ABSTRACT
This chapter highlights the importance of matching multimedia to specific ends and audiences by recognizing the strengths and weaknesses of different formats—from simple PowerPoint presentations to sophisticated web designs. For visual researchers, multimedia is an opportunity to combine various types of data together into one product like a webpage. Researchers most commonly use PowerPoint slide shows for academic presentations, as these are not difficult to develop with basic backgrounds, text, and images. Perhaps the “lowest tech” and oldest form of multimedia is the poster, which is a highly effective and widely underappreciated means for presenting research findings. The strengths of multimedia are their power to integrate complementary types of data that maximize users’ experiences, and the relative ease with which they can be constructed and distributed. Where webs and blogs are geared toward displaying and communicating research materials with a broad audience, digital stories are focused, multimedia productions that concentrate on one person’s narrative.
