INFORMATIONAL MULTIMEDIA AND WEB SITES DEFINED

Most multimedia is designed to communicate information or to allow users to perform information-based tasks. Multimedia informational titles include many Web sites, educational and reference CDs and DVDs, corporate training programs, museum exhibits, and even online advertising.

If the information being presented is about something concrete, such as a person or a place, informational multimedia follows the documentary tradition of presenting its information through the actual locations and individuals studied. For example, Compton's Interactive Encyclopedia shows a video of Babe Ruth hitting a home run in Yankee Stadium, as opposed to having an actor portray Ruth in a studio. The Harlem Renaissance Web site (see Chapter 12) has photos and video of Harlem in the 1920s.

If the information is more abstract, such as the process of buying a home, the material can be explained through text; visualizations, such as charts; and even interactive devices, such as calculators. See the case study in Chapter 10, "Writing a Marketing Web Sit from Proposal to Meta Tags: Prudential Verani Realty."

There would be nothing wrong with an informational program that used an actor to play Babe Ruth, and many informational programs are created using narrative fiction. Examples include dramatic re-creations of historical events, or character-driven training programs in which an actor takes on the role of a typical employee. Narrative fiction and informational programs using narrative have special concerns of their own and will be dealt with later in Part III, "Writing Narrative Multimedia."...