Cultural Organization Discovery Map

Los Angeles is a gigantic, sprawling city. Just trying to find your way across town can make you feel a little desperate. We used our MT-50 multitouch table to help visitors from across the country get a sense of the cultural landscape of L.A.

Creating an interactive map was a big project, so initially we had to tuck project hours in around the edges of other work. We didn’t exactly know how to build for a multiuser multitouch environment, either, but we wanted to develop the skills in-house, so we could create bigger and more provocative things on the table later.

We ended up following a quasi-agile model for development. This meant keeping the project fairly narrow in scope and building iteratively. We set a few simple requirements up front, tried to see if we could build to them, added design refinements and real content if things were jelling, and agreed to be totally willing to jettison requirements if what we had for a component wasn’t working.

The table and SDK are quite amazing. For our first exhibit, we’re using it to provide visiting information about neighboring institutions, and to present some media about the Getty—user-generated images from Flickr, slideshows of images of objects from our collection, and video that gives a taste of our multi-faceted organization. The touchable, zoomable map can be navigated in two ways: by choosing a museum on the map itself, or by selecting a name from the flyout list in the controller. The footer rail offers a news feed of upcoming events at the Getty.

What we’ve discovered is that the table draws on people’s growing ease using gestures to engage with digital content—think iPhone and iPad. What’s more, we’re finding that the multi-user environment encourages conversation and exchange because it allows several people to “play” at the same time. People cluster in groups. If one of them doesn’t know how to engage, they watch someone else dragging and opening things by touching the surface of the screen, then try themselves and discuss what they find as they progress. The more people congregate, the more interest and conversation there is.