The second book is the main manual – the phone actually slots into this and becomes the center of attention. Arrows point to the exact locations the user should press, avoiding confusion and eliminating the feeling of being lost in a menu.

-Kyle

The Brief

To successfully enhance the visitor experience within a museum environment, that has particular emphasis on solving navigation and learning issues. Other constraints that are considered include interpretation, interaction and contribution.

Where to start?

Before initially sketching ideas (in the end I had roughly 30) I thought it would be a good starting point (in a high level way) to look at existing forms of navigation within a museum environment.

Here is a quick outline of my observations;

This image really got my brain cells thinking, together with research into looking at the best forms of learning in this environment (cooperatively or solitary) I started producing ideas. In my case I never produce great design concepts straight away (well when I’m sitting at my desk anyway). I find designing is an iterative process consistently building on smaller ideas and sometimes even merging ideas together that gets you to the end product. That’s why I find sketching so important, it does not matter how wacky an idea is, just get it down on paper! 

The Museum Guide Metaphor

Your own personal virtual guide;

Advantages

Media rich, using sound and video (gives a platform). Doesn’t require the user to watch the display. Removes any social connotations, from having a real person. Guides and supports learning allowing you to roam, but also plan a root. Allows exploration. Allows learning through interactivity > Speaking to you, taking the interactive quiz > Future research for home (different outlets for learning). Quiz > Scoreboard – Where did I come? Respectful form of learning (man in a coat). It was designed for any portable device not necessarily a mobile phone.

Disadvantages

Single user device, Requires the user to wear headphones,  Will it annoy? – Microsoft paperclip syndrome. 

A mobile communication device (bring ya’ own)

Use your personal device to interact with the environment;

Advantages

Provides further information to what currently exists in the environment. Allows exploration. Good platform for navigation. Interactive aspect with friends, leave notes and comments (contribution). Find friends and family on the map. Allows learning, it just doesn’t simply present information. Interactively, playing games using the mobile device. Make learning fun and enjoyable.

Disadvantages

Small display and reduces oral communication between visitors.

The Magic Lens (Augmented Reality)

Imagine your looking through an empty picture frame;

Advantages

Allows interactive learning, it just doesn’t simply present information. – A platform for playing videos and audio. Allows contribution through discussing artwork/pieces. All this content is virtual no need to alter the museum environment. The user gets the device when they attend, they aren’t required to bring additional hardware. Allows 2 types of navigation, but also a platform to see more about places.

Disadvantages

Requires the user to keep pointing the device. Requires users to wear headphones

Conclusion

In the end the Museum Guide system was chosen. What do you think of it? Was it the right choice? – Looking back you may find some of these sketches ambiguous, as they were part of a presentation, some information is missing but I hope there enough there to understand the main concepts. The advantages and disadvantages are quickly copied notes from my notebook so hopefully you can understand them too.

- Kyle

Remember : To draw straight lines maintain a medium pitch, lower/raise your voice to draw curves.

I’ve wasted half my morning!

- Kyle

(link) I wanted to find the weather in ‘South Shields’, but what page does ‘S’ begin on? Page 5? Who knows? The numerical list above is giving the user no indication, which is highly annoying. Why aren’t they utilising a alphabetical list instead?

i.e. a,b,c,d,e…

I got all the way to page 32, to find South Shields was not on the list

Come on BBC!

- Kyle

Part one is below, but parts 2 & 3 can be found on Youtube.

The video might be 8 years old, but I still think it is very relevant. That reminds me, I still need to buy Bill Moggridge’s book ‘Designing Interactions’ – which has an excellent piece by Bill Verplank on Interaction Design.

-Kyle

-Kyle

p.s kylemayne.com is still alive

Check it out if you hadn’t already;

Maybe I’m a little undereducated in what Aza is saying above. He specifically states the interface does not allow multi-touch based interaction, but utilises a form of single touch interaction. The problem is that he then goes on to use gesture based scrolling (in moving up and down – Aza calls it ‘Kinetic Scrolling’) . Now as I believe it, single input touch screens do not allow gesture based interactions (i.e. the typical touch screen devices you see dotted around city centres). Therefore, the device must be using Frustrated Total Internal Reflection, which allows gesture support and multi touch interaction. Meaning, why have the technology there and not use it ? – I’m wondering does Apple own the patents ? – I don’t know, its something I would have to look at (I’m fairly sure they don’t, just look at Surface). In terms of accessibility, zooming in and out of web pages works amazingly well from multi-touch interaction, it makes sense to use the technology available, doesn’t it?

From the video I got the impression it was something they went against in terms of design decisions but the problem I have is WHY?  

I suggest before you leave, have a shot of the interface in action.

-Kyle 

I would like one, although I dislike the fact you have to use their paper, although for £75 I don’t think it is that bad.

-Kyle

Official Site

P.S Watch out for the Piano function.

I just browsed the list of seminars and some of the topics look rather interesting. Below, is a selection of the videos I’ll be watching first.

• Sketching and Experience Design, Bill Buxton, Microsoft Research, Spring 2007 (I like Bill Buxton, I keep meaning to get his book.)
• Designing Interactions, Bill Moggride, IDEO, Winter 2007
• Innovation on User Research Methods During the Development of Windows Vista, Gayna Williams, Microsoft, Fall 2006

I’ve just finished watching ‘The Design of Implicit Interactions, Wendy Ju, Stanford, Spring 2007′ – Although, nothing major or new was discussed it was still nice to watch the presentation.

You can point your browser to this link to get to the class listings within iTunes.

-Kyle