: General

A lot of people wander around exhibitions with phones in their pockets or handbags. We decided to utilise this idea and serve up a Wi-Fi audio tour for the Chalkie Davies: the NME Years exhibition (9 May - 6 September 2015) - the museum has a web-server and there is Wi-Fi broadcasting in the exhibition gallery, allowing us to give it a whirl. 

• We wanted to give access to the maximum number of people with phones from this decade (HTML5 compatible devices). 
• We didn’t want an ‘app' because it creates a lot of hoops for developers and the museum to jump through, plus visitors probably don't want excessive fuss when entering an exhibition especially as they might only use it for five minutes in total. 
• We didn’t want to bring in traditional audio tour guides because of the hire price for the museum and we weren't going to ask the visitors to pay, as it's free entry to the exhibition.
• We might want to use it again and would hope to do so with the minimum amount of technical fuss.

Free Wi-Fi but not sitting a Coffee Shop

Once the visitor has connected to the free Wi-Fi audio tour ‘Chalkie' the Wi-Fi capture software will direct them to the correct web page with the name of the exhibition and a choice of languages (see picture 1). All is going well. 

Language Choice

The english audio tour was written and recorded by Chalkie Davies and his team - it provides his personal insights into each of the photographs on display and some back stories. The welsh audio version was recorded in-house by Rhodri Viney (recording and editing) and Telor Gwyn (voice), using the Chalkie Davies translated transcript.

Choose a Number between One and Nine

The visitor is given a choice of nine numbers, each matching a number on the gallery wall which refers to a selection of photographs (see picture 2). Once the person selects one of these numbers the audio tour begins...

"Listen To What The Man Said"

For the best experience the visitor should have headphones, but it's not the end of the world if they don't, they can still listen through their devices' built-in speaker, although this can look and feel a little awkward. Alternatively they could hand over £1.50 for headphones in the museum shop downstairs.

If they don’t want to walk around with a mobile phone protruding from their head, or leave the exhibition and come back in again to buy headphones downstairs, or find that their mobile phone has a low battery percentage - there is a printed version of the audio tour available within the gallery. They are the same words.

A Perfect Circle

I used to have an analogue watch, but I left it accidentally next to the squash courts in the University - if anyone picked it up, could they hand it back please? Anyway, time can be measured within a circle. I like circles, so I built a large circle to indicate the progress of the audio track playing. The animated graphic uses SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics), which meant the page avoided the usual graphical software - it's all written in code: HTML5, javascript and CSS [Well, I find it mildly exciting] (see picture 3 and 4).  

Pressing the circle will pause the audio. If the visitor listening to the audio tour wants to change to another number they can press the ‘Home’ button and the page will scroll up to the nine numbered keypad again. Another loop, of sorts…and repeat.

Before we go any further, maybe we could pause for a short film clip...  

Additional Details You Might Enjoy 

• The gallery has a capacity of 40 people at one time.
• There are two Wi-Fi hubs at each end of the gallery broadcasting wireless-N.
• A web-server streaming the audio.
• Each of the audio tracks are compressed to less than 2MB (MP3).
• It takes less than ten seconds to download the whole MP3 on a iPhone 5S and the audio plays almost immediately.
• We’ve tested it with various phones including one of the first Android audio HTML5 compatible phones (Gingerbread 2.3.6 ~ circa 2011) and Windows 8 phones.
• If the device is not capable of displaying a SVG there is a fallback to similar looking GIFs.

Media Monitoring

The web-server records each time a track is requested. Therefore, we will have some data to indicate how much the audio tour is being used - thinking about it, we shoud gather additional information about the type of browser requesting the audio (it's a closed network so we can't involve Google Analytics, which is the usual goto reference for 'what kind of computer has visited the website recently'). We will monitor things during the exhibition and conduct evaluation once it has closed. 

I was just making coffee for the team and when I looked around at everyone beavering away at their desks - and realised just how diverse the work we do is… Take this afternoon as an example:

Kay Hanson, our Peoples Collection Wales Technical Officer is fresh from the launch of a brand new “Learn’ section of the People's Collection Wales website – over six months in the planning, such a milestone is no mean feat. The result is the combination of thousands of assets from the main heritage institutions around Wales as well as content contributed from the public and filters all this data according to what educational purpose you require. Give it a go yourself at: www.peoplescollection.wales, what will you learn?

