exercises

21. hypertext, multimedia and the world-wide web

EXERCISE 21.3

What factors are likely to delay the widespread use of video in interfaces? What applications could benefit most from its use?

answer

Some of the factors are the costs in terms of hardware and software for compression and decompression; the slow speed due to the high bandwidth; the overall cost of equipment (for example, camera, video, CD); the lack of design tools to exploit video; the lack of specialist skills amongst designers. Many applications have been suggested as candidates for the integration of video. Educational systems, games and help systems are liable to benefit since information can be passed more clearly and memorably and new dimensions added. Other areas such as virtual reality can use video together with graphics in the creation of their artificial worlds. CSCW systems can use video to provide a face-to-face communication link between distributed workers (see Chapters 14 and 19). However, although these appear to be areas where video has a promising future, its use needs to be carefully considered and its consequences investigated. It may be that it will not fulfil its initial promise.

Other exercises in this chapter

ex.21.1 (ans), ex.21.2 (ans), ex.21.3 (ans), ex.21.4 (ans)

all exercises for this chapter