An exploratory study: Supporting collaborative multimedia systems design

Multimedia systems design generally requires a collaborative effort from a group of designers with a variety of backgrounds and tasks, such as content experts, instructional designers, media specialists, users, and so forth. However, currently available design tools on the market are mainly designed for a single user. Tools intended to support a collaborative design process should coordinate independent activities of individual designers. This research investigated support for work groups engaged in designing multimedia systems. Specifically, it discussed a new collaborative design environment, called the KMS (Knowledge Management System)-based design environment, in which multimedia designers could share their design knowledge freely. Through two experimental groups, the research investigated impacts of the KMS-based design environment on their collaborative design activities (knowledge creating, knowledge securing, knowledge distributing, and knowledge retrieving activities). The research findings showed that the KMS-based design environment was a promising environment for collaborative multimedia systems design. More specifically, the research findings indicated that the KMS-based design environment supported creating, securing, and retrieving knowledge, but it did not support distributing knowledge. In addition, the research found that the social interactions between group members played important roles in the success of the collaborative multimedia systems design and that the KMS-based design environment did not support the socialization of group members. Furthermore, the research found that the inability of the KMS-based design environment to support the socialization was linked to its low performance level in supporting the knowledge distributing activity. The research explored the desired features of a collaborative support tool for multimedia systems design.