Rhodry Viney our Web Officer (and Final Cut Pro guru) is hard at work editing, slicing and generally making good the video he filmed in the field a few weeks ago with our scientists and paleontologists. It'll be ready soon, but in the meantime I’ll give you a clue… it’s big, it’s extinct and it had lots of teeth. (Shhhhh!!)

Chris Owen our Web Manager is working hard on creating exiting new sections for our website, where all the collections content is brought together in the most user-friendly way possible. Not an easy task given we have 7 physical sites, 5 main collecting departments, hundreds of staff and millions of collections… oh yeah, and two languages to consider!

Dave Thorpe, Senior Developer is tweaking his very popular audio guides, developed as a first for Amgueddfa Cymru – for the new exhibition: Chalkie Davies: The NME Years at National Museum Cardiff. The exhibition focuses its interpretation on an audio guide you access through your own mobile device. Given the theme of the gallery is based around photographs captured in the 1970’s, bringing our new mobile era into the mix is very interesting. He’s also fine tuning some super duper interactives in the gallery. But come and visit the show for yourself to witness his handywork first hand!

Myself, I’m the Digital Programmes Manager and have been up to my eyes in fleshing out software/digital briefs for the new galleries in development at St. Fagans. Funded by a HLF grant, the largest ever awarded in Wales, the plans are ambitious and exciting. Not due to open until 2017/18, it's all about planning at this stage so I’m surrounded by spreadsheets, tables and forms - what a good time to stop for a coffee break and to knock out a quick blog post!

Ro'n i'n falch iawn (a braidd yn nerfus) i fynychu Hacio'r Iaith am y tro cyntaf dros y penwythnos. Mae'r diwrnod ar fformat barcamp - sy'n gofyn bod pawb yn dod â rhywbeth i'w drafod, ei gyfrannu neu'i gyflwyno. Canlyniad hyn oedd diwrnod llawn ymgysylltu, dysgu a hwyl - mi oedd bron bob sgwrs yn sesiwn yn ei hun, a mi ddysgais i gymaint am blatfformau a phrosiectau digidol Cymraeg. Dwi ar fy ffordd i sesiwn Digidol ar Daith, felly gobeithio y gallai bostio crynodeb fwy trylwyr o beth ddysges i yn fuan.

Er fy mod i wedi hen arfer siarad yn gyhoeddus, dyma fy sgwrs gyntaf ar ran yr adran ddigidol - ac am fy mod yn cyflwyno am @DyddiadurKate, roeddwn i'n awyddus i wneud argraff dda ar ran y tîm sy'n gweithio mor galed ar y prosiect. Cewch edrych dros fy sleidiau, a chrynodeb o'r sgwrs ar wefan Hacio'r Iaith. Cewch chwilio trwy #fwrlwm y dydd ar twitter hefyd.

Diolch i'r trefnwyr a'r cyfrannwyr am y croeso, ac am yr ysbrydoliaeth!

Mae dros fis wedi mynd heibio ers i @DyddiadurKate bostio cofnod cyntaf dyddiadur Kate Rowlands. Mi fyddwch chi wedi dysgu rhagor amdani, erbyn hyn, trwy flogiau a chyfweliadau, a thrydar yn ôl ac ymlaen ar gyfrifon fel @StFagansTextile, @archifSFarchive, @RhB1Addysg ac @sf_ystafelloedd.

Rydym ni wedi cael gor-olwg frithliw a diddorol o bob math o agweddau o hanes cyfnod y dyddiadur, sef 1915. Mae cofnodion cryno y dyddiadur wedi bod yn symbyliad i staff i archwilio eu cyd-destun, a rhannu rhagor o gasgliadau a ffynonellau, o Amgueddfa Cymru a thu hwnt. Mae ein cronfa ddata Casgliadau'r Rhyfel Byd Cyntaf yn llawn pob math o wrthrychau sy'n rhoi cip ar stori fwy personol, sy'n mynd â ni i fyd y pethau bychain, fel y gall Dyddiadur Kate.

