Love Lace (website and app)

The Love Lace exhibition consists of winning entries and finalists in the Powerhouse Museum International Lace Award by 134 artists from 20 countries.

Playful and inventive, the works on display present a provocative challenge to traditional concepts of lace. The artists push lace techniques in surprising new directions - see lace in fashion, jewellery, sculpture, lighting and digital multimedia installations.

The Love Lace exhibition website contains all the content available in the 188 page exhibition catalogue as well as some 30 videos featuring interviews with artists and designers, behind the scenes footage, installation time lapses and five ‘INTER-LACE’ documentaries. The website also features teachers’ resources and educational support material. The site may be navigated by artist, work, technique or country of artist, amongst other ways and is designed to work well on smart phones and tablet devices.

The exhibition also features both an Android and iOS app designed as a companion exhibition catalogue app driven by the same data as the main site.

Visitors use the App to scan QR codes around the exhibition to explore each work and artist in more detail. The Powerhouse Museum has used QR code technology to seamlessly connect visitors to rich story telling. The App utilises a set of key interaction possibilities that mobile offers. Visitors can:

Quickly and easily access works or artists that interest them View behind the scenes content (including text, images and videos) Create lists of works they ‘love’

Share works with others using major social media channels View additional external web references on artists

The app has been continually enhanced during the life-cycle of the exhibition. Future releases in production will introduce:

A curated audio tour

Integration with key objects within the Powerhouse Museum’s own collection (via our API) In exhibition location based content delivery (MoveMe pilot project) Additional user experience and information architecture improvements

The Powerhouse Museum is actively using in app and associated exhibition statistical analysis (see http://www.freshandnew.org/2011/10/early-moveme-wi-fi-heat-maps-love-lace-exhibition/) to critically evaluate both the physical design of the exhibition and the user experience of the app, with recent updates addressing key navigational issues, particularly for novice users.

An instructional video is available at http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/lovelace/index.php/the-app

Lovelace app workslistLovelace app viewwork