutions are being announced at the pace of one or more tools per week. New versions and upgrades are promoted even more frequently, and in this avalanche of "this is the best, don't look anywhere else" claims, it is hard to distinguish the good from the average. How should you select your web conferencing tool? Which companies are more reliable and how do you find out? How can you be sure you will not be disappointed? These are tough questions to answer, as there are a million vendors out there and an army of supposed experts all claiming to have the best solution while offering different ones.

Good, Robin. Communication World Bulletin (2004). Articles>Web Design>Videoconferencing>Software

Identifying Additions and Deletions, Part II: Incompatible Software  

Hart describes the difficulties of viewing electronic edits when the editor and the author are using incompatible software, and offers tips for working around these difficulties.

Hart, Geoffrey J.S. Intercom (2002). Articles>Editing>Software>Video

iMovie Tutorial: Capturing Video

This is one in a series which will take you through the act of capturing, editing, and exporting a video using Apple iMovie.

Iowa State University (2002). Design>Multimedia>Editing>Video