The expertise of many team members was needed to understand the different media types and the technology for working with them. Long development cycles were required to plan, design, and develop projects that integrated multiple media. As a result, the decision to use multimedia typically meant large investments of time and money. But in recent years, development tools have become more affordable and easier to use. Meantime, with the expansion of the Web and the proliferation of CD-ROM drives on even basic PCs, audiences expectations for multimedia content have expanded.
Technical communicators can be ideal candidates to initiate and take charge of such projects.
The skills we ve learned as writers, web-developers and online Help authors transfer well to the design and development of multimedia projects. The paper concludes with guidelines for managing fast-track projects as compared to traditional multimedia development. For the kinds of multimedia projects we re discussing here, there are two essential tools and lots of optional ones. The essential tools are a multimedia authoring program and a paint program. Optional tools can include any number of software and hardware products for creating and working with different types of media.