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Example: Designing a multimedia product - Farm animals, their sounds and their young

Based on the client's feedback on the prototype of the multimedia product, various specification documents (or client briefs) are developed which provide detailed information on:

• Content
• Design
• Functions

Target audience

The first part of the design stage is to state the purpose of the multimedia project.

This will involve identifying the target audience for the product. Consider:

• Age range
• Gender (if appropriate)
• Ethnicity/culture/language
• Level of computer experience

For example, your target audience may be stipulated as: English language nursery children ages 3-5 with no previous exposure to computing devices. Product to be used on handheld devices.

User requirements

User requirements are a list of things the client wants the product to look like and do.

In this example, the client is a nursery teacher who wants to introduce children to the names, sounds and the young of farm animals.

After doing some fact finding by asking questions, interviewing the client and observing current working practises, the design team would provide exact details of what animals, sounds, videos, games and assessment the teacher may require.

Navigation structure design

This is used when there is potentially more than one way to navigate or move through your multimedia product. A navigation chart shows the possible pathways between screens.

For example, the nursery teacher may want the children to be able to navigate around the farmyard selecting any pathway. In general, a navigation chart will contain less detail than a storyboard (see below) and provide more of an outline.

Storyboard

A storyboard shows each interface you want to have on screen, one after the other. It allows for third party implementation. Storyboards should include all third party detail to allow for complete implementation. Storyboards may include images, text, audio, video.

You might want to describe some sound or music, or transitions between screens. The finished version does not have to be the same as the original design.

Sometimes you will find better ways of doing something as your multimedia product is developed. For example, you may not be able to find or create the precise image of the farm animals you intended to use.

The storyboard is just a plan to guide you through the process as it helps visualise how the product will look. Prototyping can be used to further refine the original storyboard, using markups to the storyboard.

Image sources

To aid the product designers, the design plan will indicate:

• Filenames
• Filetypes/Formats
• Physical dimensions (height x width)
• Size (on disk)

For example: