Design of multimodal systems

Recently I found an interesting journal article titled Human Factors (HF): Multimodal interaction, communication and navigation guidelines. It has defined a set of metaprinciples and design principles for multimodal systems. For elaboration and examples of these see page 17-21 in the document.

Metaprinciples

1. Use multimodal presentation of information to allow users with different preferences and abilities to interpret data in their preferred way.
2. Use multimodal interpretation to allow users to interact with a system following their individual preferences and suited to their special needs.

Design principles

1. The range of available modalities should be offered in the different modalities.
2. It should be possible to choose different presentations modalities using any of the available interaction modalities.
3. Individual modalities should be activated optionally.
4. Individual modalities should be scalable by the user.
5. Completeness of functionality/controls should be ensured in all available modalities.
6. Modalities should only be switched at logically sensible situations in the dialogue.
7. The user-specific modality setting should persist.
8. Adequate prompts should be offered in the chosen modality.
9. The same information should be expressed in different modalities.
10. The same style should be expressed in different modalities.
11. Dialogues should be aesthetically consistent in each and every modality.
12. Multimodality should not be stigmatizing.