The Talking Walls - Beaulieu Abbey Launch 2010

On Wednesday 19th May, at Beaulieu Abbey, the launch of The Talking Walls - Beaulieu Abbey multimedia kiosk application took place in front of a large group of invited guests. This was the culmination of several months of organisation between myself, a group of Southampton Solent University's MA Marketing students and Beaulieu.


The event was perceived as a success, according to feedback. The guests showed considerable interest in the application. They were interested in how it would eventually evolve to mobile handsets, the way that adults, professionals and children would be able to access information at their own level in successive versions, and how additional content would be added to continuously engage these groups.


Mary Montagu Scott introduced The Talking Walls, explaining how it would help visitors to learn more about the abbey from the characters that lived and worked at there over it's lifetime. Lord Montagu watched as I demonstrated how to navigate through the rich multimedia content - 9 characters each with their own 'twist' on the animated tours of the abbey. The feedback from Mary and the Bealieu team was very positive. Mary is particlarly pleased with the depth of the information that can be explored, whilst at the abbey or once back at school / home. A great success as far as fulfilling the brief is concerned, I think.


Susan Tomkins, the archivist is also pleased and looks forward to seeing this working on mobile handsets. In the future it is hoped that the visitor will be able to access areas of the application on their own smartphones and explore how the abbey looked whilst standing in the ruins, or play with the educational games whilst sitting in the grounds.

Several of the feedback questionnaires completed requested more than one kiosk, having had to queue to explore the virtual abbey and it's characters. The mobile application would solve this, as people would then be able to access the content on their own devices. Another response was how they would like to see the content for the different groups mentioned above (the current version is a generic age group). This is planned for a future version, with content gradually building and being separated as it grows.


I would like to thank all the guests who came to the launch and for everyone involved in helping make the launch a great success. If you would like to watch a 3-part video on YouTube of the launch speeches, please follow this link for part 1a, part 1b and part 2.

The kiosk is permanently installed in the Abbey museum, visitors to the abbey will be able to visit and explore the virtual abbey and characters during their visit and afterwards on the website: www.thetalkingwalls.co.uk/Beaulieu

Further Developments

Since October several things have happened which have kept me really quite busy. I am now enjoying life as a full-time Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Winchester (started end of Jan 2010). It has helped considerably by having already taught part-time on the course last semester, so it is not too much of a 'new start' but more a continuation and extension of what I was already doing.

In this role, I am involved in the single honours programme - BA / BSc Digital Media Design & Development, of which Mike Seignior is the Course Leader, and a new MA Digital Media Practice degree, for which I am Course Leader, starting in October 2010. A reasonable amount to be getting on with, and a challenge to ensure it works well and becomes successful.

The undergrad degree is approaching the end of its first complete run through of students, having only started 3 years ago, becoming more popular each year, so we now have 14 students ending their first year this summer. It will be interesting to see how the MA Digital Media Practice is received by prospective students in October. The MA (full and part-time)will be an excellent opportunity for those already practicing digital media and who would like to convert their knowledge into a Masters qualification, at the same time improving and learning new skills.

A new course website is currently being designed to showcase current BA/BSc students' work and provide a 'meeting place' and information portal for everything relating to both degree courses and their students. I will post the url as soon as it is in place.

As well as all of the above, The Talking Walls - Beaulieu Abbey application is being launched on the 19th May 2010, with a demonstration of how the application works. This will be on a new kiosk recently installed specifically for the Talking Walls-Beaulieu Abbey application in the Domus Undercroft at Beaulieu Abbey. It is quite exciting seeing the development of this product finally come together. It is even more exciting knowing that visitors to Beaulieu Abbey will be able to explore the history of the abbey and see / hear about the different characters that lived there in the 13th - 16th centuries over the years to come.



We have a group of excellent MA Marketing students (Southampton Solent University) working on the launch with me, ensuring that we have various press officers attending, suitable press releases and managing the guest list's rsvps. A great deal of work has already gone into organising the event, with many thanks to Beaulieu in assisting us with this and making it possible.

We will also be trialling the use of mobile handsets at the event so that guests will be able to walk around the abbey grounds and explore in their own time and in the spaces they want to explore. Digital Media students from Winchester and Marketing students from Southampton Solent University will be able to test the application and give feedback on usability / content of the app on both the kiosk and handsets. Guests might also like to provide feedback, allowing us to explore how well (or not!)the design works and which method of use is the most popular.

