Should your software speak
2
Thinking about content and appearance
It is important to be clear about the content of the multimedia presentation you, or your children, are developing. You must ask "What content will be useful to those who will use the presentation?" In this way you eliminate irrelevant content from the presentation. You can identify useful content by listening to the views of potential users. Once you have decided what content is likely to be useful to the user then you have to ask yourself "How much content is appropriate?" In this way you avoid having either too much content in the presentation, which may require complex navigation and confuse the user, or too little content which will render the presentation trivial and irritating.
It is important to develop an appearance that will appeal to the user of the presentation. If you have a clearly identified user group you can look at other media - books, comics, magazines, television programmes, packaging for food, drinks and confectionery - that are used by that group. This will give you a sense of the aesthetics that will be attractive to the user group. This will enable you to identify colours, fonts and style of illustrations that will engage your users.