LAMH World That Was Exhibit

October 2010 – Keywords: Environmental Display, Exhibits, Touch Screen, Projectors, Audioguide

The ‘World That Was Table’ is a learning tool whereby visitors can visually explore 25,000 photographs of Jewish life before the Holocaust and connect through the emotional stories associated with each image.

Variate Labs designed this feature as part of the LAMH museum master strategy for information and interaction.

The ‘World That Was’ interactive table is an interactive and communal learning tool which visitors use to visually explore an archive of 25,000 photos depicting Jewish people and their lives before the Holocaust. Many of these photos are portraits, and the accessibility of the table’s UI allows visitors to connect with the striking visual and emotional qualities of these portraits.

Variate Labs designed this display as part of the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust (LAMH) master strategy for information and interaction. The museum has an extensive image collection of such a size that displaying it in a conventional way would have been impossible. The solution was to create a database of images with rich metadata associated with each image, and to have the interactive table organize and present the images in various groups determined by the metadata.

One goal of this interactive table was to have a low barrier of entry, whereby visitors could manually and visually explore the photos with ease, and learn about the poignant stories behind the faces they portray. This table offers visitors a personal connection to its content and allows for spontaneous exploration.

The table can accommodate up to 12 individual viewers (navigating the UI themselves), or it can switch to a teaching mode where a docent can present content to a group of viewers. In this teaching mode, the docent activates a robust content management tool which can show images grouped by a specific family, theme or name. The table is also designed to allow videos to seamlessly sync with the LAMH audioguide device.

The new Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust opened its doors in October 2010 in Pan Pacific Park, Los Angeles.

Variate Labs worked with Potion Design (NYC) and The Tech Consultants (Los Angeles) to bring this project to life.

Simultaneous Multi-user Interaction

This exhibit can support up to 12 visitors exploring simultaneously. Individual zones allow visitors to explore by dragging images to the edge of the table. The concept behind the user interface was to create a fluid system to showcase 25,000 images of the Jewish community before the holocaust. The design uses a pool metaphor whereby images and videos float to the surface and become visible to visitors. Visitors can touch images to view them or drag an image to the edge of the table to view more information. Hundreds of visitors use the table every day with an age group ranging from 4-100 years old. This table is extremely kid friendly and makes it fun for kids to explore and learn.

Rescuing Photos

The design uses a pool metaphor whereby images and videos float to the surface and become visible to visitors. The images appear to be organized randomly inside of the interface but after they are dragged to the edge of the table relationships are shown between different types of content. Visitors can then select various related themes and explore other images and videos with the same theme.

Special Teaching Mode

This table also has a special teaching mode that enables a docent to select specific images and highlight a specific part of image. In this picture the docent is selecting a specific category to discuss. As the docent selects specific images a larger view of the individual image is shown at five locations across the table. Up to 25 visitors can stand around the table at one time and view the images as they are narrated.