If you would like to be included in this event, please contact me at: launch@thetalkingwalls.co.uk and we will send you an invite or discuss how you may be able to help.

Jane Austen demo now on YouTube

Finally succeeded in posting the Jane Austen demo up to YouTube. I say finally, as it has taken most of the day. Codecs, converters and then disabling all firewalls, anti-virus software on the laptop. This last part was because the 'old faithful' BT HomeHub kept losing signal - a few brain scratches later and my grabbed-at theory worked - Windows Defender, Kaspersky, Windows Internet Security and Pop-ups, all disabled, and hey presto, the file uploaded successfully.

I would love to know how you are supposed to know these things and plan your time accordingly. You are left with such a choice of what it could be: wrong codec, wrong converter program, wrong fps (frames per second) - all of which were thankfully clearly explained on the YouTube upload page. Having made sure you have now complied with the standard settings, and it still it will not upload, where do you go now? Could it be a problem with BT, or YouTube, a compatibility issue maybe, firewall on the router, on the PC? Maybe Kaspersky, ZoneAlarm? Very frustrating.

Still, with the above stated brain scratching session, I turned the whole lot off and risked catching a serious cold, but at least it worked, and so far no cold has appeared. I shall know this now and when I come to upload some more animations, I will be prepared.

Meanwhile, I hope you enjoy the Jane Austen - Steventon Rectory demo on YouTube.

Events

In the last month I attended a couple of events where I was able to talk about The Talking Walls and the research I have undertaken within my PhD.

The first was SEMN's Commercialising Innovation and pitching event held at the University of Surrey, Guildford. As with all SEMN events I have been to, it was very well organised, with an interesting mix of people attending. We were shown the research areas at the Guildford campus with explanations of some of the amazing research that is taking place there - on the agenda for the day it was entitled 'Advancing the State of the Art', what we were shown was certainly doing this. For me with the areas I work in, it was fascinating.

In the afternoon, I took my turn in the company pitching presentations. The two before me were also in the area of 3D, but in a completely different field. There was Atom Fire Productions pitching 'games expertise on multiple platforms and devices' by Dominic Mason and Drive pitching for collaborative projects using their 'digital modelling and CGI visualisation techiniques' by Chris Longmore. Both were established companies giving very polished presentations, which although great to listen to and watch, made me feel anxious about my own presentation that would follow.

My pitch was for a 'technology partner to provide hardware, network connectivity and web server information hosting for mobile, kiosk and handset installations at heritage sites'. This is something that would really benefit The Talking Walls, allowing us to approach sites with a complete solution. The pitch seemed to go well with several people coming to talk to me afterwards saying how much they enjoyed it, with contacts of people who may be able to help. I am still in the process of following these up, if anything comes from this I will let you know.

I would particularly like to thanks the organisers at the University of Surrey and Kay Henning of SEMN for inviting me to pitch at this event and for making it such an interesting day.

The second event was more about the PhD research. This was the LASS PGR Conference - Human 2.0, held at the Turner Sims, University of Southampton. It is an annual event for research students to put across where they are with their research, display posters and present papers. This is the first of its kind that I have attended and was quite nervous in the build up to it. I had been placed first to present. Having not attended one before, I was quite anxious as to what was expected and being first, I would not able to adapt to anything that would have gone before.

Nonetheless, once I started talking, the nerves abaited, heart was still racing but I managed to think about what I was saying and not 'waffle' and go off track. For me, that was quite amazing! The other speakers were as nervous I think, and gave some really interesting presentations and discussion. It was a shame that there were not as many people attending as expected by the organising team, but there were certainly enough there to make you want to do your best and give them an understanding of your research. Again, many thanks to the conference team in doing such an excellent job of getting us organised, the venue and attendees.

For those that may be interested, posted below is the abstract of my paper submitted for the conference. The other speakers' abstracts can be found on the LASS conference website.

'My thesis aims to investigate methods of capturing user-experience at ‘cultural heritage’ sites with multimedia applications on mobile devices, their interaction with the site, and family / friends, using a case study of a pilot application ’The Talking Walls®’ at a cultural heritage site, which encompasses story-telling and visual narrative.

Through qualitative study, data collected will include observation and interview notes, audio, video, field notes, documents produced by the visitor (s), photos, visual images, mood boards and individual / group reflections, both the observer(s) and visitor(s).

