There are some basic differences between the various formats that need to be addressed by the director before choosing the most suitable format. The multimedia formats can be divided into two categories, card-based (Hypercard, Toolbook, Director) and information-based (World Wide Web). In the card-based approach each screen is created and linked to other screens manually to build a complete application, which is all the reader requires to view the information. In the information-based approach, the basic structure for linking together screens is built into the system. The director need only to embed the links into the information using an HTML editor. The reader then uses a presentation system such as NCSA Mosaic or Netscape Navigator to retrieve the data. The approach used for the prototype of this case study is the latter since the learning time for creating a working version is much shorter using HTML than Toolbook or Hypercard.
With regard to the structuring of the data, the content (material to be included, underlying structure of data, how to access information) and context (users, purpose of application) are important. Figure 1 is a representation for the various structures, linear, hierarchical, and network. For this case study all three structures can be used successfully depending on the audience. A student who is interested, or required, to read the complete case study will start at the title screen and use the "next" button to go through all the screens in order.. This is akin to reading this text report from title to Appendix. A Boeing engineer who is only interested in a single aspect of the case study, such as Technical Changes, would choose "branch" 5.6 of the hierarchical structure from the index screen and follow through the sub-topics associated with that node. A casual reader might arrive at a particular screen from an external hyperlink and will probably navigate through a few screens using keyword hyperlinks without following a particular path. The linear structure is accomplished by using the next/previous buttons located at the bottom of every screen. The hierarchical structure is similarly organized but may be accessed from the index. The network structure is achieved by inserting hyperlink keywords throughout the case study.
Figure 1 - Information Structures
Adding or deleting screens requires the director to go through all the screens that link to that screen and modify the hyperlinks accordingly. For this size case study, with tens of screens, keeping track of the changes is not a major concern. However, on larger applications with hundreds of screens, that task is nearly impossible and there are currently search methods which are being developed to automatically link screens based on keywords.
The multimedia case study will eventually include video and audio clips as well as improved graphics. There will be an index for the reader who is solely interested in a single aspect as well as a logical progression for those interested in the complete case study. References to other sources of information will be in the form of hyper-links in the Internet version of the case study. Included in the current WWW case study are references to other forms of information such as video, audio, or graphics which have not been digitized at this time. The original author foresees experts from other disciplines, such as the business arena, authoring various sections of the case study. Some ideas for further research are included in Section 8.0 of this report.
At the completion of phase I of the case study, Boeing will be asked to review the current version and comment as to what they perceive as being important during this ongoing process of change, which will be incorporated as part of the next revision of the case study. In addition, many of the key personnel will be interviewed specifically on some of the issues presented here and their comments digitized and added to the multimedia version. Boeing will also be asked to provide some sample animations of the 3-D solid modeling used in the digital pre-assembly procedures. An example of Knowledge Based Engineering (KBE) will be included in the multimedia version once an appropriate application is chosen. The advantages of multimedia can be utilized by making the example an interactive process where the reader can become an expert system user. The example that is non-technical in nature and easily understood is the cabin configuration problem. How to locate the seats, lavatories and galleys to maximize the number of revenue producing seats while meeting all the structural, regulatory, and airliner preference requirements. The user will have the opportunity to customize the aircraft cabin interior by answering a few simple questions about seat dimensions and separation and number of seats by class.
Originally developed by Shadd Shokralla
