Development procedure of a hypermedia application in support of industrial tasks

A technical environment which involves great amounts of specifications and procedure instructions is conducive to hypermedia technology. In a hypermedia environment, pertinent information is relationally retrieved and presented via a multitude of media avenues such as text, fullmotion video, photographs, audio, and graphics. This technology greatly reduces both the documentation search time and the confusion of interpretation associated with an information overload. Ultimately, a substantial increase in productivity is the result. In this paper we report our experience in the development of a hypermedia-based information center. This development procedure is a by-product of a pilot project currently being conducted at the University of Central Florida (UCF) in Orlando, FL. The subject of our research is the working environment of the Orbiter Processing Facility (OPF) at Kennedy Space Center (KSC). A typical process from routine work instructions was selected and served as a basis of our development and evaluation. The outcome of the study is a computer-based hypermedia information center which employs full-motion video (via a laserdisc player), hypertext, graphics, and an authoring language.