Study Questions
Choose the study questions below most suited to your level of experience as an explorer of stand-alone interactive multimedia. If you are attempting a multimedia analysis for the very first time, you should review the initial reading from Writing for Multimedia and the Web before you settle down for some serious exploration.

Remember the difference between describe and analyze. If you describe, you list in detail what you have done and what you have observed. If you analyze, you interpret in detail what you have done and what you have observed and draw conclusions based on carefully cited evidence. An analysis requires only enough description to support the interpretation you're making.

Beginner
1) What are your initial impressions of the multimedia production? How do you work out what you need to do to engage with the production once you have opened it? What problems do you encounter in initiating your interaction?

2) What help does the multimedia production offer to you? Are you offered enough information (in text, on-screen, in the box) to initiate a satisfying exploration?

3) What pleasures (think visual, aural, textual) does your exploration offer you? Which pleasures are most intense for you and why?

4) Of what does your multimedia most remind you? Think about the associations with other genres, such as adventure stories, historical novels, science fiction, etc.. How do these associations shape the the way you approach your multimedia.

5) What expectations are aroused by your first exploration of this multimedia? What are the sources of these expectations? What do you think will 'happen' next and why?

6) Look up the New Century competencies. What competencies are you using in your exploration? Keep track of the competencies that you use and try to analyze whether the competencies you use most change as you continue your investigation.

Some Experience
1) "Just because you can make a choice doesn't mean it's an interesting one." (p. 5, Garrand) Analyze the choices you as an actor encounter. What are the different types of choice you are offered? (Think about choices to see, to analyze a visual image, to read, to apply problem-solving or critical thinking, etc.) To what extent are these choices interesting?

2) What pleasures (think visual, aural, textual) does your exploration offer you? Which pleasures are most intense for you and why? To what extent are the pleasures derived from repeating familiar experiences, from encountering new experiences, from a deepening understanding, from a.....?

3) What role do the visuals ? What elements of our culture are called up, or referenced, in the visuals? Explore those associations and analyze how they contribute or detract from your pleasure as an actor.

4) What is your role as an actor in your multimedia? Who are you? What is your position in the world(s) in which you are playing? To what extent do you act as yourself? To what extent does the multimedia allow you to reshape your identity or imagine yourself as someone else?

5) Part of the pleasure of exploring any interactive multimedia based on a 'world' structure is the explorer's learning about that/those world(s). How do you 'learn' within the world you have entered? (Don't think about learning in the educational sense but instead think in the experiential sense.) How do the interactions offered in your multimedia help you to 'learn to learn'? To what extent is the learning structured? Where does the steepest learning curve occur? How are you expected to apply your learning?

6) Think about the way in which you imagine yourself as you are interacting. Which parts of yourself, which emotional, psychological and intellectual apprehensions, are most active in your interactions? How are these parts of yourself activated by the interactions you are offered? Describe the 'self' that is created through/by/in the course of your interactions. To what extent are you 'gendered' in your interactions?

7) What metaphors are you encountering? How successful are they?

8) Look up the New Century competencies. What competencies are you using in your exploration? Keep track of the competencies that you explore and try to analyze whether the competencies you use most change as you continue your investigations

Expert
1) What is your role as an actor ? Who are you? What is your position in the world(s) in which you are playing? To what extent do you act as yourself? To what extent does the multimedia allow you to reshape your identity or imagine yourself as someone else? Think about the way in which you imagine yourself as you interact. Which parts of yourself are most active in your interactions? How are these parts of yourself activated by the interactions you are offered? Describe the 'self' that is created through/by/in the course of your interactions. To what extent are you 'gendered' in your interactions?

2) What metaphors are you encountering? What role do they play in the interface? How successful are they?

3) To what extent does the interface allow, "the most important information to be presented at the most appropriate time from the appropriate angle"? How would you redesign the interface if you were hired to revision this multimedia production?

4) To what extent do you as an actor control what happens as you explore? What consequences do your actions have? Are they immediate consequences or are they delayed consequences or a combination of both? What is most satisfying/least satisfying to you about your interactions and why?

5) Analyze the interactions you are offered. To what extent are the interactions physical or cerebral? What is the balance between 'inside the skull" and "outside the skull" interactions. How satisfying is this balance, and why? How would you change it?

6) Part of the pleasure of exploring any interactive multimedia based on a 'world' structure is the explorer's learning about that/those world(s). How do you 'learn' within the world you have entered? (Don't think about learning in the educational sense but instead think in the experiential sense.) What external knowledges do you need to apply throughout your explorations?

7) How do the interactions offered in your multimedia help you to 'learn to learn'? To what extent is the learning structured? Where does the steepest learning curve occur? How are you expected to apply your learning?

8) Compare your multimedia with other stand-alone multimedia you have explored/played. Analyze the differences and similarities. To what extent is your multimedia an immersive experience, one which severs your relationship, however temporarily, to the physical reality beyond your human-computer interface? How does it achieve (or not achieve) this immersion.

9) To what extent does your multimedia become addictive? If you did not find it addictive, explain why? If you did find it addictive, examine the sources of that addiction. What draws you in and keeps you immersed?

10) Look at question five in Some Experience. How do your pleasures change/develop/disappear as you continue to investigate and analyze your multimedia?

11) Look up the New Century competencies. What competencies are you using in your exploration? Keep track of the competencies that you explore and try to analyze whether the competencies you use most change as you continue your investigations.