Improving Visual Programming Languages for Multimedia Authoring1

The creation and editing of interactive computer-based presentations which combine text, graphics, audio, and video is called multimedia authoring. Contemporary tools provide both media editing and multimedia composition as well as more specialized services including database and file access, courseware support, and extensibility. Such tools make it possible to design sophisticated presentations, but are more difficult to use than previous menu and text systems for several reasons: • The more powerful authoring environments require greater learning time • The creation and integration of animations, video, and audio is a more elaborate process and is typically less familiar to authors than text and graphics composition We have been actively developing and using multimedia authoring tools for a number of years (Koegel, Rutledge & Heines, 1992). This paper summarizes our observations and experience with two commercial multimedia authoring packages and provides the following results: • Detailed criteria for evaluating visual programming interfaces for multimedia authoring • Example iconic programs for comparing different multimedia visual programming tools • General recommendations for improving the design of such systems’ user interfaces Multimedia authoring tools are a significant enabling tool for courseware and other interactive presentations. However, the development of such materials with the best tools available today requires significant expertise, equipment, and time. The goal of this paper is to further advance the usability of such tools.