Browsers, scanners, and students demand different kinds of structural, modular and interactive writing. A good example of module design is in theatre or other performance based works of fiction. The analogy is quite useful. Look at the way in which a play is constructed from self-contained scenes, paced acts which flow together to make up an entire play. Multimedia modules need to provide some kind of explicit linking, coding and programmatic connections.
People are better at recognising information than recalling information.
For example a person can remember between 2 to 3 thousand words, but can recognise over 100 thousand. A representation of an object that is meaningful helps the user both to transfer knowledge about a real-world object to the computing environment and to remember the relationship of the object to others. It is important to control revealing prerequisite information so that the user is not overwhelmed and builds, not only knowledge, but confidence in their own ability to construct that knowledge. Video or other animated sequences are excellent vehicles for information that can best be taught dynamically or through seeing a change over time. Information has context as well as content in the on-line world and this is affected by the minute technical details that go into each digital document.