Breakdown of project and development

Mapping Museums St Fagans Past And Future Providing Historical Locative-Aware Content to the Grounds of St Fagans Museum of Welsh Life

Nigel Whitbread
B.A. (Hons) Design for Interactive Media
School of Art and Design
Business School
University of Wales Institute Cardiff
nigelwhitbread@yahoo.co.uk

Introduction
The premise of this project is to create a pilot version of an electronic guide for St Fagans Museum of Welsh life providing a walking tour incorporating audio, photos, text, and video to provide historical facts and information of the site and it buildings to be viewed on a hand held device.
The concept is similar to the multimedia tours provided inside the Tate Modern but instead of using wireless technology I wanted to use GPS (Global Positioning Systems) technology to deliver the content to site specific locations, so that when you are approaching Pen-Rhiw Chapel for example, you’ll be receiving data about the Chapels history, when it was built, who lived there etc.

Aims & Objectives
• In regards to Locative Media, research what devices can be used, what content is being broadcast, and what applications are being used to produce the content.
• To provide an investigation into what innovative ways locative media is being used to provide context driven content.
• This project will be looking at what devices (PDA’s, mobile phones, Node) would provide the best platform for location aware content. They are to be used at St Fagans Museum of Welsh Life to provide historical location context driven data about the site and its buildings.
• To determine what content is required to enhance the historical sense of St Fagans and give the user a sense of where the buildings came from originally. To find out if users would prefer audio, textual, stills, video driven content or a combination of all four. Using primary questions and the information uncovered I will create a prototype application to run on a specific device.
• To see how the media can trigger real social and cultural interaction when linked to real places.
• Target Audience – Visitors to St Fagans
• To propose a basis for future projects and development.

Methodology
The methodology I propose will include, semi structured interviews (of the general public, museum visitors, staff and school children of a variety of ages) to be undertaken online and face to face to gain an understanding of the interest people show in using devices to look at historical content with contextual relevancy. Analysis of acquired data – filmed, photography, audio, interviews, questionnaires. Creation of a prototype on a relevant device based on users expectations.

Mapping Museums St Fagans Past And Future
After researching the subject of locative media and hand held devices for the past few months, I finally came to the conclusion that the best way to go about producing a pilot GPS electronic guidebook for St Fagans is to use Hewlett Packards’ Mobile Bristol Toolkit.
http://www.mobilebristol.com/flash.html

After visiting St Fagans to scope it out and talking to The National Museum Cardiff I feel it best to limit the prototype to about a third of the site. As you enter the outdoor museum you see a map showing what’s to see around the main entrance, it seemed to make sense to limit the guide to this area and these buildings.

Exhibits in this area

1. Galleries
2. Kennixton Farm
3. Bee Shelter
4. Corn Mill
5. Llwyn Yr Eos Farmstead
6. Hendre'r-Ywydd Uchaf
7. Nant Wallter Farmhouse
8. Llain Fadyn Cottage
9. Cae Adda Byre
10. Hayshed
11. Abernodwydd
12. Pen-rhiw Chapel
13. Y Ty Gwyrdd

And other symbols
• You are here
• Toilets
• Shop
• Restaurant
• Playground
• Information
• Train stop
• Tunnel
• Parking
• Sandwich rooms (education)

Using GPS software whilst walking around the site I discovered that depending where I was I could pick up between 5 and 9 satellites which is enough to give a good fix as you only need 3 to triangulate your position.

Initial Storyboard Ideas