Web and interactive media authoring: HSC Industrial Technology Multimedia Technologies
“Describe the authoring of interactive and web-based multimedia products, including authoring tools, navigation and interactivity, web technologies, usability and accessibility, and publishing”
Authoring assembles media elements into an interactive product using authoring tools or web technologies. Navigation lets users move through the product and interactivity lets them act and get a response, built from buttons, links and triggered events. Usability and accessibility ensure the product is easy and inclusive to use, and testing across devices and browsers confirms it works. The finished product is then published to its delivery platform.
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What this dot point is asking
Authoring is where the media elements are assembled into a finished interactive product, and increasingly that product is web-based. NESA expects you to describe how interactive and web multimedia is authored: the tools used, how navigation and interactivity are built, the web technologies involved, and the usability, accessibility and publishing that make a product usable. This is the stage where your Major Project comes together, and it is examined in the written paper.
Authoring tools
Authoring is the process of combining text, images, audio, video and animation into a single interactive product, and it is done with authoring tools or web technologies. Authoring software lets the developer lay out screens, place media, define how users navigate and add interactive behaviour, often without heavy coding. The tool chosen depends on the product: a self-contained interactive presentation, a kiosk application or a website each suit different authoring approaches.
Navigation and interactivity
Two features define an interactive product:
- Navigation is how users move through the product: menus, buttons, links and a structure that lets them reach any part and know where they are. Consistent, intuitive navigation is essential to usability.
- Interactivity is the product responding to the user: clicking a button reveals content, hovering changes an element, answering a question gives feedback. Interactivity is built from events (a user action) that trigger responses, and it is what distinguishes multimedia from passive media.
Well-designed navigation and interactivity make a product feel responsive and easy, while poor design leaves users lost.
Web technologies
Web-based multimedia is built on web technologies that structure content, style its appearance and add behaviour. Pages are structured with markup, styled for layout and look, and made interactive with scripting that responds to user actions. The product runs in a web browser, so it can reach any device with a browser, which is why so much multimedia is now delivered on the web. Understanding that the structure, presentation and behaviour are handled by distinct technologies helps you build and explain a web product.
Usability and accessibility
A product must work for real users, which means designing for usability and accessibility:
- Usability means the product is easy to learn and use, with clear navigation, consistent design, sensible feedback and no confusion about what to do.
- Accessibility means people with different abilities can use it, for example by providing text alternatives for images, captions for video, adequate colour contrast and keyboard navigation.
Designing for usability and accessibility is both good practice and increasingly an expectation, and it shows the maturity markers reward.
Testing and publishing
Before release, an interactive product is tested: every link and interaction is checked, and the product is tried across the different devices, screen sizes and browsers its audience will use, because what works on one may break on another. Faults are fixed and the product is retested. Finally it is published to its delivery platform, uploaded to a web server, packaged as an application or written to its delivery medium, and checked again in its real environment. In your folio, document this testing and publishing so the markers see a finished, working product, not just a built one.
Interactivity is built from events and responses: a user action, such as a click or hover, is an event that triggers a response, such as revealing content or giving feedback. This event-and-response model is what makes a product interactive rather than a passive sequence the user merely watches.
- Confusing navigation and interactivity
- Navigation moves users through the product; interactivity is the product responding to their actions. Both must be designed.
- Ignoring accessibility
- Leaving out text alternatives, captions and contrast excludes users; design accessibly from the start.
- Testing on one device only
- A product that works on your computer may break on other browsers or screens; test across the target devices.
- Stopping at built, not published
- A product is not finished until it is published to its platform and confirmed working there; document this in the folio.
Exam-style questions
Questions in the style of NESA exam questions on this dot point, each with a worked answer. They are written by ExamExplained unless tagged "Past paper"; the year shows the paper a question is modelled on.
2019 HSC-style1 markWhich of the following best describes how an interlaced GIF downloads? A. As blocks B. In alternating strips C. Entire image instantly D. From the centre outwardsShow worked answer →
The correct answer is B: in alternating strips.
An interlaced GIF is stored so that the image loads in several passes, displaying every few rows (alternating strips) first and then filling in the rows between on later passes. The viewer sees a low-detail version of the whole image quickly that then sharpens, which is useful on slow connections so users can preview the picture before it fully arrives.
It does not appear all at once (C), nor only as blocks (A) or from the centre outwards (D); the defining behaviour is progressive loading in interlaced strips, so B is correct.
2019 HSC-style2 marksA website is to be developed with a Home Page (links to About Us, Contact Us and Services), an About Us page (embedded video, links to Contact Us), a Contact Us page (web form) and a Services page (links to three content pages). All pages link back to the Home Page. Starting with the Home Page, draw a storyboard for the website.Show worked answer →
This is a structure/storyboard question, so the marks are for showing the pages and the links (navigation) between them correctly.
Draw the Home Page at the top as the starting node. Connect it to three boxes: About Us, Contact Us and Services. From About Us draw a link to Contact Us and show the embedded video. From Services draw links down to three separate content page boxes. Show the Contact Us page containing a web form. Finally, draw return links from every page back to the Home Page.
One mark is for showing all the required pages in a sensible hierarchy, and one mark is for showing the correct links, including the branches from Services and the return links to Home.
2019 HSC-style4 marksDiscuss TWO technologies that can be used to block access to inappropriate content on the world wide web.Show worked answer →
A four-mark answer should name two technologies and discuss how each works and its strengths or limits, roughly two marks each.
Filtering software (content filters). This software is installed on a device or network and checks requested pages against block lists, allowed lists and keyword or category rules, blocking sites that match. It can be tailored per user, but keyword filters can over-block legitimate sites or miss new ones, and determined users may try to bypass them.
Firewalls and proxy servers. A firewall or filtering proxy sits between users and the internet and inspects traffic, denying connections to blocked addresses or categories before content reaches the user. It protects a whole network centrally, but it requires configuration and maintenance and can be defeated by encrypted traffic or proxy-avoidance services.
Other acceptable technologies include DNS filtering and parental-control settings; full marks need two technologies each explained with a benefit or limitation.