Being A Visitor

Viewers need far simpler tools. Many developers are building interfaces which are both simple and powerful. In this situation visitors to the online exhibitions need to see previews (thumbnails?) of works, be able to view complete works, move through a "gallery space", comment on works and see comments which others have left. This is all interesting and useful stuff but it's not really groundbreaking. The photo sharing site Flick'r is an excellent example of this type of application. It demonstrates all of the necessary functionality with relatively few limitations.

We might have two goals here: to get a working prototype and to do some interesting research. If we prioritize the former goal then knocking up a Media Arts Flick'r clone would be a relatively painless way of meeting the goal. From a research viewpoint, though, it's not very exciting. It might be an innovative use of the technology but is it a worthwhile way to spend our time?

If we think research first, prototype second, then we can be more daring. Ajax and some of the Semantic Web ideas can be combined to develop really interesting Web apps. In this project we have considered a "mapping" application. Visitors are unlikely to all follow the same route through an exhibition. They will usually all follow the direction which The Curator suggests but some people may be (or believe that they are) more individualistic or may have different needs. For example, a visitor may only want to
see certain types of work, or works relating to particular themes or using particular technologies.

Each visitor builds a trail showing what works they looked at, how long they looked and where they went next within the exhibition. We can even find out from the browser where a visitor came from. Why not try to build maps of all this information? New visitors can choose to follow an existing trail or to strike out on their own. Trails could even be annotated. A visitor who is new to media art might wonder
where they should begin. By following an annotated trail they will have the experience and ideas of others on which to build. If both the trail and the works themselves are annotated this could become a great learning tool.

We need to work out how to display trails and annotations. Do they look like typical maps with coloured lines? Does the
colour/intensity/thickness of a line vary — and if so what does the variation mean? Could associations between items be represented by circles or Venn diagrams or by semi-transparent overlays?

If we go down this as a research idea we need to spend time mocking up prototype interfaces and example pages. I'm sure that Chris has some useful thoughts — there's nothing really new here but the application and the use of the Web make it a new use of older ideas.