I was contracted by Elevator Promotional Marketing to develop the app, designed for Beck’s promotional teams to use with members of the public in pubs and bars. The app challenges players to test their knowledge of Beck’s through a selection of games. If successful, players are rewarded with a free drink, and have the chance to enter a prize draw. The app stores the contact details of players who choose to enter the prize draw, which can be extracted later and viewed as a spreadsheet.

In a little over 3 weeks, I’ve designed and developed a software interactive for a large multi-touch table, the centrepiece of the exhibition. The skeleton explorer allows visitors to examine the remains of Richard III, and discover the fascinating facts and mysteries that surround it.

Read more about the exhibition on the Design Week website, or see the photos on the Richard III Facebook Page.

Photograph by University of Leicester.

Working in partnership with Maytom Associates, we project managed the development of the new website on behalf of the Museum.

The Interactive Explorer software details the history of the Pipe Organ Project, including timelapse footage and panoramic photography, a quiz, music, narration, and also a client-updateable photo and video archive and forthcoming events calendar. The software also contains a mini history of pipe organs, a wealth of information about the Priory’s involvement with the community, and a dedication to the sponsors of the new pipe organs. The central feature of the software is the animated organ, an interactive and playable virtual pipe organ, that shows the inner workings in both two and three dimensions.

During the tour, visitors pass through a prison cell where they can have their photo taken. Two types of photo are available, an individual mugshot showing the front and side of the face, or a small group photo with their friends and family. Visitors can choose to have either type of photo taken, or both if they wish. The guide uses a handheld professional SLR camera to take the photos, which are transmitted automatically via WiFi to a computer that runs part of the software I developed. The software processes and stylises the photos, assigns a unique ID number to them and also determines on which guided tour they were taken. Additionally, the software determines the type of each photo, giving the guide as much flexibility with the tour group as possible. If the guide takes a bad photo, perhaps out of focus, the camera can be used to mark the photo as bad, before retaking it. The software will automatically detect and remove any photos marked as bad. Processed photos are then automatically transferred to the gift shop for display and printing.

At the end of the tour, visitors are free to explore the Castle before exiting through the gift shop. The souvenir photos are displayed across a series of large high-definition screens, each photo labelled with a tour time and ID number. Photos are available to purchase in a range of options: a large, high resolution printed photo supplied in a presentation folder, a smaller printed photo in a magnet or keyring, or electronically via email. Visitors simply quote the ID number of their photo or the tour time, and a member of staff uses a touch screen to enter the details. An additional visitor-facing screen shows a large preview of the photo before it is printed, allowing visitors a more detailed look. The staff-only touch screen provides quick access to a range of features, including browsing and printing of all photos, without interrupting the visitor-facing screens. Photos are automatically archived for a few weeks before being deleted, allowing recent visitors the opportunity to get in touch and make additional purchases. The retail system in the gift shop uses five high-definition screens and a professional photo printer, all controlled and operated from a single computer running my bespoke software.

Our brief was to interpret this information through two different types of media. Firstly, through a silent, subtitled photographic sequence that could be displayed on a large high-defintion screen. Secondly, as a narrated voice that visitors could listen to in either plain English, or a local Yorkshire dialect.