For these reasons, multimedia is still very much an experimental
technology. When it is combined with the web, another technology that
is only slightly more stable, the results can be quite unpredictable.
10.4.1. The Bleeding Edge
Because multimedia is so new, standards are only now beginning to
emerge. Moreover, the standards that do exist have a tendency to
change frequently or to be completely usurped by new standards. Many
multimedia software extensions are very proprietary in nature. As
such, they are only available to people running on platforms to which
the software has been ported. While virtually all of the most popular
additions are available for both Macs and PCs, the Unix community is
at a definite disadvantage due to the large variety of hardware on
which Unix runs; only a small subset of Unix machines ever see these
multimedia ports.
Even the mainstream operating systems have problems with multimedia. There are large numbers of older computers still in use today in both industry and the private sector. Many of these machines simply cannot provide the processor power and storage space needed to support real time audio and video.
Multimedia is also problematic because it is usually implemented via browser extensions (which are called such things as "drop ins", "plug ins", etc). So even if a user is browsing the web using a powerful and supported machine, he or she often has to go download and install the extensions before the multimedia content can be viewed. Many users find this to be a difficult process, though the leading software developers have made certain inroads in simplifying the procedure.
Still, even if a user has managed to meet all these criteria, the act
of accessing the multimedia data is still quite daunting. Digitized
sound and video files are notoriously huge. Thirty seconds of video
can easily take up several megabytes of disk space. Audio is
somewhat better, but still quite large. Given that the majority of
web surfers today access the net over low speed modem connections,
download times are quite large for files of this size. Many users are
simply unwilling to put up with the wait.
10.4.2. Proceed with Caution
Not all forms of multimedia share these problems in equal measure.
For example, animated GIFs are relatively small. Browsers that
support them generally do so internally without the need for
cumbersome extensions. And browsers that don't support them can still
display a single frame of the animation.
Even so, web designers should exercise caution when using any form of multimedia on their pages. Inline animations of any kind can be very distracting for the user. A constantly running GIF animation will tend to draw the reader's eyes, pulling them away from the text and meaningful content on the page. Considering that most of these images are used more for decoration that to convey meaningful information, it usually isn't a good idea for them to be drawing that much attention to themselves, as was discussed by Tufte (Tufte, 1992). These animations really aren't much better than the hated Netscape <BLINK> tag.
When dealing with large multimedia files included as links rather than being inline, some small and simple courtesies can make for a much happier user community. In particular, one should always indicate the size of the multimedia data near the link to the actual file. This lets the user gauge the probable download time and decide if it's really worth it. Other dimensions such as running time or, in the case of video, width and height of the image, are often also a good idea to include. They give the user an idea of what it is they will be getting before they take the time to download it.
In order to provide the user with the most information about a large file in advance to help them choose whether or not they want the whole thing, web designers often include a smaller version of the actual document inline as part for the link. For audio, this may mean writing out any dialogue in the file or describing what sounds it contains. For video, this may be a frame or two from the film itself. Even for large still images, a smaller "thumbnail" image is often included so that the user doesn't have to spend time downloading a picture that is of no interest.
Copyright © 1996 Joseph W. Reiss, All Rights Reserved
Joe Reiss
<jreiss@vt.edu>
Last modified: Sun Oct 27 18:50:41 1996