Principles of Interactive Multimedia

"Principles of Interactive Multimedia" introduces all the contributory fields that are necessary for informed, thoughtful design and development of multimedia systems to be delivered through CD, the web or other mechanisms. It adopts an inter-disciplinary approach. The focus is to explain the basics of all the contributing disciplines to the design of systems. The book equips readers to think about multimedia issues, at the same time as they are learning and applying skills. It will encourage development, innovation and creative operation using the tools of multimedia. Multimedia workers operate in teams with differing skills, and this book will give each member of the team an understanding of the skills of the rest of the team and hence a means of communicating with them effectively. It is closely related to the needs of practice and the real world, while being leading edge in what it proposes.Written by an author with many years' experience as lecturer and practitioner in multimedia applications, the book focuses on the underpinning models behind multimedia. Hitherto, practice has been to teach the material primarily as skill-based, with comparatively little theory of any sort, and no integrated theory at all. The subject is now reaching the level of maturity where such theory is being recognised as essential to the provision of adequate courses as an academic discipline. The book provides this integrated theoretical base by focussing on interaction as the key to system design, and particularly by using linguistic models to underpin a communication interpretation of multimedia. This unification is unique, but has been used with students over several years and is well received by those from both science and arts backgrounds. It has been positively received by other academics who have seen it.

Mark Elsom-Cook is based at the University of Huddersfield.