Liverpool Museum (now called the World Museum)

The new look World Museum in Liverpool, has changed. The facility has up and moved down the road, from the old building to a more modern facility,with this the museums interiactive experiance has changed.

The first initial interactive experiance is the touch screens which are situated throughout the building. The ground floor screen shows the layout of the building and the various times of the many shows and exhibitions on offer, it is a simple touch screen system with a swf movie running the ineractive features. Interacting witht the portal is made at the users choice and you dont have to use the touch screen as the infomation on screen is displayed on the museum walls as well.The portal has a nice 'schematic' layout regarding the visuals and is simple to use. So even if you have never looked at a touch screen before in your life you wouldn't find it hard to navigate.

The symbols and floor numbers for each floor matched the museums layout (as seen in the picture on the left) this helped keep continuity and ensured that visitors to the museum could find out where everything was and then transfer that knowledge to the building itself .

The theatre on the 2nd floor was the most impressive of the interactive features of the museum, with the latest projectors which were HD ready the staff at the museum host interactive experiances from around the globe. for example a camera on a forty foot cane was set up in Belize and from the theatre members of the public were allowed to move the camera via web link and explore the countryside. It doesn't sound like much but the possibilites are endless with this feature, for example similar explorations could be broadcast from space or the depths of the ocean allowing the audiance to interact. This would appeal to all age groups and as long as the user feedback was instant i believe it would be a fulfilling experiance.

during the tour various interactive portals were shown to us with different themes that where linked to the feature they where placed in. The first thing i noticed about these portals were that children flocked to them more so than the exhibits themselves. They were a simple setup (like the touch screen situated in the lobby) a swf file game or movie which simple in itself represented the section of the museum the user was in. These interactive features were short with little feedback apart from whether you completed the task correctly, they offered little if any educational value.

One which was a bit more useful and did incorporate the museum artifact it was related to was the miyan scroll exhibit. this exhibit had a touch screen situated next to it which allowed you to look at the miyan scroll more closely and each page at your leisure . This being impossible with the piece itself as it is placed in protective casing to preserve the item, so being able to interact with it was a worthwile experiance. The touch screen itself was nothing complicated just a flash movie again with a zoom feature that allowed you to zoom in on the scroll and as your mouse rolls over you recieve information regarding the scroll on screen. This was a change from the linear information plates that would have been their in most cases had this interactive feature not been set up.

It gives the user the chance to filter out anything they don't want to read about and concentrate on the information they do. This interactive feature was hardly used compared to the others as this was more educational than entertaining thus the children who did look at it turned away when they realised it wasn't a game. more adults looked at this feature, though as soon as the kids ran off so did they.

When the tour entered the Space exploration floor it was interesting to see the old interactive features that remained from the old museum this allowed a comparison with modern features and there origional cousins. The main difference i found was the old interactive features which consisted of a button that would activate a light or a audio/video sequence was more educational than entertaining and being really simple to use people of all age groups were able to interact . The feedback was instantainious and being educational felt fullfilling after the experiance was over.
The only zone that surprisingly didn't have an interactive feature was the dinosaur exhibit, their was only the information plates placed in front of the dinosaurs that offered information, but im sure in time a feature will be added to this exhibit.