#its2018

It’s time to START, Straight to Airport Rapid Trains.  “A safe and reliable connection to the airport”.

I went along to the Public meeting organised by Public Transport Users Association and NZ Transport 2050 (a non-partisan organisation looking at sensible transport solutions for NZ). The speakers gave a very interesting, informative talk on building a heavy rail link to the airport.

Similar to what I explored in my last blog post, an eastern link was proposed, connecting Puhinui to the airport (instead of Manukau). It was rather exciting to learn some of the actual figures involved, backed by engineers. 

Key Notes:

Cost of $1-1.5 Billion for the heavy rail link,         vs $3 Billion for the current light rail proposal.

A 30min express line between Britomart and the Airport,         vs 43 minute journey for the current light rail proposal.

There was plenty of criticism for the current light rail proposal:

It would cause major disruption during construction.

High likelihood of cost overruns.

Not well precedented.

Auckland War Memorial Museum (2018) Weird and Wonderful Section 

http://www.aucklandmuseum.com/collection/object/am_library-ephemera-6076

Dragonfly Animation 

Another exhibition we encountered at the AWMM was in the weird and wonderful kids sections, which I think we can all agree is one of the most enjoyable parts of visiting, no matter what the age. In this one, they had a similar sort of technology to the butterfly exhibition though in this case, it was more so physically hands on. Taking a piece of paper with an outline of dragonflies on it you were able to colour in the insect physically, so not tapping a screen but by using real crayons and paper. 

From here by placing both hands on the table where it shows you, you place your coloured in drawings in the box, they use a camera to detect the images and colours you have used and animates them on a projected screen in front of you. It is using technology that is called augmented reality to make it look like the dragonflies are flying and spinning in a circle on your piece of paper. It's taking a real-life environment and adding something new to it to kind of make it seems like there is something there that isn’t. This is shown in a lot of apps and programs such as the classic fad of Pokemon Go. 

This interactive technology though it was similar to the butterfly one, it was an augmented reality approach to a similar concept, where you can customise and colour in a bug of some kind. Again this was aimed at children so appropriate table heights and the brightly coloured environment was there this interactivity was placed. Again the technology required an interaction from the user, in this case, a product that user presents (the coloured in a piece of paper) and their hands on the right sensors for it to work. Both separately would not have the same effect as it is again the technology and user working together to create an outcome. 

Auckland Art Gallery...

Today as a working group Liam, Adam and I made a visit to the Auckland Art gallery in hope of finding some interactive art pieces to comment on. The nature of what we found was mostly static art works due to the type of exhibits being shown at this current time. However, in our excursion we were able to find some basic interactive pieces that used audio.

 Keeping in mind what Laurent had mentioned yesterday about user experience, user interface and customer experience we analyzed some of the works we came across and we were surprised with what we found.

 One piece of work consisted of a playlist of vocal tracks that our surprise was found in an album on apple music. The decision to use this application with no guided access meant we could if we wanted to remove the tracks off the album even add our own tracks and take over the iPad. Not a good look for a serious feature exhibit in a well-recognized gallery.

 This contradicted a similar piece that also displayed audio tracks that used different application that we were un able to muck around with. A far more suitable interface for the given environment. However, with this exhibit we were surprise that the tablets displaying these audio tracks were un thoughtfully siting in a table where the previous user had left it. Not a good look when you want your work to be taken seriously. The rest of the static pieces in the gallery had clearly been well thought through taking into careful consideration height balance and feel of the room.

 To add to this, we concluded that while the many of the works themselves were static they layout of the space and design of the gallery was Intentionally made out for you to get lost in the art work. Interacting with the space without even realizing your doing so.