Mission Statement Page, click to go back to contents page.

Interactive Media Research Laboratories focuses on researching and developing protocols that enhance cognition in digital environments. Our research includes but is not limited to the following:

  • online training and education
  • online help
  • tutorial design
  • archiving protocols
  • interface design
  • processes for evaluating quality of text in digital media
  • processes for capturing critical professional skills
  • rich media instructional design

We also search for alternatives to usability studies. In this arena, we have examined a number of additional options that combine to provide a much more comprehensive understanding of quality in digital media. These include . . .

  • Reader preference analysis – What do readers like and why? Does short-term gratification last?
  • Reader cognition studies – What knowledge, opinions, and attitudes do readers take from any given experience in a digital environment?
  • User loyalty studies – Seeks to understand why some applications gain public acceptance and others laps into extinction.
  • Rhetorical evaluation – A bottom-up approach to evaluating the quality of writing and design on any given page.

We also search for alternatives to usability studies. In our opinions, usability studies do little for identifying important problems in digital design. We have developed and tested alternative studies that permit a better understanding of the impact of rhetoric and genres on readers.  

Exploring Genres and Protocols  

Since 1990 we have evaluated a variety of genres (e.g., postmodern mysteries where the reader is also the protagonist) that improve our understanding of how knowledge is invented and transacted. We have also invented a number of genres and protocols of our own (e.g., postmodern autobiographies where the reader invents the author, structures-based creative-nonfiction, process preservation technologies for capturing and archiving or distributing critical professional skills, etc.).

Through the years we have created more than a score of peer-reviewed and published studies to advance our knowledge of digital media, but we also reexamine many speculations by current theorists and develop empirical evaluations of these speculations.

Capabilities

The lab boasts a full spectrum of hardware and software giving it capability to explore virtually all aspects of multimedia and online information delivery – for Internet, CD-ROM, and kiosk environments. 

Computers range from old DOS machines for capturing and archiving archaic documents to cutting-edge, dual-processor P-4s capable of producing commercial quality video and animation in HDTV format.

Software ranges from WordPerfect 4.5 and Toolbook 1.5 for archiving to Alias/Wavefront's Maya 6.0 and 3DS Max capable of producing professional quality animation.