Multimedia environments - supporting authors and users with real-world metaphors

This work investigates the processes of constructing and using multimedia information systems within the particular context of supporting real-world metaphors. It is recommended that authoring tools for multimedia environments should integrate mechanisms for both the design and implementation tasks. Furthermore, the tool should provide a set of real-world metaphors that support both the author in structuring the information, and the user in understanding and interacting with that information. By bringing the authoring and interaction processes closer together under a real-world metaphor, the author's task in constructing a usable and engaging multimedia information system should be much simpler. This paper discusses this and illustrates the process by describing a system called ShareME - Shared Multimedia Environments.