Multimedia: Some Thoughts
Text—Some
Vocabulary
Typeface—family of
graphic characters
Style—attributes of
the font (bold, italic)
Size—in points (1
point=1/72 of an inch)
Leading—line
spacing (pronounced ledding—can be adjusted in paragraph menu)
Kerning—spacing
between character pairs
Tracking—spacing
between characters
Rasterize—when
computer draws the letter representation on the screen using tiny square
pixels or dots
Serif
vs. Sans Serif
Types mechanical and
historical properties
Sans—French for
without
Serif fonts—body
text
Sans serif fonts—headlines
and bold statements
Serif—little
decoration at the end of a letter stroke
T
Tahoma
T
Comic Sans MS
Computer
Screen
Lengthy text document
may require hundreds of lines.
Rule of Thumb: make
you Web pages no longer than 1 ˝ to two screens of text.
Standard pages are
600 pixels—to get on one screen make your page 400 pixels high—no
scrolling required.
Create separate
link to complete document, ready for printing.
Tips
for Text
Be legible
Use as few different
faces as possible in the same work\
Adjust leading to
create pleasing look (lines too tight are hard to read)
Vary size of font
depending on importance of message
Adjust kerning
especially in titles
Use colors of text
and backgrounds to vary impact of text
Use anti-aliased text
where want gentle look (blends the edges)
DropCaps and
InitialCaps can accent work
Centered text blocks—beware
the number of lines—keep to a minimum
For
attention-grabbing results, try graphically altering and distorting the text
(wrap around a sphere, bend into a wave, splash in rainbow colors, etc.)
Experiment with
dropped shadows
Use White Space.
Surround headlines and important points with white space
Check with others—learn
to accept criticism
Make link phrases
meaningful
Use text links to
accent your page (watch colors and be consistent)
Use bold and emphasis
be be careful that your links and bold text don’t look the same
For web, but vital
text elements and menus in the top 320 pixels (only 10% of surfers scroll down
a page)
Navigation
Place on every page a
main menu of links
Avoid using more than
a few BACKS or RETURNS (frustrating to users and discourages exploration)
Be sure to label
buttons when used for navigation
Portrait
vs. Landscape
Note that while the
printed page is portrait (taller than wide) the computer screen is landscape
(wider than tall)
So…a page of print
will NOT fit on a computer screen
Solutions
Put text in a
scrolling field
Put text into a
single field or graphic image (textbox) and let the user move the whole window
up or down
Break the text into
fields that fit on a monitor sized page
Managing
Fonts
Just because you have
it does not mean all computers have it
Choose commonly
installed fonts if you want your page to "look" the same in most
machines
All platforms have
"default" fonts that are substituted. Check out the look of your
project with the default!
In the
beginning of the web…
Sound files were sent
in .au format
Internet Explorer
will recognize .au, .wav, and MIDI sound files
Netscape allows .aiff,
.mid, .wav, and .au formats
Streaming audio is
provided by LiveAudio, RealAudio, etc. plug-ins
HTML
tags for Sound
Automatically launch
a background sound by using the <EMBED> tag
<EMBED SRC="musicfilename.mid"
height=2 width=0 autostart=true>
This plays music as
soon as the page opens
You can display a
controller by specifying a specific height and width in the tag
<EMBED SRC="musicfilename.mid"
height=50 width=200 autostart=false></embed>
This command lets the
user control the music
Sound
is…
Most sensuous element
of multimedia
Music, sound effects,
speech
How you use it can
make or break your multimedia presentation
Good use enhances
Misuse can wreck your
project
MIDI
vs. MP3
MIDI files are
compact and very small in comparison to Real Audio
MIDI embed and load
quickly
MIDI data are easily
edited
MIDI is data not
actual sound so you can’t control the accuracy of the playback
Cannot playback
spoken dialog easily
Digital
Audio
Digitized sound is
sampled sound (every x seconds a sound is taken and stored as digital
information in bits and bytes) the more frequent the sampling the larger the
file
File size vs. quality
The higher the
sound quality the larger the file will be
Adding
Sound
Decide what kind of
sound is needed
Decide where the
sound will fit in the project
Decide what kind of
sound you want to use
Acquire the source
materials (sounds)
Edit to fit your
project
Text the sound and
time them properly
Images
Watch the size of the
image vs. the time it takes to load it
Low Resolution load
To speed load make
two files, compact black and white and full color image. Use Netscape's <lowsrc>
attribute for the <img> tag to load the black and white picture first.
Netscape then layers the color graphic over the black and white graphic.
Thumbnail—create a
thumbnail image to minimize the load time but still provide the user with the
full size graphic to see if desired.
File
formats
While many different
file formats for images exist, JPEG and GIF are the most common bitmap formats
All browsers display
them
Animation
Catches the eye and
makes things noticeable
Becomes trite if
overused
Use carefully and
sparingly
Video
Carefully planned
well executed video clips can make dramatic impact
Clip of a person
giving a sound bite of a speech is much more effective than the text of the
speech
Video use depends on
the availability of the clip and the size of the file (.MPEG)
The
Packaging
You have many options
for designing the look and feel of your project
Reality is that
people DO make quick judgments—about two seconds
Be sure that the
first page or cover of your project is first class
Plain (clear fonts,
not too many)
Simple (don’t worry
about plastic covers)
Copyright
Owning a copy of a
work does not entitle you to reproduce the work
Using a painting,
soundtrack, book excerpt must have permission
Rights have to be
licensed
Do not include any
images or voices of people unless you have their written consent to use it
What’s
in My PowerPoint?
Clear straightforward
table of contents (navigation map) for you project
Executive summary
(brief description of what is in you project)
Target Audience
(brief description of who your project is for and why)
Creative Strategy(
description of the look and feel of your project)
Layout--How it is
organized and how and what you used to create it
Cost—what things do
you have to have to do this project
Detail the things
that you are especially proud of and want to showcase in your project
Briefly note what you
learned in the process of completing the project!
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