Week 3: Multimedia Courseware Design

::25 September 2012::


For this week, we learnt about Multimedia Courseware Design.
So what is purpose of courseware design?
-->to inform or to persuade users
-->not miss the step.


Besides, what are the most important to observe when designing a MM courseware?
-->content
-->audience
-->level of target group
-->etc

There are four primary aspects that influence MM design;

1. content.
2. technology
3. visual
4. economy

Hence, we have to plan a courseware that consist:
-well structured
-easy to navigate
-quick download/display time
-simplicity;clear and not too many choices
-consistency;builds trust with the user
-engagement; invites the user to participate

We have to put ourselves as users so that we know what they want and give them a good experience from our courseware.  I've found this;

Alben and her colleagues  defined experience as “…the way it feels in their hands, how well they understand how it works, how they feel about it while they're using it, how well it serves its purpose, and how well it fits into the entire context in which they are using it.”

 If these experiences are successful and engaging, they argue, then they are valuable to users. The criteria fall into two categories: those that directly impact user experience (e.g., learnable and usable), and those that make their contribution indirectly (e.g., understanding of users and effective design process).

• Understanding of users refers to how well the design team understood the needs, tasks and environments of the users, and how well this understanding was reflected in the process.
• Effective design process refers to having a well thought-out process that addresses various project concerns and included user involvement, iteration, and multidisciplinary collaboration.
• Needed refers to whether the product meets some recognized need, and makes some significant social, economic, or environmental contribution.
• Learnable and Usable refers to how well a product communicates its purpose and operation, and how well it supports different personal styles, given users different knowledge, skills, and strategies for problem solving.
• Appropriate refers to whether a product solves the right problem at the right level, with a good fit to social, cultural, economic and technical factors.
• Aesthetic refers to whether the product is aesthetically pleasing and sensually satisfying, and whether it performs well within its technological constraints. There is also some reference to contributing factors, such as cohesive design, and continuity across interaction, information, visual, and industrial design.
• Mutable refers to how well the product can adapt, both to individual needs and over time.
• Manageable refers to whether the designers have taken a more systemmic view of the product, for example by thinking about how the product might be purchased, installed, maintained, and disposed of.

Alben, L. (1996) Quality of Experience: Defining the Criteria for Effective Interaction Design,interactions 3.3 May+June 1996, p11.

http://users.ices.utexas.edu/~natacha/CATTt/theory.html


Besides, there are 3 parts of MM courseware design:
i) Information Design
ii) Interaction Design
iii) Visual Design=Sensorial Design

• Information Design is an approach to designing clear, understandable communications by giving care to structure, context, and presentation of data and information.
• Interaction Design is an approach to designing interactive experiences (in any medium) which is concerned with the participant's experience flow through time.
• Sensorial Design is a term used to include the presentation of an experience in all senses (visual, hearing, touch, smell, taste). It is simply the employment of all techniques with which we communicate to others through our senses.