Broadband multimedia information environments are part of the next big advance in communications and computer technology. The use of multimedia infrastructures in offices is becoming very important. This paper deals with a service concept and human interfaces based on a paper metaphor. The proposed service offers the advantages of paper and eliminates the disadvantages. The power of multimedia's expressiveness, user interaction, and hypermedia technology are key points of our solution. We propose a system configuration for implementing the service/human interface.

We proposed a graphical user interface (GUI) that provides users with multimedia information, including dynamic images. On the Internet, there are many WWW browsers that read the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). As various browsers extend the HTML tags and attributes independently to expand and/or improve layout, the HTML compatibility between browsers is lost. We have developed a WWW browser to solve this problem. Our browser presents all multimedia information, including text, images, and dynamic images as a block and renders them without the need to extend the HTML specifications. It independently interprets and draws HTML objects using a layout manager. It has a layout rule, and manages the hierarchical data structure and the block data of HTML documents. This browser also allows layout-rule changes. The layout manager efficiently displays information while checking the available display area size. The structure of this browser is such that the portion that manages the formatting of the document is separated from the portion that displays the individual parts. In this browser, the layout rule allows text to be placed around an image without the need to modify the existing HTML contents. It is also relatively easy to change the presentation of multiple screens, such as a two-page book-like layout or the conventional single-page scroll-bar format by changing the layout rule. The incorporation of media decoders into the browser enables the displaying of various multimedia information, such as sounds, pictures, and moving images.