ABSTRACT
What is the best way to communicate to someone how a complex system, such as a mechanical or biological system, works? The traditional way is to produce a printed book that combines textual descriptions with different kinds of illustrations, presented on sequential pages. With the advent of multimedia computers and hypermedia authoring tools, however, we no longer need to be confined to this traditional medium. For example, we can now choose to present verbal information as written text or as an audio commentary. Similarly, we can present diagrams as static or animated, and images as still photographs or video clips. Multimedia presentations, combining some or all of the aforementioned media, are becoming increasingly available as educational CD-ROMs and on the World Wide Web. Furthermore, with the availability of new authoring tools, we do not have to be constrained by the linear format of the printed book, in which information is presented and typically read in a sequential order. In hypermedia systems, information is presented in a collection of hyperlinked documents, so that information can be browsed in any order.
