That certain means or tools which interact between the components of computer or a simply a computer and its user to communicate the information‟s, data, output instructions among them. The user interface may contain several tools like command buttons, text box, menus, pop-up, scroll bars, list box, combo box, image, video and audio player, links etc.
A good mmultimedia interface must contain the multiple media sometimes using multiple modes as written text together with spoken language. Multimedia will be meaningless if application do not, use the various media at the user interface for input and output, since media determines how human computer interaction occur but also how well.
There are several factors which should be considered while designing the user interface some of them are:
1. Determine the appropriate information content to be communicated.
2. to represent the communicative intent
3. Represent the essential characteristics of the information.
4. To choose the proper media for information presentation.
5. To co-ordinates different media and assembling techniques, with in the presentation.
6. To provide the interactive exploration of the information presented.
The objective of multimedia presentations should be the appropriateness principles that are the information should be exactly acceptable to the task neither more nor less.
The functionality for video is not as simple to deliver because of the requirement of high data transfer rate, which is not guaranteed by most of the hardware in current graphics system. Special hardware for visualization of motion picture is available today, mostly through additional video cards.
A good mmultimedia interface must contain the multiple media sometimes using multiple modes as written text together with spoken language. Multimedia will be meaningless if application do not, use the various media at the user interface for input and output, since media determines how human computer interaction occur but also how well.
Basic design issues:
The main emphasis in the design of multimedia user interfaces is multimedia presentation. An effective presentation process should not involve only sequential flow of actions but, also parallel and interactive actions, i.e. there is a requirement for intensive feed back going on between the components making decision about media and modalities. The design includes a number of higher level concerns such as goal and focus of the dialog, The user content and current task including the media relation to represent that data and information to represent that data and information in a way that correspond those concerns.There are several factors which should be considered while designing the user interface some of them are:
1. Determine the appropriate information content to be communicated.
2. to represent the communicative intent
3. Represent the essential characteristics of the information.
4. To choose the proper media for information presentation.
5. To co-ordinates different media and assembling techniques, with in the presentation.
6. To provide the interactive exploration of the information presented.
The objective of multimedia presentations should be the appropriateness principles that are the information should be exactly acceptable to the task neither more nor less.
Video at user interface:
At the user interface, video is implemented through a continuous sequence of individual images video can be manipulated at user interface similar to manipulation of still (normal) picture/image. A continuous sequence of 15 images per second gives a rough perception of continuous motion pictures.The functionality for video is not as simple to deliver because of the requirement of high data transfer rate, which is not guaranteed by most of the hardware in current graphics system. Special hardware for visualization of motion picture is available today, mostly through additional video cards.
Audio at user interface:
Audio will be implemented at the interface for application control. Thus speech analysis is necessary.
Speech analysis is either speaker dependent or speaker independent, speaker depends solution allow the input of approx 25 thousands different words with a relatively low error rate. Here an intensive learning phase to trends the speech analysis system for speaker specific characteristics is necessary prior to the speech analysis phase. A speaker independent system can recognize only a limited set of words and no training phase is required. During audio output, the additional presentation dimension of space can be introduced using two or more separate channel to give a more natural distribution of sound. The best known example of these techniques is stereo.
1. Application instructions must be easy to learn i.e. application must have a easy to learn instruction section.
2. A concept sensitive help function using hypermedia techniques must be available in user interface.
3. A user friendly interface must have the property that he user remembers the application instruction rules.
4. A user interface should enable effective use of the application.
5. The color combination, character set, resolution and form of the window must be impressive for different taste user; it determines the first and last impression of the application.
6. A user friendly human computer graphical interface must be fulfill immediately if any missing.
7. User friendly interface must have specific supports for elements entry by menu or by graphical interface.
8. Individual function must be placed together in meaning full fashion through alphabetic ordering or logical grouping.
9. Presentation that is optical image must be by full text, abbreviated text, icons, graphics, and motion video.
10. The interface also may have different D.B (dialog box) for supporting different operations.
User friendliness as primary goal:
User friendliness is a property of a good user interface, for example multimedia integrated telephone service having good user interface than ISDN telephone service.The design of user friendly graphical interface requires the consideration of many conditions. The addition of audio and video at the user interface does not simplify this process, there are a number of applicable criteria for multimedia user interface some of them are:1. Application instructions must be easy to learn i.e. application must have a easy to learn instruction section.
2. A concept sensitive help function using hypermedia techniques must be available in user interface.
3. A user friendly interface must have the property that he user remembers the application instruction rules.
4. A user interface should enable effective use of the application.
5. The color combination, character set, resolution and form of the window must be impressive for different taste user; it determines the first and last impression of the application.
6. A user friendly human computer graphical interface must be fulfill immediately if any missing.
7. User friendly interface must have specific supports for elements entry by menu or by graphical interface.
8. Individual function must be placed together in meaning full fashion through alphabetic ordering or logical grouping.
9. Presentation that is optical image must be by full text, abbreviated text, icons, graphics, and motion video.
10. The interface also may have different D.B (dialog box) for supporting different operations.