museumsandtheweb.com - interaction design

Designing an Interactive Visualization to Explore a Pre-Hispanic Collection

Blanca_A — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 12:57:32 +0000

MW2011

Keywords:

Digital Exhibition

Keywords:

digital heritage

Keywords:

interaction design

Keywords:

interactive

Keywords:

Interactive Visualization

Keywords:

interface design

Abstract:

This demonstration presents the current status of the design, and the implementation of a digital interface to exhibit an archaeological collection online. This digital interface is designed to explore online the main pieces of the collection of the Museo de Antropología de Xalapa, located in eastern Mexico, by bonding together ideas about visualization of information, context mapping and trails of navigation.

The collection that belongs to this museum consists of important cultural-heritage artifacts of the main cultures that established themselves in the current state of Veracruz, before the Spaniards’ arrival in Mexico: the Huaxteca culture in the north, the culture of Central Veracruz in the centre of the state and the Olmeca in the south. Its total collection preserves and guards about 29,000 Pre-Hispanic artifacts, from which nearly 1,500 are exhibited in its halls.

The project draws on the design of a digital interface that privileges exploration and browsing of visual connections with an open-ended focus; namely, an interface that allows a visitor to place a ‘object/concept’ at the centre of his/her interpretative layer, and thus create a hub of connections. Expressed differently, the interface is based on associations of visualizations and the tracking of diverse mappings set by the visitors themselves. Following is presented an overview of the interaction design space of this digital interface:

When exploring the online collection, the visitor has the choice to select any category as a main hub. For example, when the visitor selects the hub Dualidad (Duality), the interface presents visualizations of an ‘object/concept’ that are connected to this selection, such as the artifacts of smiling faces, twins, and feminine figures. If the visitor decides to access more information about a specific artifact of an smiling face, then the interface displays some other mappings of ‘object/concept’ related to that artifact; for instance, concepts of death, the Ollin (movement) as well as some other archaeological pieces connected to the main hub of Duality. After that, if the visitor continues to explore the collection and decides to discover more about the Ollin concept, this can be selected as the main hub. In consequence, the interface will present a selection of visual results connected to this new category as well as of all the artifacts of the collection that have connections with this latter category.

While there are several projects that have used similar concepts, within the area of cultural heritage there are few studies that investigate on the exploration of archeological information presentation. Therefore, this project aims to contribute on such exploration, by designing an interface based on connections of visualizations, and to the further creation of interpretative layers for the visitors’ exploration.

Type:

Demonstration - show your project

Demonstration V

Site:

http://mlab.taik.fi/~bacuna/max_Project2008/index.html

Authors:

Blanca Acuña

Designing Activity to Encourage Online Engagement

dbear — Sun, 28 Nov 2010 20:34:25 +0000

Type:

Workshop

Programs:

Designing activities to encourage online engagement with museum collections

Tech Level:

no prior technical knowledge required

Date & Time:

April 6, 2011 - 9:00am - 12:30pm

Location:

Commonwealth A2

morning workshop

interaction design

designing activity

social engagement

visitor involvement

visitor activity

wednesday

morning

Required fields are marked with a red asterisk (*).

A confirmation of your registration will be sent to your email address. Please print it out and bring it to the conference.

You will not receive registration confirmation by regular mail.

If you do not receive your confirmation today, please contact us.

Archives & Museum Informatics EIN: 77-0708617; GST / BN 887978914

Description

This half-day workshop is for people who want to set up online activities for their visitors for the first time or who have some experience of doing this but want to expand or deepen their work. It will focus on the design of activities and not the technology.

Physical Keys to Digital Memories: Reflecting on the role of tangible artefacts in "Reminisce"

luigina.ciolfi — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 09:48:28 +0000

MW2011

Published Paper:

Physical Keys to Digital Memories: Reflecting on the Role of Tangible Artefacts in "Reminisce"

Keywords:

interaction design

Keywords:

ubiquitous computing

Keywords:

field study

Keywords:

open-air museum

Abstract:

This paper will discuss the role that tangible artefacts in the context of an interactive multi-device installation have as mediators between the physical visitor experience of an open-air museum and the layer of digital information that is available to them about the site. We will refer to the case study of an installation -"Reminisce"- that we have designed for an Irish open-air museum, Bunratty Folk Park, where participants could follow trails around the site on the footsteps of characters from Ireland's past. At different historic houses, visitors could collect "tokens" related to the characters both in digital and physical form: audio recordings of personal memories downloaded to a smart phone application, and physical tokens representing aspects of the characters' lives (such as traditional recipes, chunks of turf, hanks of wool, etc). The physical tokens had a double purpose: that of providing visitors with a physical "anchoring" to the houses and a tangible representation of their progress along the trail; and that of acting as "keys" to unlocking further digital content at a specific site. Concealed RFID tags were included in the tokens to enable this functionality. In the paper we will describe the installation in more detail and, by means of examples from the body of data documenting the visitors' experience of "Reminisce", we will discuss in detail the role that the tangible artefacts had in bridging the "digital" and "physical" spaces of the installation, as well as extracting some recommendations for designing installations in the setting of living history sites.

Type:

Paper - in formal session

Mobile Parade

Authors:

Luigina Ciolfi

Marc McLoughlin

Interface Design for Cultural Information Systems: An Interdisciplinary Approach

jtrant — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 23:34:28 +0000

Pehlivanides, G. (2005). Interface Design for Cultural Information Systems: An Interdisciplinary Approach. Digital Culture and Heritage. Proceedings of ICHIM05.Paris.

Using Mobile Devices to Help Teachers and Students during a Visit to a Museum

jtrant — Wed, 02 May 2007 00:57:39 +0000

Girardi, M., Gonella A., Pinho M., Silveira M., Calvetti P., Herrmann M., et al. (2005). Using Mobile Devices to Help Teachers and Students during a Visit to a Museum. (Trant, Jennifer, David Bearman, Ed.).Museums and the Web 2005: Proceedings.