Interactive News

(Museums and Visitor Centres)

Content List:

Kennet & Avon Canal Museum

Interactive Presentations has just completed a new interactive facility to be used at the Kennet & Avon Canal Trust's Museum at Devizes. This is a small museum with several interesting stories to tell. The interactive system had to appeal to a wide range of people and had to be easy to use. Hence interaction with the system is through a touchscreen.

Target Audiences and Contents

Clive Hackford the Museum's curator wanted to use the interactive system to give more information about the history of the canal with special reference to the people and social conditions. The main target audience for this is schools. However, the facility will also be used by other visitors to the museum who are interested in the story of the restoration of the canal. They also want to find out more about what can be seen on the canal today.

On Interactive Presentations' advice there are main sections:- The Canal at Work (History), The Restoration Story and the Guided Tour. The user can choose which section he or she wants to investigate. Each section is subdivided into subsections. For those who do not want to go into great depth there are highlights.

Subsidiary Sections

A further section has been added giving details of the Canal Trust and there is a noticeboard which allows up-to-date information to be displayed. Movement through the system is via a series of navigation buttons or the user can go to the contents map which not only shows the user's present location in the programme but will also allow him to jump to any other section.

When the system is left, it will automatically return to a series of photographs to attract the user.

The Kennet & Avon Canal Trust, Tel: 01380-721279

Presentation of Material

Information is presented at a number of different levels. Some users will only briefly want a look at a page, others will want more information and this is obtained by pressing on an object. In the screen shown below, the main theme to the page can be found by pressing on the cartoon character (Fred). This will satisfy more people. However, for those interested there is more to find out by pressing on other items. These add interesting asides, for instance what cargoes were actually carried and what was it actually like to be a boatman working on the canal. Presentations are usually less than a minute.

For a "feel" to how this works visit our web site

screen shot

Summary

Narration and historical recollections were read by Timothy West and Prunella Scales. Photographs were mainly obtained from the Trust's archives. There are 1500 images, 160 minutes of sound and 8 minutes of video footage. Finance for the project was obtained from the Area Museum Council and the Carnegie UK Trust. A school information pack based on the interactive facility will be produced.

Foxton Canal Museum

The interactive presentation system at Foxton was supplied to the museum in July 1996. Since then it has been seen by over 20,000 people.

Multimedia and Animation

When presenting a lot of varied and complex information on a computer, in the form of numerous screens or as pages on the World Wide Web. The careful use of animation and multimedia can enhance the quality of the presentation and, more importantly, can engage the interest of the user or customer.

Computer animation is used extensively to impart information and to show examples, or simulations, of how things work - engines, flowing liquids, joints, aspects of the human body, cut-away sections of plant and installations etc. In the recently completed project about the Kennet and Avon canal, Interactive Presentations used animation to show how Claverton pumping station operated. On a picture of the building, the user could click on various parts to reveal small videos of the sections in operation - then an animation of what was going on inside the pump, the sluice or the other parts of a working pumping station.

The Last Word

Just as a good Hollywood film depends on a script to match, so the heart of a good multi-media presentation depends on the shape of its storyboard. Getting the script right is just as important as the clever bits of animation and fine photography. Even if the presentation is all sub-titles it has to be understood by the target audience.

Museums have a great deal of experience in this field, since they have a wide audience to satisfy. It is not easy to get it right. The script for eight-year-olds will be quite different from that for young adults. The first task is to establish who the presentation is for and draft a script accordingly. It should then be `market-tested' on people representative of the target audience. By this stage, the preparation of the script will also have prompted lots of interesting ideas for the presentation. Time spent on the script will always pay off although it may not win you an Oscar.

Interactive Business Systems

The techniques used to create the information systems for museums can be developed for business use. Your customers can browse through a presentation system about your Company and your products or through your catalogue. You can keep the information up-to-date and it can be delivered over the internet. For more information please contact John Henn at Interactive Presentations

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