Authoring a multimedia piece generally follows the traditional development process of analysis, design, development, evaluation, and distribution.
Before you start using Authorware, conduct an analysis to determine what the piece you're creating needs to do. The analysis you make will differ depending on the type of solution that you are providing. Who is the intended audience? What objectives must be met? How timely must the information be? What environment will users be in when they use the piece? If you're developing a kiosk that will be situated in a noisy shopping mall, you may decide against using sounds in your piece.
Next, think about how you'll distribute the piece and the kinds of computers that the target audience has. For more things to consider before you begin designing your piece, see Distributing your piece.
Before you develop the navigational structure of your piece, make a prototype of the screen design and identify all of the content elements for your piece.
Create storyboards and prototypes Create storyboards for the project and design a few sample screens to work out in detail exactly what you want to achieve. Authorware is ideal for creating prototypes. You can draw basic shapes to represent elements on the screen and later import finished graphics into the piece. A prototype should convey the idea of how a piece will work. Be careful not to spend too much time on visual details for the prototype: If the design needs to change later, you will have created graphics that won't be used.
Identify and gather content When professional developers identify and gather their content, they create what's known as an asset list--a list of every sound, graphic, movie, and object used in a piece. You should do the same. Authorware excels at integrating text, graphics, sound, and digital movies. Although you can create some text and graphics with Authorware tools, you'll get the best results with applications designed specifically for creating the type of media you want to include. For example, use Macromedia Flash for digital movies and animations.
Use the Authorware media libraries and external content features as much as possible. They let you store content externally and reuse and reference the icons, saving disk space and making it easier to update applications.
Be sure that your computer and all end users' computers have the equipment needed to play sound and movies.
Now you're ready to build full functionality into the piece, which is best done module by module. You'll need to import content, apply transition and motion effects, create navigation structures and interactions, and develop data variables.
Look for ways to set up logic so you can save it as a model and reuse it. Remember that you can switch from Authorware to external applications--for example, to let the user enter numbers in a real spreadsheet or save results in a text file. Run and test the piece regularly as you build it.
When you think your application works the way you want it to, test it just as software companies test applications--on real users.
Testing and fine-tuning Run the files and make adjustments to the content and the interactions. You might need to modify the files to obtain the best performance on slower computers. It's important to allow ample time for this stage; designing interactions is considerably more complicated than creating a linear presentation.
Review In this stage of testing, you make sure the project works as designed. You might need to go back to the development stage, or you might simply need to fine-tune some details.
When you're ready to distribute your piece, package it. You can use one-button publishing to package it in multiple formats at the same time. If you're developing commercial applications, make sure your distribution is in accordance with the license agreement. The packaged file doesn't contain all the information needed to change the application, so be sure to archive the original Authorware file.
If you're developing a piece for the Internet or for a corporate intranet, you can use one-button publishing to create the HTML page where you want to embed the piece, and then put all the files on your web server. Run at least one test with each browser that will be used to view the piece, such as Netscape Navigator or Microsoft Internet Explorer, to make sure the piece downloads and runs properly.
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