Educational software designers: What do they think about good design

The purpose of this study was to learn whether and how multimedia designers incorporate constructivist ideas into their software design. This study also attempted to assist multimedia designers to focus on the issues that are related to the design criteria and needs or problems during the development process.; In a three-round Delphi survey, a questionnaire was administered to members of related professions in listserv discussion groups. Members of 14 listserv discussion groups, in the field of educational multimedia technology and in multimedia development, responded to a request for participation. Only 7 groups participated the first two rounds of Delphi survey, the phase of identifying and refining the first and second versions of questionnaire; and another 7 groups participated the last round of the Delphi survey, the final version of the questionnaire. The final survey was based on five aspects of educational multimedia development: (1) learning activities; (2) features of multimedia learning software; (3) types of multimedia learning; (4) quality factors of multimedia software; and (5) problematic issues in the team performance.; The results showed that participants believed that accuracy, clarity, and organization are the important criteria to produce easy-to-use interface and clear navigation. Participants indicated that the need for related course training and the importance of good communications among team, clients, and learners. Participants also agreed that multimedia learning programs should provide learners with supportive contexts for ill-defined problem solving skills and higher order thinking skills. As reflected by many participants, the process of developing software applications referred to the function of social interaction and negotiation in which learners can apply their learning to real-life situations.; Many technology professionals and scholars seem to focus on instructional methods and program development, rather than on empirical research for understanding learning processes in order to design constructivist learning environments. The results only reveal few theme of how and what designers emphasize learners' knowledge construction and fail to provide us with the circumstances of the apparent conflict between designers' stated theory and their actual practice. To support our understanding of the designers' design characteristics and tendency toward constructivist learning, further research should be conducted. Future studies should also investigate the aspects of learner-centered learning in highly interactive multimedia-based contexts.