Vancouver Aquarium Educates with Onsite, Web and Mobile App

In October 2009, the Vancouver Aquarium opened its new exhibit, Canada's Arctic… In the Grip of Change. The Aquarium’s goal is to show visitors how climate change is impacting the land, people and animals of Canada's Arctic. In addition to beluga whales and fascinating marine species, Canada’s Arctic includes fully interactive exhibits that set a new standard for display technology.

A central part of the exhibit is a 46-inch touch screen where visitors can post comments and questions about the Arctic and interact with other visitors’ questions and comments on the screen. Nitobi designed and built the exhibit touch screen comment application.

“With the Canada’s Arctic exhibit, we’re pushing boundaries and leaving static exhibits behind,” says Jeff Heywood, Content Manager at the Vancouver Aquarium. “The new exhibit gives us the freedom to not only use new technology, but also create new implementations for existing technology to actively engage and connect visitors.”

The interactive touch application runs on an exhibit screen, an accompanying website (http://arctic.vanaqua.org/) and on the iPhone. “By connecting the touch screen to the Web, we’re creating the next generation in kiosk design. Visitors can spread and share information in real time at the Aquarium and with others interacting via the website or their mobile devices. Web connectivity makes for an engaging model for education,” says Nitobi CEO, Andre Charland.

“We’re connecting our gallery visitors to web and mobile visitors, mixing their questions and comments, and making that content part of the exhibit.”

The application needed to be designed and delivered in just six weeks. As such, the process had to be tight and agile. The design process began with a brainstorming session and paper prototyping. The team came up with new ideas in 60-second intervals as a way to force the participants out of the comfort zone of pre-conceived design patterns. Using touch screen sized pieces of butcher paper, the team and client worked together to sketch out creative design pattern ideas.

From there, Chris Stone, senior interaction designer, and developer, Yohei Shimomae, took the best ideas and built design comps, workflows and wireframes, keeping the large-scale touch screen in mind throughout. Then, it was on to the actual touch screen, where Nitobi could test various design prototypes, choose the best one and build the app. The “Arctic Questions” touch screen application successfully launched on time at the grand opening of the exhibit at the Vancouver Aquarium.

“We utilized motion in the touch screen application design to pique visitors’ curiosity from 35-feet away. Once we’ve got their attention, we cycle through the comments for a brief interval and then hide them to indicate that each bubble represents a different comment to interact with,” said Chris. “We designed the app to engage both kids and adults alike. It needed to be educational, fun, attractive, and scream, ‘Come play with me!’ while also presenting a depth of content available to those that want to spend extended amounts of time with the application.”

Nitobi also ported the commenting application to the iPhone.

“We’re not using technology for technology’s sake. We’re trying to keep the Aquarium’s exhibit current, connected, and exciting. It’s cool there are not a lot of rules for what we are doing, we’re going to be able to learn from visitors as they are learning about the Arctic.”

To see how the Arctic Questions commenting app works, or to leave questions or comments for Aquarium staff and visitors, visit http://arctic.vanaqua.org/.