Web Multi Media

Multimedia may be broadly divided into linear and non-linear categories.

• Linear active content progresses without any navigation control for the viewer such as a cinema presentation.

• Non-linear content offers user interactivity to control progress as used with a computer game or used in self-paced computer based training. Non-linear content is also known as hypermedia content.

Application Area of Multi Media

Are

(touch screen), (virtual reality), (virtual reality on computer), (Live Laser Show), (in future?),

Web Multimedia vs. Multimedia Systems

• Differences:

? The style of writing. "on-line world" is highly optimised and designed to be able to be quickly scanned by readers on the Internet. The power of Web-based Multimedia lies in the way in which information is linked. Web based Multimedia requires a completely new approach to writing.

? Significance of download time vs. quality of media.

The Application of Multimedia System

? Business and Industry.

? Government.

? Health Sector.

? Entertainment.

The implementation of interactivity can be perceived as:

? An art because it requires a comprehensive range of skills, including an understanding of the learner

? An appreciation of computer system engineering capabilities.

Hypermedia:

• A technique for organising information.

• However, it is not limited to text

• Combines various forms of media: can be graphics, animation, icon & symbol.

• Supports dynamic display

• Provides a flexible interface to facilitate different exploration techniques

• Familiarity with the concept of hypertext is necessary to understand the structure of a multimedia application and a website.

• The beginnings of hypertext date back to the year 1945 when Vannevar Bush, an electrical engineer, published his ideas on Memex (memory extander, a "mechanically linked" information storage system), where one would use microfilm to save and edit material. This system existed only theoretically and was never realised.

• Jacob Nielsen explains:

• All traditional text, whether in printed form or in computer files, is sequential, meaning that there is a single linear sequence defining the order in which the text is to be read.

• Hypertext is nonsequential; there is no single order that determines the sequence in which the text is to be read.

Main elements of Hypertext:

• Node

• Link

• Hierarchies

• Anchors

Link:

? The means of connecting nodes

? The most fundamental notion of hypertext systems

? To provide a logical navigational mechanism in a hypertext document.

?

Types of Link:

• Associative:

? Represents relationships, but can exist independently of one another

• Referential:

? Related to associative links, but provides a link between an item of information and an elaboration or explanation. Link exists because of the existence of the other. (e.g. from a word - to a definition).

• Designing issues:

• Consider the balance between breadth and

depth in the hierarchy.

? Breadth: Be sensitive to the cognitive limits

of your user. More than ten options on the

main menu can overwhelm users.

? Depth: If users are forced to click through

more than four or five levels, they