A multimedia kiosk authoring system for use in developing and maintaining user interface screens for multimedia kiosk systems. The authoring system enables the user interface for each individual kiosk to be customized quickly and easily within wide limits of variation, yet subject to constraints adhering the resulting interface to good standards of aesthetics and user friendliness. The system may be used to provide custom interfaces expeditiously even for hundreds of kiosks presenting information from numerous independent information sources. The authoring system uses the methods of object oriented programming to define specialized object classes for instantiation on individual kiosk interface screens subject to pre-defined limitations on variability. Links are provided to an appropriate database for multimedia presentations on an interface screen of content bearing information from the information providers.