Multimedia Application

Development
Multimedia system development life cycle
• The Multimedia system development process involves a number of
steps like traditional software system development and is known as
the Multimedia System Development Life Cycle (MSDLC).
• Multimedia system development life cycle
• Defining the system
• System Design
• Tools selection
• Authoring/rendering
• Testing
Fig: System Development Life Cycle
System Design

• This is one of the most important part of the Multimedia System

Development Life Cycle (MSDLC)
• The most common way to start a design is by composing an outline of
the sequences and locks of information that will appear on the
screen. This determines the amount of information-text, graphics,
clickable objects which will be presented on each screen.
• It is also time to establish a navigation methodology for the user. The
developer has to decide whether there will be a navigation bar with
arrows leading from scene to scene, or there will be text or objects
that the users should click to jump argon the entire program.
• The storyboard can be used for a great deal of animation or many
different scenes. Used by film directors for productions ranging from
30-second television commercials to feature-length motion pictures,
the storyboard consists of sketches of the scenes and actions.
• Mapping out a storyboard helps the author to recognize gaps in logic.
Some multimedia authoring programs provide facilities for drawing
and organizing the frames of a storyboard.
Tools Selection

• Multimedia product requires many types of software tools, for

instance, creating text often requires a word processor; working with
digital images requires graphics software; using video requires a
video-capture program and editing software; sound often requires its
own editing software.
• All of this software is used to generate the content. When the content
is ready, it needs to be assembled in a process called multimedia
authoring.
• This process requires still another type of software, which can
understand different types of media, combine them, control the
sequences in which they appear, and create navigational tools for the
user interface.
• The tools used for multimedia depend largely on the variety of media
to be included. For a simple text-and-graphics slide show type of
presentation, a presentation software program should be enough.
Authoring/Rendering

• After the creation of all the contents, it is required to put them all
together. For a complex product created with the use of a
sophisticated tool such as a director, the multimedia authoring
generally is performed by a skilled multimedia developer or
programmer.
Testing

• The multimedia product should be tested by the users. By going through

this testing, the developer can locate flaws ahead of time and repaired
them before unleashing the finished product. During the test, the
developer should consider the following points:
• Is it a product to read (in case of descriptive text)?
• Is it user friendly?
• Is it interactive and easy to navigate?
• The final audience and the developer very often have different points of
view. The developer must learn to regard problems the user detects with
the program as constructive criticism. The reason testing is so valuable is
that it is too easy to lose sight of the audience once the heavy-duty
authoring starts.
Project conceptualization:

• Every project begins with a concept.

• A multimedia project concept is actually the definition of the project.
• To define the project, it is required for the development team and the
clients to do the various meetings and discussions to identify the
actual problem.
• It may be the upgradation of the existing one or the entirely new one.
It must satisfy the existing requirements of the customer.
Planning and Costing:

• In this stage, the analysis of the idea is done which is to be translated

into a multimedia project. This idea can be further refined by
outlining its messages and objectives. Before starting to develop the
multimedia project, it is necessary to plan what writing skills, graphic
art, music, video, and other multimedia skills will be required. It is
also necessary to estimate the time needed to prepare all elements of
multimedia and prepare a budget accordingly. After preparing a
budget, a prototype of the concept can be developed.
Design and Production:

• Once the project is taken up for development, the laborious project

development cycle starts. Under this stage, the various sub-stages are
to be carried out.
• Data gathering
• Navigation map structure design
• Media content design
• Interface designing
• Storyboarding
• Integration (multimedia authoring)
Testing:

• In every project, the Testing stage ensures that the product to be free
from bugs.
• Apart from bug elimination, another aspect of testing is to ensure
that the multimedia application meets the objectives of the project.
• It is also necessary to test whether the multimedia project works
properly on the planned delivery platforms and meets the needs of
the clients.
Delivery:

• The final stage of the multimedia application development is to pack

the project and deliver the complete project to the end-user. This
stage has several steps such as:
• Implementation,
• Maintenance,
• Shipping and marketing
User Interface Technique
• Consistency, consistency, consistency. I believe the most important thing
you can possibly do is ensure your user interface works consistently. If you
can double-click on items in one list and have something happen, then you
should be able to double-click on items in any other list and have the same
sort of thing happen. Put your buttons in consistent places on all your
windows, use the same wording in labels and messages, and use a
consistent color scheme throughout. Consistency in your user interface
enables your users to build an accurate mental model of the way it works,
and accurate mental models lead to lower training and support costs.
• Set standards and stick to them. The only way you can ensure consistency
within your application is to set user interface design standards, and then
stick to them. You should follow Agile Modeling (AM)'s Apply Modeling
Standards practice in all aspects of software development, including user
interface design.
• Be prepared to hold the line. When you are developing the user interface for your
system you will discover that your stakeholders often have some unusual ideas as to how
the user interface should be developed. You should definitely listen to these ideas but
you also need to make your stakeholders aware of your corporate UI standards and the
need to conform to them.
• Explain the rules. Your users need to know how to work with the application you built for
them. When an application works consistently, it means you only have to explain the
rules once. This is a lot easier than explaining in detail exactly how to use each feature in
an application step-by-step.
• Navigation between major user interface items is important. If it is difficult to get from
one screen to another, then your users will quickly become frustrated and give up. When
the flow between screens matches the flow of the work the user is trying to accomplish,
then your application will make sense to your users. Because different users work in
different ways, your system needs to be flexible enough to support their various
approaches. User interface-flow diagrams should optionally be developed to further your
understanding of the flow of your user interface.