Information interchange between humans and computers has long been restricted to the media of typescript and displayed text. Some graphic elements have been introduced over the years though they are quite rudimentary in comparison with the standards for free exchange among mature humans. Even with the addition of graphics, the fact remains that much information that is transmitted from a computer to a human uses only one human perceptive sense, that of vision. The other four senses (olfaction, audition, gustation, and taction) are not fully utilized. This creates an imbalance between online media of information, and real-life media of information.

A relatively new concept called multimedia addresses this difficulty. Although there is no precise definition for multimedia, it is generally agreed that the term applies to any situation where one has a computer presentation of information using two or more human senses. Most commonly...