Click here to view at actual size (jpeg)
The Internet is the biggest thing to hit humanity since the capture of fire. The Internet is a frontier in the same way as the wild west of old America was a frontier, many places uncharted with many rules that haven't been laid down yet (Radio One (UK) 1995).
There is a vast amount of information published by organisations on the Internet's World Wide Web and we in the fledgling Web publishing and consultancy industry are faced with what might be termed the 'datamushroom of information' because of the Web 'publishing crisis'. Many high profile corporate organisations are formulating a Web presence and Internet strategy but few are doing it with good practice in mind. Nearly anyone can purchase a copy of an authoring program such as Adobe Sitemill and then publish the resulting document on the World Wide Web. Fine? - not really. It is this continued growth of web sites that have been developed 'inhouse' that has brought about the need for us (Neural.com) to begin examining the design issues of distributed multimedia Web sites.
This paper surveys the Web for past and present successes and failures of web site design and suggests several reasons why certain Web sites will prevail and set the standard for multimedia communications on the World Wide Web and why others most certainly will not. Recommendations (good design practice) within the field of on-line interactive media delivered over the Internet are also detailed.
A lot of people in our industry haven't had diverse experiences. So they don't have enough dots to connect, they end up with very linear solutions without a broad perspective on the problem. The broader one's understanding of the human experience the better design will have. We don't teach people these things. Unless they go out of their way, they don't learn them (Wolf 1996a).
The first and most important stage in constructing a Web site is a thorough understanding of the aims and ojectives of why the organisation is setting up a presence on the Internet's World Wide Web. The first question that must be answered is 'What are you hoping to achieve in setting up an Internet presence?' There needs to be firmly defined aims and objectives for this process. If not, then there can be no method for measuring a successful site. It is always a good idea to have a mission statement for the site. The aims and objectives of the organisation may be broad or narrow, but the site 'must' have a purpose and reason. This is important if you are to justify the resources allocated to an Internet project because fighting your battles internally with people who don't understand the ethos of the Internet can be an uphill struggle.
A good Internet designer is not so much a graphic artist or multimedia designer as an 'information architect'. Designing (information design) for the medium is a critical function neglected by many organisations. While all aspects of multimedia can be useful in producing a successful corporate Web site, the analysis of information design considerations is the stage on which we would like to concentrate.
Large companies not paying attention to changes will get hurt. The Web will be one more area of significant change and those who don't pay attention will get hurt, while those that see it early will be rewarded (Wolf 1996b).
The Internet is not just another form of communication but a medium whose contents are interactive, fluid and user driven. The medium itself is quite constricted in some regards - for instance, when compared to other forms of interactive media such as CD ROM or desktop based applications with their ability to deliver the message dynamically. Designing for the Internet can also be quite a daunting prospect when you come from a traditional design background and find yourself having to acquire skills in complex UNIX programming scripts and languages and networking technologies that would be more suited to computing science graduates. However, designers need to know their tools and their limitations so that they can understand why restraints on the Internet have become restraints. Designers will benefit from learning what is possible with design for the World Wide Web and by casting aside conventions learnt using other mediums.
All good design acknowledges the restriction of the medium and uses them to its advantage. The Internet has restrictions (Garret 1995).
Interactive multimedia embodies the combination and interaction of multiple media types such as text, graphics, video, animation, music and voice into a computing environment of information. This makes the user or designer able to manipulate this information into their own style or application. The user can interact and control this new type of medium with information and ideas. This new medium breaks away from linear media such as books, film and video. With linear media there is a beginning, middle and an end. With the Internet and interactive multi-media, in general this is not the case; such a system allows the user to go to any part of it.
Multimedia adds vibrancy to the drab palette of networked computing by incorporating sounds, images and video into what originally was an all-text medium. The reality however, is that on most desktops, Quick Time movies are jerky and video is played in miniature formats in external applications alongside your Web browser. On-line images take too long to view and video conferencing systems are expensive and usually require ISDN connections which few people have available. The truth is that only a limited number of Internet users can access the World Wide Web in its full graphical glory and many Web sites are in effect being falsely marketed by organisations ignoring this fact. These sites are, for the vast majority of Internet users, over-hyped and disappointing. One of the main problems with the Internet is that the current infrastructure was created for all-text computing with little memory requirements, whereas multimedia involves large amounts of data requiring high bandwidth, storage space and processing power. Designers must realise that when distributing information over analogue networks which, in some cases are more than 80 years old, it may be that your 2 megabyte, MPEG compressed movie of the Chairman's speech is unnecessary and inappropriate.
Multimedia is probably one of the most over-hyped terms of the 1990s. The present technological state of the Web is quite restrictive if a comparison is made with other forms of digital multimedia. Although judicious use of multimedia is to be encouraged, the real benefit of the Web is not in the quality of the graphics that we can download but in it's interactivity - that is, in user participation and interaction. Remember that the Internet is a social mechanism first and a business mechanism second. Good site designers realise that the desire of the users to interact with the site is the most important barometer of success.
There are various types of information contained in Web documents which are delivered in multiple media forms. These different types of media form are transported, stored and processed in different ways. Text-based information is the most common and simplistic form of displaying information which users interact with most frequently compared to other forms of media on the Internet. Web documents are programmed in text. There are, however, developments in progress that will use 'objects' to program documents. Graphic images represented as either lines, curves or circles are the second most frequently used on the Web. These 'flood in' (display) after the text.
What can be achieved with networked multimedia is relatively primitive with technological developments to date. These developments are being fused with other media forms already standard on the Web. Networked multimedia on the Web can offer many multimedia ways to communicate at a distance, such as Video Conferencing, Audio and Multimedia Electronic Mail. The majority of these applications are slow and require downloading before viewing. It is unlikely at this stage of Web development to experience full multimedia facilities in real time over the Internet mainly because of development in compression techniques, software development and programming as a whole.
Most people who are generating World-Wide Web pages are not taking into consideration the technological limitations of the other 30 million users (Collie 1995).
Good design practice would include a comment at the top of your home page or even a text only version to replace the graphical version of the site. Secondly, Web sites do not require swish graphics, fancy diagrams or JAVA applets and shockwave (glitz and jazz) to portray a particular message. Also remember that graphics are worthless if the finished result is disappointing and meaningless, especially after a heavy download time. Graphics should only be thought of after consideration has been given to the person at the other end of the Internet connection who perhaps only has a 14,000 bps Modem.
Click here to view at actual size (jpeg)
Click here to view at actual size (jpeg)
Click here to view at actual size (jpeg)
(Diagram 1) Click here to view at actual size(jpeg)
(Diagram 2) Click here to view at actual size (jpeg)
(Diagram 3) Click here to view at actual size (jpeg)
Click here to view at actual size (jpeg)
Click here to view at actual size (jpeg)
Many corporate Web sites appear to have been designed at 'street level'. Use of 'email speak' has appeared on many Web sites - 'Contact the Web mistress if you dare!' and 'Dare you contact us?' are examples of the many juvenile phrases encountered on high profile, corporate sites. Perhaps these organisations simply aren't prepared to put time and energy into creating successful Web sites. Perhaps they want to develop the site now, then develop the strategy next year. This appears to be quite common. Why is it that senior corporate managers in so many companies are using the formal title of 'The Webmaster'? This gender-specific title demeans the organisations using it. Perhaps it has not occurred to some people that 31 million Internet users seems like an awful lot of spotty, 14 year old males. The really bad news for those people is that there should be about 150 million of them by 1999.
It's not the number of people you attract to you Web site that counts, but the quality of their experience there (Schwartz 1996).
