Research continuation

I have done another research. This time I was looking for on-line exhibitions (if such a thing even exist). From beginning of research I haven’t been expecting to see online exhibitions where I can walk like in game (from 1st person) and discover different parts of  museums, instead just pictures and text.

I have spent most of my time on two websites, one of them is Smithsonian American art museum

I would say that, this website is using old design trends. 3 Column layout in the middle. there is lots of text and links everywhere. Instead of buttons used as a hyperlinks there is quit a bit of blue texts which are used as a links.

There is HUGE amount of content on this website, so everyone can find something for him. But I was mostly interested in these On-line exhibitions, which can be accessed from drop down menu (Exhibitions), and how these were done.

My expectations regarding on-line exhibitions have not been met and instead realistic thinking about text and pictures came true.

So when you go to on-line exhibition sections, this is what you get. List of available on-line exhibitions with a little bit of information (pic-1).

(pic-1) (pic-2)

Most of the time you get pictures with text on one side and all inserted into gallery (pic-2).

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The Fitzwilliam Museum. This is another website that I had look at. 

Old design, two menus at the top and left side. Different sizes of fonts and colours used in fonts. Lots of useful information on museum,  what’s currently on, previous exhibitions, on-line shop and much much more. But again i came here to look for on-line exhibitions.

Again I had little bit of problems with finding these on-line exhibitions but finally under On-line resources I have found it. Like in previous website you get list of exhibitions. But this list looks better in my opinion. first of all you have little pictures for each exhibition with a bit of text on side.  Instead of having to click on link to see more, You have well visible ‘Find out more..’ which is much better, for people with lack of experience on how to navigate through website.  And on top of that everything is nicely separated with grey line.

When it comes to checking these exhibitions, there is no specified layout/design on how each one of these is showed:

• You can get text with 1-2 pictures which after clicking on you get full size picture in new window.
• Again lots of text with 6-12 picture thumbnails which each one of these opens new html page with certain picture and text, and you have ability to click on ‘next’ and see next picture.
• Some of them contains only a bit of text with only one picture.
• There was one more when you get only pure text with three links to html galleries.

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I was bit shocked that this website haven’t used any dynamic gallery as it would look much better and navigation would be also improved.

Now i have more less idea on how my exhibition might look like but still these are all fresh ideas and these are yet subject to change.

 

Researching.. (+Surprise)

Like before every project, first thing that has to be done is research. Because I am creating website for 21st century museum and exhibition on four elements (air, earth, fire, water).

I have decided to start my research with searching from exhibition websites. Most of the websites that showed up had usually information on their current and previous exhibitions. Their design usually consisted of 3 column layout  due to lots of text and most of them are still using old designs. Often these websites are using two menus, one on top and one on the left side.

First website that I had look at (2 days ago)  was:  Tower Bridge Exhibition website  and this is how it has looked.

.3 column layout. With all information that you need either on exhibitions or bridge history or even its lift times. When it comes to design we can easily say that it is a bit ‘old school’.

Today I have decided to re-visit this website again and I simply couldn’t believe. It took me few minutes to realize  that I am not on wrong page,  its just their design that has changed drastically.

You can smell that creator of this website knows design trends. Big picture used as a background, minimal amount of text and big buttons.

On previous design exhibitions section could be accessed through menu on top. When it comes to new design it took me a bit of time to realize that in order to access exhibitions I need to scroll down a bit and there was link to exhibitions.

Additional research

I have done a bit more of research to find any museums that are about either about life on street or old shops.
I have found this website: http://www.how-we-lived-then.co.uk/

This museum has many different kind of shops that you could find back in time, with over 100.000 exhibits.

For example chemist shop:

‘Before the days of National Health, you would take your baby here to be weighed, as this lady is doing.
On the shelves are all our remembered brands, such as “Beechams” Pills and cod-liver oil, which you were dosed with once a week whether you needed it or not!’

or grocery shop which used to be opened all hours:

‘Here you can see Mr Barton selling his biscuits from glass-topped tins and every inch of shelving packed with nostalgic items from the past. Rinso, Persil and Oxydol; Bisto and Oxo; Smith’s crisps and Coleman’s mustard, tins of biscuits and packets of tea.’

This is a great museum with tons of exhibits, but it is in similar state as streetlife museum, it lacks interactivity and it is only about looking.
And that is what i want to be different, to make your experience in museum much more interactive, fun and educational by changing few things within museum and having tablet in your hands with earphones plugged in.

First Idea for Project

Basically what i would like to create is a story line seperate for kids and adults. so at the beginning of tour you would choose on app if you are kid or adult (choice of male/female & boy/girl – to be considered).

