- Name of Your Project
Joseph Moore Museum Guided Tour
- What research topic/question your project is going to address?
This project is an attempt at expanding the accessibility of the Joseph Moore Museum, especially to patrons whose first language is not English. The project is to create an app which will scan QR codes beside a museum exhibit, and provide information on that exhibit in the preferred language of the user. Audio narration for each language would extend accessibility even further. Additionally, exhibit traffic could be obtained by counting the QR scans for each exhibit, allow for a degree of analytics.
- What technology will be used in your project?
My project will utilize QR scanning technology, Unity for mobile app development, as well as web hosting to offload the exhibit information and audio files from the mobile device.
- What software and hardware will be needed for your project?
My project will require a mobile development suite, most likely Unity given I have some familiarity with it. I will also need to host a web server for the files related to each exhibit (text description for each language selection, audio files, photos, etc). The app will utilize a modern smart-phone with a camera of decent resolution, and internet connectivity.
- How are you planning to implement?
Before I begin, I will begin a conversation with the museum director about the project. Since my project will be associated with an established organization, it is important that the project goals align with the organization’s vision. I will also begin searching for people who would be interested in translating exhibit info from English to various languages such as Hindi, Spanish, and Japanese. Meanwhile, I will begin working on a prototype app with the goal being to successfully scans QR codes and displays different data based on the QR code scanned. After I have a working prototype, I will begin work on setting up a web server to host the exhibit information, and linking that to the app. Towards the end I will polish up the UI experience.
- How is your project different from others? What’s new in your project?
My project will be providing new features and technology to the Joseph Moore Museum in order to expand its capacities for language accessibility.
- What’s the difficulties of your project? What problems you might encounter during your project?
One of the most glaring issues with this project is scope. My unfamiliarity with web hosting combined with limited experience with mobile app design means making an accurate timeline will be quite difficult. Building a polished mobile app is time-consuming, and might not fit within the time-frame of the project.
JMM has a lot of exhibits, which means there is a lot of text to be translated and audio to be recorded. Finding people up to the task of translating and recording could prove to be quite difficult.