DEMAIS: DEsigning Multimedia Applications
with Interactive Storyboards


Introduction
Installation
Capabilities
Design examples
Usage notes
Screen shots from a usability study involving multimedia designers

To design an innovative interactive multimedia application, a designer must rapidly explore and effectively communicate numerous behavioral design ideas early in the design process. Designing innovative behavior is the cornerstone of designing innovative multimedia. Existing tools do not support a designer's need for early behavior exploration, hurting creativity and leading to less effective designs. To address this need, we have developed a sketch-based, interactive multimedia storyboard tool that uses a designer's ink strokes and textual annotations as an input design vocabulary. By operationalizing this vocabulary, the tool transforms an otherwise static sketch into a low-fidelity, functional prototype. The behavioral sketch can be quickly edited using gestures and an expressive visual language. By enabling a designer to more rapidly explore and communicate design ideas early in the design process, our tool facilitates the design of more effective multimedia applications.