Art galleries, museums, federal and state buildings, hospital complexes, and universities are using multimedia productions more and more frequently. Usually, these multimedia productions are housed in free-standing locations (often called kiosks).

Informational and/or navigational multimedia are often located in areas of high foot traffic (such as multimedia stations in all the main entrances of some major hospitals, for example, the providing of information about, and navigational information for, the hospital).

Or they may appear in areas where the user might want/need more complex information than signage & context alone can provide. For example, multimedia stations in art galleries allow the user to explore in intense detail particular paintings or artifacts, or allow the user access to rich contextual material, such as original documents, relevant film & video footage, etc.

This segment of the experiential learning allows you apply Garrand's analysis of informational multimedia to existing, freestanding informational multimedia productions. Again, your on-site investigations complement the class work on the structure and writing of informational multimedia. As you work at this assignment, think all the time about how you might adapt, improve on, transform or just plain exceed what you see when you create first multimedia writing assignment, the informational multimedia script.

Read the study questions before you begin and take notes as you investigate on location and after you return home. Remember, too, that I've suggested these questions only as a way of beginning your investigations. Follow (with energy!) any and all questions that occur to you as you explore, investigate and observe.

Study Questions

2) Examine closely the location of your multimedia station. Where is it? Who will encounter it? Where will they encounter it? (For example, to what extent do potential users need to look for the multimedia station or to what extent do they 'fall upon it' in the course of functional activity within your location?)

3) What strategies have the authors/creators developed to communicate effectively with their intended audience? For example, do you find an 'attract routine' (check the definition in the multimedia glossary on the Garrand disk if you are not sure what an attract routine is)? What tone of address to the target audience does your chosen informational multimedia adopt - friendly, formal, jokey? And so on. Quote specific examples from the exhibit to support your answers.

4) Look not only at the content of the multimedia production itself but also at the station itself. To what extent does it blend into the environment and to what extent does it draw attention to itself? What role does design play in drawing visitors to the multimedia station? To what extent does the multimedia station achieve its intended effects?

5) Sit for half an hour or so and examine users' interactions (or lack of interactions) with the multimedia station and its contents. Do people look at the station? Do they approach it? Do they seem to know what to do with it? How do they interact with it - confidently, hesitantly, eagerly? How long is the average interaction?

6) Now map your own interactions with your chosen informational multimedia production. Analyze the navigational structure of the piece. What are the visual and textual cues you follow? To what extent do these cues fall into patterns recognizable either visually or textually or in combination?

7) Look at Garrand's list of the key elements of informational multimedia. How well does your chosen multimedia fulfill his recommendations? Which of the key elements dominate and why?

8) How is visual presentation used to add meaning (not just decoration) to the page. What meanings related to the overarching purpose of the site do you draw from the visual presentation of all the materials on the site? To what extent does your chosen piece of multimedia add meaning to the physical site? (For example, how well does your chosen multimedia complement the physical site in tone of address to the user, the purpose of the physical site, etc.?)