Making a Conveyor v.1 presentation

The original Conveyor authoring tool, launched in 1999, created presentations that could be thought of as three-level information systems.

At the first level, up to sixty interactive objects could be placed on the main interface. Each object could be linked to a second level screen where pictures, text, video and animations were displayed. Each second level screen could be linked to five third level screens, which also displayed pictures, text, video and animations.

This meant that a Conveyor presentation had 1 screen at the top level, up to 60 screens in second level and up to 300 screens at the third level. Although a user could build a presentation with a total of 381 screens of information, most presentations are much smaller than this!

First level - the navigation screen

The main component of the first level navigation screen was an extremely wide image, or 'panorama', a section of which was displayed in the centre of the screen. The panorama image, which could be many times wider than the screen itself, was moved or 'scrolled' from side to side using a scroll bar at the bottom of the screen. Scrolling the panorama revealed to the user the interactive buttons placed upon it.

Selecting and clicking on one of the panorama's interactive buttons caused a sound file to be played and a text file to be displayed on the first level screen, and provided a link to the second level of the presentation.

A simplified example of a Conveyor (version 1) presentation is provided below. This features 13 geometric shapes, three of which can be seen in the window in the centre of the screen. Clicking on a shape plays a sound file, which might say something like "You have clicked on the green cone", and displays words on the screen such as "Click here to find out more". Clicking on these words would open a link to the second level screen. Of course, all the shapes on the panorama are interactive buttons and the user scrolls the panorama left and right to interact with any of the objects.

Note: although, in the example above, the scroll bar is a smaller version of the complete panorama, it could be completely different - dates on a timeline, towns on a route, ages of user groups - anything, in fact, that enables the user to navigate along the panorama to an area of interest.

Second level

The second level screens could display images, texts, sounds, animations and videos, usually connected in some way with the interactive object and text link on the first level. In the lower half of the screen up to five buttons provided further links to third level screens. Clicking on the scroll bar at the bottom of the screen would return the presentation to the first level navigation screen.

Following our earlier example, the second level screen could show a close-up picture or video of the geometric shape selected at level one with some supporting descriptive text, together with buttons linking to information about the geometric shape stored at the third level of the presentation. In this case, information about the volume, area and examples of the shape.

Third level

Like the second level, the main window on the third level screen could also display images, texts, sounds, animations and videos. Below the window a 'back button' returns the presentation to the second level, while clicking on the scroll bar returns it to the first level navigation screen.

Like the second level, the main window on the third level screen could also display images, texts, sounds, animations and videos. Below this a 'back button' returns the presentation to the second level, while clicking on the scroll bar returns it to the first level navigation screen.

Again, using our example presentation, the third level screen could be exploring the geometry of the geometric shape or some other property, perhaps using animation or cut-away diagrams.