Using mixed metaphors to enhance the usability of an electronic multimedia document

The authors report on the design of their University's course guide-a hypermedia orientated electronic book in which they incorporated multimedia information in both the nodes and the links. Their work has been influenced by others who have used mixed media artistically to enhance navigation tools. For example they looked at the use of audio and video to reflect changes in hierarchical level. They identify situations where different media can be used independently to convey the same material. They describe their evaluation which identified that users found the information in their guide more quickly and navigation was found to be more straightforward than in a real book.