Done wrong, however, a multimedia project can become a story of agony, frustration, heartbreak and disappointment. This overview highlights key areas associated with instructional design that should allow the reader to avoid many pitfalls associated with multimedia utilization in higher education and training. Before starting an instructional multimedia project, the instructor or project manager must decide whether multimedia is the most cost effective tool for meeting the learning objectives. Even if multimedia looks like a good fit, the designer must still be on guard against using every bell and whistle available. While the new technologies allow for new creative solutions, technology also can become a stumbling block when used in excess.
Conscious thought is slow, serial, pedestrian, and severely constrained by a limited working memory.
In fact, poor performance may result from paying too much attention to the application of the relevant information. From the instructional designer's point of view, you can never underestimate the confusion possible in a learner's mind. What follows is a distillation of the key topics that must be considered when planning, organizing, directing and controlling the instructional design process. Dick and Carey recommend approaching an ID task through a detailed process outlined in Table 1. Making the trade-off of efficiency for effectiveness, a shortened version makes sense when considering teaching and implementing multimedia projects of a small scale.