One of the most common features of interactive multimedia interfaces is that objects which do not look like buttons can be active and can be clicked on to make things happen. This might be graphics or pieces of text for example.

In order to show the user that these items are active and/or that they have responded to a click from the user the multimedia designer will often create different appearances for when the mouse moves over an object or when the user clicks on the object – this is known as a Rollover.

Example 1: Normal image

Example 2: Rollover image

In the examples above, the rollover image in Example 2 will appear when the user moves the mouse over the normal image in Example 1.