Published by Emil Abraham, March 6th, 2020

• Outlining: Once the goal and the objectives of the programme are clear, the next step is to create Outline of the project. An interactive multimedia presentation may not necessary be Linear presentation like a slide show or a video programme. It has the capacity of Branching. The outline of a programme represents branching in a Multimedia Programme. The content specialist does the outlining. Developing an outline for an interactive multimedia project is almost the same as that of developing an outline for a chapter of the book. However, the outlining of Multimedia structure is translated into branches or points of decision on the screen. Even the main outlining headings may become options available to the user in the main menu of the Multimedia presentation program with sub-heading becoming the Sub-Menu entries.

• Design Aspects
• Interactivity – how does the process work? Allow users to control the application in a way that works with the content.
• Implemented in different ways depending on the product, content and development tools
• Three approaches: Linear, Programmed branching, Hypermedia
• Structure – the flow (navigation) and content structure of the multimedia application
• Logic flow chart: The logic flow chart is an important component of an Interactive Multimedia Programme. A logic flow chart is a graphical road map of the proposed application. The Authoring team takes the help of this flowchart to produce the final multimedia Application. The complexity of these flow charts is dependent on the applications being Developed. The flowcharts, which illustrate games, are among the most complex flowcharts.
• Navigation: The term navigation means finding your way to certain information. Map the structures and navigation paths as early as possible. Common Navigation structures: Linear, Hierarchical, Nonlinear and Composite [More in this article]
• Consideration on Hot Spot, button and icon
• Hot spot: Areas of the screen that are ‘clickable’.
• Button: Provide button feedback whenever possible. Have a unique ‘pressed’ or ‘clicked’ state. In HTML, feedback is provided by colour changing
• Icon: Avoid forcing users to learn special icons in your project. Try to follow the design convention set by other leading software.
• Appearance – determine how the screen will look like.
• Usually called the user interface design or the look and feel design.
• The target is to facilitate communication, provide entertainment, elicit emotion, etc
• The graphic design of your multimedia product is the users first impression. A well design interfaces provide a good match between the user’s task needs, skill level and learning ability and will lead to satisfied and productive users.
• Storyboarding
• The storyboard is a graphical representation of the proposed multimedia project. The storyboard is an extension of ideas presented in the programme script. It is presented with a series of templates used for various purposes. These templates are very useful information and help the developer to keep a production log or history of the work. They also help in keeping track of the production design and help in identifying the design parameters for the application development.
• A storyboard is a series of screens, organized sequentially, screen by screen, and each screen is sketched out with design notes and specification before final rendering. A storyboard can be developed with simple pencil and paper as well as using software applications.
• 

• Copyright Issue and Its Management: While designing multimedia application, copyright issue plays a crucial role because of two fundamental reasons.
• Multimedia involves use of multiple media each of that media element may be protected under the copyright laws.
• Original multimedia works are also protected by copyrights. The Copyright laws protect the works like Printed or Electronic text forms , computer software, Musical works, Dramatic works ,Dances and mime works , Pictorial, graphics, and sculptural works , Motion picture etc. Therefore, it is important that during the planning phase you sort the copyright issues relating to getting permissions of using copyright material from its owner.

• Devising a Technical Plan: A technical plan addresses the needs of the production and the needs of the end user. It defines how an end user will experience the project and accordingly lays down the system requirement conditions like screen requirement, CD-ROM speed, memory requirement and hard disk requirement.
• Project Budgeting: Once the project timeline or schedule is ready, the next step is to prepare the project budget. This is essential as time and money are not infinite resources.
• Hardware Issues: For any multimedia production it is imperative to consider and finalize the "tools" and equipment necessary to develop and play back the application. Hardware issues include deciding, securing the fastest CPU and RAM and largest monitors that is affordable, sufficient disk storage for all working files and records, file sharing for collaborative work via networks or e-mail and establishing a file back-up system.
• Authoring Software Selection: Selection of appropriate authoring software depends on team expertise, funds required to acquire new software and to train the manpower and what are the demands of the new title being developed. Two most widely used authoring applications today are Macromedia Director and Macromedia Authorware.

• Formative evaluation is done as a continuous process in the development of multimedia and even before the development process actually starts. Decisions taken at the beginning of the process of software development affect various aspects of the software. Answers to questions like who, why, where, and how become the guidelines for the development of the software. Depending upon the time and resources, both quantitative and qualitative methods of feedback are utilized in formative evaluation. No programme can fulfill all requirements of all learners. In fact, if a single programme can provide all the information, and answer all queries on a single topic, it should be considered successful. So, every software developer must decide and delimit the scope of the software beforehand. In other words, we have to spell out the objectives of the programme.
• Summative evaluation is targeted at the end-users, in educational software a major focus of study is the software's . The teaching learning objectives identified during the needs analysis become the base of summative evaluation of academic software. Evaluation should keep the educational, entertainment, ease of use or design features in mind while conducting summative evaluation of these and then overall impact on learning. Suggestions on the basis of summative evaluation may be for (i) short-term and (ii) long-term changes in the programme. Short-term changes may be based on your own observations and the feedback from the users and the long-term changes may be made on the basis of the decisions of the curricular design and on the basis of suggestions given by the development agencies and the organisations using your software, if it is being used outside your institution.