The National Waterfront Museum, Swansea

HMC Interactive created cutting edge software for two multimedia exhibits on display at this national museum with a primary focus on accessibility for all. The result enables the museum to show artefacts in a dramatic and invigorating way.

Accessibility is key

These centrepiece exhibitions tell of Wales’s industrial and commercial history. The museum is the first fully Disability Discrimination Act compliant museum to open in Britain so central to the challenge was making the software and its interface accessible to as many people as possible. The interface had to be easy to use for people with a variety of disabilities and had to function in multiple languages. It also had to incorporate an interface for video material containing sign language.

The Power of Money

This interactive exhibit allows visitors to ponder a series of shop interiors including an early Merthyr Tydfil truckstop, a North Wales Co-op, a Tredegar pawn broker’s and a department store in Cardiff. HMC Interactive seamlessly networked four touch–screen tabletops to act as windows on a conveyor belt. Visitors drag items from the belt to their “shopping basket” — triggering the show.

The Power of Communities

This interactive showcase allows visitors to pull items from a virtual display cabinet and manipulate them for a thorough look. The system gives access to films and information covering a range of Wales-wide communities and ideas.

Working alongside London agency Newangle, HMC Interactive used a completely virtual interface similar to that in the movie Minority Report. Users simply point at the screen and the computer does the rest. It senses movements as they use their hands to navigate their way through the depths of the exhibit touching everything in virtual reality. The system ingeniously allows the museum to display artefacts that are too delicate, valuable or obscure to be on open display.

Exhibition design: Land Design Studio Design & production: Newangle Software programming: HMC Interactive