Each one of these would be given a certain task. for example if you were a boy or girl, you would have list given by your mom to go to x shop and buy x items, see price of certain product etc etc. (for kids it would be more of a game). If you have picked adult, then it might be something similar but a bit complex. (these are just fresh ideas, and through out whole process it might be changed)

After picking your character of adult or kid, you would be welcomed to the streetlife.
I have decided to focus on the whole area of streetlife museum where shops are on the road, plane cars etc. (thats why i would call my project streetlife)
After starting the app you would hear sounds of cars, planes, people talking, etc from back in time. (on earphones) whenever entering the shops you would hear owner talking to you if he might help you in something, sound of other customers talking etc.

when entering shop, system will auto-remember which shop you went to in order to make quiz at the end and maybe for some more content. (to be considered..)

before entering any shop you get message on tablet “you are about to enter xx shop..” and with a little bit of story/history of the shop.

While walking round the museum, i would let visitors to use scan function, which allows them to point tablet on certain object and get extra information the tablet and maybe scanned object in 3d so they could move it around or video with it being used. (to be considered..)

I need to remember about augmented reality, audio tours as these two might be really useful. Or maybe apart from audio tours add sounds of streetlife to give visitors better experience.

When creating for kids i need to remember about:
-simplicity
-ease of use
-more pictures/audio and less text
-less complex quizz
-mini-games?

One more visit in museum

Because i have decided to make my project for certain part of streelife museum in hull i went there few days ago to take some photos and here you can see some of them. These photos will help later on in choosing the right colours, looking for exact products as displayed there and any other information that i might need.

Also visting museum once again gave me few more ideas to consider.

Researching

WHat i have done first was researching anything to do with interactivity within museums. I have came across few useful websites however these two got most of my attention.
http://mw2013.museumsandtheweb.com/paper/transforming-the-art-museum-experience-gallery-one-2/

This is a newly opened Museum is something that i have been looking for. Mixture of art and technology provides great amount of dynamic environment for visitors.
Technology used within museum only inspires visitors to see art with greater depth and understanding.

While reading this article i was particularly looking for information regarding technology they have used within museum and if they have created an application either for smart phones or tablets.

For example they have ‘Strike a Pose’ interactive game which invites visitors to explore figurative sculpture by asking them to match the pose of a sculpture they see on the screen. Following this built-in motion sensor records their pose and it determines how close visitor has approached the artist’s sculpted body.

Another thing that they have and that I haven’t ever seen anywhere else is their new 40-foot multi touch screen which shows all works currently on view in the Museum. It allows users to touch the objects on the screen to find out more information.

Gallery one (name of museum) allows visitors to deepen their experience by using their application made for tablets. It has three main functions.

‘Near you now’ functions allows visitors to browse and find digital interpretation of works of art they like based on proximity.

‘Tours’ function allow to set tour within museum based either on certain theme they were looking for, their favorites or take a tour curated for the block of time they have available.
‘scan’ function is using image recognition to scan two dimensional art objects to pop up on the screen of tablet with extra information such as text, videos or sound.

Another website that got my attention is about Augmented reality and story telling.

http://www.theguardian.com/culture-professionals-network/culture-professionals-blog/2014/apr/04/story-augmented-reality-technology-museums

we can read out from this article that nowadays story telling is what keeps visitors. it can be done using audio guides, video or augmented reality.

Augmented reality (AR) is a live, direct or indirect, view of a physical, real-world environment whose elements are augmented by computer-generated sensory input such as sound, video, graphics or GPS data.

We can also read about visitors profiling which are created through data from surveys, visitor studies and ethnographic observations. By doing so museum makes the visitors experience non-linear. System constantly adapts to visitor’s preferences.

Visiting museums

Few days ago we went to two different museums. William Wilberforce museum and museum of transport, both located in hull’s old town.

Museum of transport
Within few minutes after going inside you could already feel how it was back in days.
Many Different kind of transports from bicycles to planes.
I was really impressed with amount of the vehicles and types.
In some part of the museum you could really feel like you are going back in time due to well prepared scenes with sound and interaction.
for example, there was a carriage in which 4 people could sit and suddenly it started to shake a bit making us feel like it was a real ride and on top of that
you could hear what was going on the outside. sound of horses, environment or even people talking.
Besides all these vehicles and different kind of transports, there was section in museum where there were few recreated shops from old times with exactly the same products that have been sold then. You could get inside to some of the shops and interact with some of the stuff.
Overall i liked it and was really impressed.

William Wilberforce Museum
Before going inside we were told that museum was refurbished not a long time ago, and since then number of visitors has dropped.
I have quickly realized why. Most of the furniture that used to be there was removed and replaced with big walls of text and pictures, describing different stages of either Williams life or slavery. There were few things left such as books or tools used to capture slaves.
There was lack of interaction, just few buttons here and there to play sound from back in time, TV with actors pretending to be slave and telling of how it is to be slave and how they are treated. Apart from that, there was just more and more reading.

from these two if i was to choose which one i preferred more and why, i would definitely go with Museum of transport.
Much more stuff was kept from old days, there wasn’t much interaction but still more than in another museum, and all these different scenes set up to let us feel how it was back in time made me choose this museum as preferred one.