A Case Study in Hypermedia Design : Cd-Rom Encyclopedias
The function of a design model in a hypermedia project is to provide a formal method forspecifying the multimedia data objects that are to be stored and the screens and navigationalpaths that are to be provided to users. This formal expression provides a way to communicatedesign decisions and to automatically generate and maintain hypermedia applications. TheRMM approach to hypermedia and WWW design [Isakowitz et al 95] has been successfullyapplied in a number of real world applications over the last few years. In this paper, we extendthe RMM model in two ways. First, we develop an approach to handle the quot;unstructuredquot;components of the hypermedia applications such as those on the World Wide Web (WWW).Second, we show how dynamic (program) elements can be represented in the model thusfacilitating its application to a wider range of multimedia and especially, to Java applications.These extensions were developed as a result of an attempt to simulate the design of acommercial multimedia encyclopedia. The resulting design is used to illustrate the new HMdesign concepts