The design and development of an online exhibition for heritage information awareness in Singapore

By combining the capabilities of latest computers, communication and multimedia technologies, web-based multimedia systems pro vide an exciting means and communication channel for information access and sharing throughout the world. These systems have immense potential in public education, stimulating the learning process by exploring and doing, and enabling children to go on trips around the world with just a few clicks. In this study, a web-based multimedia exhibition “Colours of the Wind” was designed and developed based on an existing exhibition that took the original form of static physical displays. The exhibition is part of a series of National Education exhibitions put together by the National Archives of Singapore to promote heritage information awareness. As part of the design, a requirements gathering study was carried out with 77 university students to determine the users’ requirements in terms of their computer and web experience, content expectations of an online exhibition and their prior exposure to these systems. Based on these user requirements, a prototype of an online exhibition system was developed and then evaluated by 30 students from the same pool from which requirements were gathered. The respondents were of the opinion that the online exhibition satisfied most of their requirements, apart from a search engine. They also felt that online exhibitions were a flexible mode of delivering heritage information to inculcate awareness among public, particularly in the context of Singapore which is one of the countries with the highest percentage of Internet users in the world.