The story elements and media on both sides of a jump should be described early in the process of designing a call-to-action. The designer needs to consider how the call-to-action moves the user from one medium to another. Dena describes a number of factors related to the story and media elements that can have an impact on the effectiveness and efficiency of the call-to-action (Dena, 2007). The medial factors the designer should identify are movement between (Dena, 2007):

  • Networked and non-networked media
  • Static and mutable platforms
  • Fixed and portable platforms
  • Public and private platforms
  • Multi-modal and mono-modal media
  • Visual and text-based media

The capabilities of the medium on each side of the jump need to be considered in the design of the call-to-action. For example, a call-to-action designed to move a user from an element of the narrative located on a website (networked) to a DVD (non-networked) needs to consider whether:

  • The user has the DVD and if not, whether an online order feature to obtain the DVD should be included in the call-to-action
  • The DVD will be played in a computer, game console, or stand-alone DVD player, which affects the capabilities of the hardware and the types of input devices available.

The user’s jump relative to the storyworld (the world relation factor) also needs to be considered because of their potential impact on the design of the call-to-action. A number of possible combinations of jumps have been identified (Dena, 2007). Storyworld level jumps are discussed in the storyworld section. Jumps that occur at the story level are:

  • Intra-unit: The user moves within one narrative element in a particular medium to another aspect of that same narrative element in the same medium (i.e. jumping from a video segment on YouTube to another video segment that is also on YouTube). Intra-unit jumps occur at the beat, scene, and sequence levels of the story ontology.
  • Intra-story: The user moves from one narrative element to another on a different medium but remains within the same story (i.e. the user watches a video clip on YouTube and then jumps to an interactive comic on a web page). Intra-story jumps occur on the sequence or act levels of the story ontology.