Multimedia is now an accepted (albeit expensive) tool for education both on CD and on the web. There is an increasing need for developments to have quality of content, which is best suited to the medium. This presentation will discuss experiences in designing and evaluating a simulated patient.

This CD-based multimedia package, The Heart of the Problem, is used for teaching communication skills to 3rd year medical students. The students take on the role of the doctor, interacting with video representations of the patient. Student attitudes were mixed, but by qualitative measures, they were highly engaged - close observation revealed complete attention on the problem at hand.

In order to make the most of the medium, the simulation was designed to be as stimulating and engaging as possible. Particular design elements were carefully planned. Some were extremely simple but proved to be highly effective.

The last part of this session will open a discussion on the benefits, problems and relative costs of designing quality multimedia.