 The same story, information, etc can be represented in different media  Text, images, sound, moving pictures  All media can be represented digitally as a structured collection of bits  Manipulated by programs, stored, transmitted over networks  Digital media can be combined into multimedia

Example: Create a computer program to display images of microscope slide Interactively?  The main purpose of the program is to: Examine, rotate, measure rock without a microscope  Prepare instructions to tell the user how to operate the program? Give ideas ….. Introduction 1 5

Way 1:Text Way 2:Images Introduction 1 6

1 7 Way 3: Instructive web site Way 4: Slide Presentation Way 5: Video DVD Play it From website

Introduction 1 8 Some users don’t like the instructions about using the program separate from the program You might feel that a user should have help readily available while they were actually using the program

Introduction 1 9 Media:- Text, Images, Sounds, Videos,….. Each media has its own characteristics which allow to communicate your message in different ways Media in general Time-Based mediaStatic media Time is important part such as in: Video, animation, and sound. It exhibits some change over time. Time-based media usually supplied with player control Time-based media take up your time ????? Such as a still image you can look at it for short or long period of time, you can concentrate in different parts.

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Which Media to use Each media has its own strengths & weaknesses, and you have to choose only the appropriate media Examples Images: showing people what something looks like. Such as assembling packed furniture. Text: is used to explain how something works. Video & animation: showing how they move or change over time, both take up your time and impose its own. Introduction 1 11

Introduction 1 12 It should be clear that each medium has its own drawbacks as well as its own advantages and for many projects it may be the case that no medium is perfect. The important thing is to try to choose the most appropriate or combination of media for the task in hand, and not to try to make everything into television. We have to take into our consideration different issues such as communication skills and the accessibility.

Introduction 1 13 Communication: all media elements except the sound are visual media. They are perceived by sight. Therefore, it is clear that communication via these media raises problems for the people who do not have good eyesight. In a similar way, communication using sound causes problems for people who are wholly or partially deaf. It is also clear that the visual characteristics of work in each visual medium may effect how well it communicates its message. For example text media may be more or less easy to read, depending on different factors such as font size, color, type, how white spaces and alignment are used to lay out sections, …

Introduction 1 14 accessibility. accessibility is concerned with making it straight forward for the many people with physical limitations, such as poor eyesight, blindness, deafness to use the computer systems, including multimedia and the web. Graphic Design & visual communications are the disciplines most relevant to ensuring that visual media communicate their message effectively.

Introduction 1 15 Representation media : refers to how media elements are represented internally to the computer, how is information encoded in the computer? It must be clear that when media are represented in a digital form that can be stored and manipulated in a computer they can readily be combined, and it is often desirable to do so. When media are combined the result is multimedia

Introduction 1 16 Examples of multimedia are: Old forms of multimedia are Illustrated books and magazines combine text with still images. A TV, … WWW is one of the most familiar example of digital multimedia

Introduction 1 17 Multimedia digital multimedia The main difference between multimedia and digital one is the bits that represent text, sounds, pictures and so on can be treated as data by computer program This means that users can interact with media elements in novel ways, particularly by manipulating objects directly using the mouse. Interactive multimedia (user control) Passive Active

Introduction 1 18 Users interact with digital multimedia in novel ways, leading to non-linear structure. Interactive multimedia (user control) Passive Active In this way users can gain control over the contents.

Introduction 1 20 In general, there are two models currently in use for combining elements of different media types: page-based and time-based. In the page-based model, text and images are laid out in a two dimensional arrangement that resemble the way that text and images are laid out in books and magazines. time-based elements, such as video clips and sounds, are embedded in the page as if they were images, occupying a fixed area; controls may be provided within the page to start and stop their playback.

Introduction 1 21 Individual pages can be combined using links which allow the user to jump from one page to another –not necessary the next page- by clicking on a representation of the link. Hyperlink: when linked pages of text Hypermedia: when other media can be embedded in the linked pages.

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Introduction 1 23 Hypermedia takes inspiration from paper-based media that are essentially static, and grafts time- based features onto a spatially organized framework. In contrast time-based multimedia makes time the central organizing principle. In time-based multimedia, elements are arranged in time, often using time-line and frames.

Introduction 1 24 At present, Flash is the most commonly used time-based multimedia system. A Flash movie may include self-contained “movie clips”. These are movies-within-the-movie which may play independently of the main movie, introducing additional non-linearity by way of parallelism.

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The digital multimedia permits users to interact with it in a non-linear way. Introduction 1 26

Introduction 1 27  The increasing use of multimedia has been made possible by the improved performance and falling costs of hardware and software. The creation of multimedia demanded high end computers with specialized peripherals.

Introduction 1 28  Powerful hardwares and cheaper softwares had made the widespread use of digital multimedia technically possible.  Sharing multimedia between programs and platforms requires:  standards that is responsible of various national and international bodies  agreed specifications for file formats, markup languages and network protocols, which make it possible to exchange data between different programs and platforms.

Introduction 1 29 Digital Multimedia in Perspective Compared with established forms such as films or the novel, interactive digital multimedia is still in its infancy  The first generation of successful multimedia products were reference works, such as encyclopedia, distributed on CD-ROM.  Web news sites provide a more recent example of new media following the forms of old. the front page of the typical Web news site will contain only headlines and short synopses of the main stories, with links to the full story, which will be found on another page.

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