Best Practices for Developing Kiosk Style Interactive Touch Applications for Museum Spaces

Tuesday, April 4th: 11:15am - 12:15pm

Presenters:

Software Developer @ North Carolina Museum of Art



How-to Session Abstract

Kevin Kane, Software Developer at the NC Museum of Art, will discuss all aspects of kiosk style touch interactives from conception to exhibition opening and ongoing maintenance. Discussion will start with interpretation ideas, then move to architectural, accessibility, and content planning, software design considerations and production flow control, information technology requirements such as networking, operating system and BIOS configurations, and ongoing tech maintenance. Special types of kiosks like split-screen interactive touch tables, and immersive multi-display setups will also be covered.

This session is intended to be an overview of all requirements for interpretation technology development and maintenance. Ideal audience members are museum educators, interpretation professionals, curators, exhibit designers and technicians, and technology professionals who want to create touch applications for use within museum spaces.

Here is a bulleted outline of the topics:

What is an interactive kiosk?

Idea and purpose, publicly-accessible computer terminal for interpretation content
Casework and hardware, spatial considerations

Ergonomic accessibility of components
Mounting electronics
Ventilation
Architectural considerations and accessibility (e.g. ADA, height, wheelchair access)

Software design

“Attract” state and content

Show an enticing looping video or automated operation of the interactive (especially for a game)

Inactivity timers

Two-tiered timeout scheme, disabled in attract state and on video playback
“Are you still viewing?” and timeout countdown modal

Software accessibility considerations

User interface visibility, options for enlarging text
Multilingual Content
Screen Readers

A few options for content editing

JSON for simple, smaller scale, less content editing over time
Networked + CMS for larger scale, on-demand content editing

Options for us


keywords: public,kiosk,touch,interactives,interpretation
ID: 11045