The troubles often come from overly enthusiastic goals coupled with an overly complex environment. The next five areas emphasize the need for controlling the goal definition stage of a multimedia project. Those just beginning to work in multimedia environments should beware of attempting to do what they want to do. Dreams of leaping forward with a new educational paradigm should be cut back in content, cost, and time to a seemingly small size. Projects should be selected based on instructional value, people availability, people commitment, and, very importantly in a video-based project, content stability.
Multimedia is just that-more than one medium used together.
However, what media are in the mix is widely variable. Others validly recognize that music, voice, sounds, still-camera images, graphics, animation, live video, and videodisc sources also should be considered in many projects. Each additional selection significantly increases design and implementation complexity. Once beyond the relative safety of a text-based realm, instructional developers will need to have available a wide range of skills. The new skills needed may include radio, television, and graphic arts proficiencies.