I had the opportunity to work with the Chesapeake Conservancy, National Park Service and NOAA to design, develop and launch an interactive multitouch exhibit in the NPS Jamestown Visitor Center in Jamestown, VA. This was an exciting project for me because of the time I have spent on the Chesapeake Bay, James River, Chickahominy River and Potomac bass fishing in BFL events.
This project incorporated content developed by NPS that focused on the John Smith Trail. Content includes question/answer combination for over two dozen pieces of content that can be explored by navigating the touchscreen kiosk.
The challenges:
1) Visitors will primarily be elementary school students who will spend less than 1 minute at the exhibit. 2) Content needs to be displayed in Q&A format. 3) Content needs to be visually engaging and manipulated in a modern way. 4) Content needs to be updated or added to on a regular basis.
The solutions: 1) Minimize the menu tree. Exhibit consists of a home screen and a primary map interface of Captain John Smith Trail and The Chesapeake Bay. 2) Content is based on actual photographs and artwork. Questions are clearly displayed on each piece of content and answers can be reached with one touch. 3) Using multitouch technology (like an iPad) and GestureWorks, an exploratory mapping interface was developed that allowed us to overlay content, KML trail and buoy data over a Google Map. 4) Content is hosted in the cloud and can be modified anytime by those with permission (like any modern CMS.)
Hardware and Software Credits: HP TouchSmart Ideum TouchStand Ideum GestureWorks