The research will investigate the meaning(s) of ‘cultural heritage’ for the user(s) and for the cultural heritage site owner(s) / organisation, and why people visit cultural heritage sites. In order to measure and understand methods of capturing user-experience, it will be important to understand what ‘experience’ is and what may form a ‘good’ or ‘poor’ user-experience with a mobile device at a cultural heritage site.

This study will then explore how technology might be used to link these areas together and capture user-experience, how it is being adopted at cultural heritage sites for visitor use and how this may impact on the methodology for designing a multimedia cultural heritage application for mobile devices.

Keywords: user-experience, cultural heritage, mobile devices, digital story-telling, multimedia'

Deborah Wilson - PhD student, Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton

Thoughts on user behaviour with websites and multimedia applications

User behaviour is continuously being researched for web applications by experts such as Bruce Tognazzini, Jakob Nielsen and Steve Krug who have been testing consumer usability since the 1990’s. The research into Web usability appears to have high importance, and justifiably so. There is a rich resource of articles online, blogs and web sites regarding this, as well as books. With the web constantly evolving and changing, the primary resource for exploring this area in more depth, needs to be as up to date as possible, books by the time they are printed are often outdated. Jakob Nielsen’s Designing Web Usability (2000) has been updated recently with his book Prioritising Web Usability (2006). Reading the two books, it is very interesting to note the predictions and how Nielsen’s view of web usability has evolved with the faster technology available, especially in the area of video and rich media, but it is still primarily web based.

The importance of understanding how the user works with websites seems to be accepted by the majority of good web design companies. What I have found difficult to ascertain is the difference in user behaviour with websites and multimedia applications. In the various articles and books researched in regard to usability, the platform is invariably the World Wide Web and the sites designed have been done with the knowledge that most users are information foragers, snackers, people with little time to find the information they require.



The Talking Walls® as a multi-platform multimedia application does not quite fit with regards to some of the web usability guidelines, as will other heritage applications on offer at museums and historical sites. This may be due to the primary goal to be enjoyable learning, entertaining, fun, aesthetically pleasing and informative in a specific cultural heritage context, but still a ‘snacking’ tool and possibly to more than one user at a time.

The visitor using the kiosk application will use it in perhaps a very different way to how they would use the web at home / work. They may want to see what it does, how much content there is, if there is any entertainment on offer and what they may learn from it, but it will be closed off to information relevant only to the heritage site, the visitor will not be able to jump to non-relevant areas, as they can with the web. There are constraints. Then, instead of a solitary session on the web, they may be with a partner, their family or friends so the interaction of the group, their interaction with the application and their surroundings will be different to that of the web and therefore important to discover and analyse. This is really user performance, how they interact and their experience.



There is a further issue of the same content being displayed for a mobile / handheld device. It is predicted that the mobile phone will become an ‘entertainment device’ (Loader 2006) that will consist of communication, navigation, TV, music, radio, camera / video, games, web, GPS technology, and more including paying for your shopping (Hanlon 2008). The future of the mobile phone as an all inclusive device is already becoming a reality although the ultimate success relies heavily on a number of issues: technology, creative content, a simple interface and consumer’s acceptance of the new technology (Brill 2007).

Designing for mobile has a number of issues that need consideration. Having created web usability standards, designers need to explore the best way of creating the same content on a much smaller screen. There has been a lot of progress over the last year or two with several successful interfaces appearing such as the iPhone and Google’s Android interface, both of which have been possible with new technology and new ways of interaction with the interface, such as TouchFlo 3D.

The problem here is that this creates another style – one for print, one for mobile, one for web. The same issue appeared in the early days of the web, when people were redesigning their printed brochures to become web pages (Web 1). With the development of the internet, the designs for web became more animated, more information appeared in formats unachievable via print, and with Web 2 there are users as well as designers creating content and uploading to template interfaces or personal blog sites. It is a general concern as to how the majority of web sites and user generated content will translate to the small screen devices that are becoming ever popular. There will need to be new guidelines / standards developed for designing for new platforms such as the mobile device, in fact the mobile could be considered the new web for how content should be designed i.e designing for the lowest common denominator.



There is then the issue of the type of content to be designed. A cultural heritage application is likely to be designed very differently to football club site or a shopping site application through how it is used and the typical type of content expected, required or desired.

Part of my research will observe user behaviour, types of audiences, how they will perceive and use the application, their choice of platform and technology and how this may reflect their age and gender, how they will interact with the software and technology during their visit, singly or in groups and how this will impact on their experience, their involvement and buy-in to the learning narrative and imagery.