meeting the clients, developing the database and the future of kiosk interfaces

I forgot to upload last weeks post so here it is.

I had a meeting last Friday for the first time with my clients from the Hull Merchant Navy Association, it went very well. I had the chance to show them the work that I have already produced in development and more importantly it gave me an opportunity to understand my client’s needs and to gauge a feeling on how important this application is to them. I need to produce a piece that is usable by everyone but it also has to sell the message that the client wants to deliver and it is up to me to sell that message in the accessible way for the end user to understand.

I have been working on the database for the roll of honour section of the application, there are sixty pages of data to insert into the database and this presented a slight problem. It is possible to insert the data using phpmyadmin if the data is organised in a consistent way, this is where the problem was. I needed to find a way to check and prepare the data for insertion into the database. I called on the services of superstar php guru and fellow student Liam Smith who developed a script to check the data’s consistency and for that I am very thankful.

I have decided to develop my onscreen keyboard in the style of an old style typewriter, I have researched and developed the design for the keys and thanks to my lecturer Gareth Sleightholme I have been given the opportunity to photograph a real old fashioned typewriter to incorporate as part of my design. Here is my design process for the onscreen keyboard so far:

I was thinking about the future of information kiosks especially museum based pieces and I believe that the new technology “multi touch” would provide increased interactivity options that would offer a more interesting experience. Using multi touch would allow the user to resize different elements, so increasing accessibility for the visually impaired. The user would also be able to restructure the information bringing the parts they are wishing to view to the front of the display and this means that user has increased control over the content they wish to see. If I needed to develop a kiosk in the perfect world I would choose a multi touch interface.