Multimedia:Design:The Designer

Introduction
Multimedia Design is a way of communicating a concept or information via a website, CD-ROM, kiosk, usually in an interactive form. Television uses multimedia specialists in the non interactive form. Many different varieties of media and techniques are used in production. A multimedia professional will be skilled in manipulating images and information from a variety of sources including audio, video, still images, animation, physical objects, text, soundtracks and digital data using computer applications and related visual and sound techniques.
 * Interactive Multimedia Design: This includes work on kiosks, interactive CDs or DVDs, and Web Design. Audio, Video, Animation, Photos and more can be elements in the overall design of the output. But it is the Graphical User Interface (GUI) that sets Interactive design apart from Audio Visual Design. There has to be some sort of navigation involved that gives the user the choice of which content they choose to access, and when. So an Interactive Multimedia Specialist will make sure that all media elements tie in together effectively, AND the user can easily navigate to find the information that they seek through the Graphical User Interface.
 * Non Interactive: This kind of work can be seen on non interactive output such as TV & the Internet. Commercials, websites using Flash intros, and movies are all examples of the work of an Audio Visual Specialist.

Multimedia designers will often work with programs such as Adobe Premiere, Macromedia Director, Adobe Photoshop, and sometimes Microsoft PowerPoint for business presentations. On the Internet, it has become popular to use Macromedia Flash to present a multimedia experience in a quick downloading format.

(A Digital Dreamer, 2004)

User Interface Design
Looking Good--A Lesson in Layout" Embedded Systems Programming (08/04) Vol. 17, No. 8, P. 14; Murphy, Niall Niall Murphy, user interface designer and author of "Front Panel: Designing Software for Embedded User Interfaces," explains that programmers can improve the quality of their UIs by applying standard layout methods employed by graphic designers, and he outlines a number of them in this article. He recommends nesting boxes as a measure for communicating the information’s hierarchy, while combining indentation with heavier fonts to individualize section headers reduces clutter. The Western standard of top-to-bottom and left-to-right ordering can also be applied, one example being a box with icons positioned on the left, setting names in the middle, and values to the right. Murphy notes that the text baseline must be maintained for readability, and points out that most GUI building tools overlook this requirement. The author remarks that vertical listings are more effective than horizontal, and suggests that a symmetrical layout configuration establishes balance and is also visually appealing. The interface designer advises against display overcrowding, and recommends that the programmer carefully review overcrowded dialogs and remove unnecessary features, and then split the dialog into multiple dialogs; Murphy also notes that 3D effects may add clutter in situations where it must be applied to a number of objects that are displayed concurrently. Questions should be immediately followed by a series of possible answers rather than intermediate information, and Murphy writes that repetition of labels indicates that the information might be better displayed in a column. The author observes that UIs, like printed media, are generally arranged along a grid for consistency, and writes that horizontal and vertical divisions are equally important in GUI dialog-box layout; "You may use a grid to enforce symmetry and order on a single dialog, or you may be designing multiple dialogs and using a grid will help maintain consistency," Murphy notes (Murphy, 2004, Jul).

The interface between the designer and the developer

 * Two Cats In A Sack: Designer-Developer Discord (McDaniel, 2011)

Some case studies

 * Behind the Scenes: What it Takes to Redesign a 12 Million User Website