Un peth sydd wedi dod yn amlwg o gychwyn cynta'r prosiect yw pa mor werthfawr yw casgliad Papurau Newydd Cymru y Llyfrgell Genedlaethol wrth i ni geisio darganfod mwy am gofnodion cryno'r dyddiadur - yn enwedig wrth i Kate sôn am ddigwyddiadau cymdeithasol neu bynciau llosg y cyfnod, fel ei chofnod am yr 'influenza' dros y penwythnos:

Hysbyseb difyr o ran argaeledd orennau #RhB1 @DyddiadurKate Cambrian Daily Leader http://t.co/EQWagw0duL

— Mared Wyn McAleavey (@SF_Ystafelloedd) February 8, 2015

Mae cronfa'r papurau newydd yn eisampl wych o sut i gyflwyno dogfennau mawrion, manwl - mae'r chwiliad yn hawdd iawn i'w lywio, sy'n golygu ei bod hi'n hawdd iawn dod o hyd i erthygl benodol, neu i ddilyn dy drwyn gan ddarllen am dy hoff bynciau (fues i'n darllen lot am gystadleuthau gweu dros y penwythnos, mwy cyffrous yn amlwg na phencampwriaeth y chwe gwlad).

Y tu cefn i'r hanes cymdeithasol a'r trafod a'r rhannu, erbyn hyn, 'mae'r dechnoleg sy'n ei gyflwyno. O safbwynt digidol, mae DyddiadurKate wedi bod yn ffordd wych imi weithio gyda thîm i roi tro ar dargedu cynnwys uniaith-gymraeg ar gyfryngau cymdeithasol. Mae hefyd wedi rhoi cyfle imi arbrofi a gwerthuso rhag-bostio (yn defnyddio tweetdeck), a phlatfform analytics mewnol twitter. Dwi'n gobeithio y bydd y teclynnau hyn yn dod yn ran o waith mwy o'n trydarwyr, fesul tipyn - ac felly o ran 'pethau bychain' fy mywyd bob dydd innau, gan mlynedd yn ddiweddarach, cofnodi data fydda i, tra'n gwylio dyddiau Kate yn pasio heibio.

If you’ve been browsing our Visiting or Learning pages recently, you may have noticed a new look to those areas. From 9th December 2014, we are trialling parts of a new, updated Amgueddfa Cymru website with you.

Visit the Homepage

We need your feedback to help make these new pages as good as they can be. If there’s anything that didn’t work for you; anything that you found confusing or difficult to use; any information that you couldn’t find easily; or anything that you’d like to see improved, please let us know. Equally, if there are things that you really liked about the pages, we’d still love to hear from you!

Send Feedback

Why update the website?

During an extensive study of the existing website, we identified many areas where we think we can improve.

One of our core aims is to bring you the information you need more quickly and with less fuss. We are doing this by improving our content, simplifying our navigation and reducing the clutter on our pages.

With these new pages we want to bring you a fresh, modern web experience and one that works equally well on any device you may be using - be it a mobile, tablet, screen-reader or desktop computer. Visiting each of our seven museums is a unique experience and we also hope to bring a little more of that flavour of that to the web.

These are just a few of the ways we want to make the website better. We will be doing more work on all this in the coming weeks and months.

Coming in 2015

During the first half of 2015 you will see more and more areas of the website updated and improved. New Collections, Curatorial, Venue Hire and Blog pages will follow soon, as well as a new, updated Online Shop.

We will use any lessons learnt during this period to make sure that every area of the website is as good as we can possibly make it.

Your feedback and input to the new site will help us make that happen. And, of course, this is just the beginning.

Update 1 - 16 January 2015

Huge thanks to everyone who sent their feedback to us over the past few weeks. There are too many bug fixes and updates to list here, but here are a few of the changes we've made so far:

What's On:

• The calendar feature has been restored - you can now view events on a chosen date.
• Added the option to view events at all our museums.
• Show 'List View' by default.
• Added images, suitability and cost information to the List View.
• View and date choices are now 'sticky', so they won't reset as you switch pages.

Blogs - this is the new, redesigned blog area. We hope you like it.

Website Search - A number of broken links were fixed. We also improved the display of search results on mobile phones.

Update Collections databases - Paleontology, Mineralogy of Wales, Mollusca, Vertebrate and Marine Invertebrates database all redesigned and updated.