The Museum had some great installations for the public to use, some of which was very modern technology. The information provided about each installation was very detailed. The 3 touch screen installations I think were the most educational displays in the museum, the reason for this is because the quiz that it gave you to complete actually made you apart of the installation and it was down to you to get each question correct in order to save the houses from floods. I think the big touch screen installation in which you created your own dinosaur land, was a very nice feature but only for children, I did not feel it was very educating. I enjoyed the sound beam that they had projecting into my ears as I entered a room. It was good to see this sort of technology being used.
The installations are mainly designed for one persons at a time, which could be very frustrating if theres a big group of people trying to access it at once. With our project there will be just one person controlling the touch screen, but the big screen above will ensure other people can see what is going on. Also the voice recordings on the phones went on for quite a long duration, I found that after a minute or so I began to lose interest and linking into what I said before, only one person can hear this at a time.
The dinosaur touch screen was very interactive and looked really good, but the installation itself is not very educational and therefore it seems almost a waste of technology to just have a game where you place objects around a bit of land and didnt actually gain any information from it.
Furthermore, there was alot of writing on some of the displays which a majority of people would not take the time to stand and read it all. This is why in our installation I think it will be best to just play a voice over instead of having lots of writing for users to read.
I learnt alot from looking at the installations already homed in the Rotunda museum and it has inspired me in the design of our installation. I will make sure that the information given about my charms is accurate and just enough for the user to know and not overload them with too much detail. I also think it is very important for the user to feel involved with the installation for them to learn something from it. Therefore I think a game or quiz is the best way to attract users and for them to interact with it.
Paul
Maybe having talking voices where people can drop in and out to learn more would be better than having a 'telephone' to hold. Possibly holding a phone makes you slightly self conscious and keen to put it down and move on.
ReplyDeleteThinking about your audience around the interactive, maybe they could help the user answer quiz questions. Audio could be used to give clues that they could pick up on.