Many long, long nights and work-filled weekends later, we’ve finally launched. We put up the site late last week to coincide with the second Nevada Democratic debate and today’s Nevada caucus.

Check it out at: http://www.lasvegassun.com.

Some of my favorite features of the site:

• Clean, open design by Sun staffers Bill Gaspard and Tyson Evans. Tyson, trained as a print designer, learned some pretty wicked CSS very quickly to build the site. He also designs a content-specific main content block each evening.
• Huge photo galleries. Our in-house flash viewer scales to any size (go ahead, hit the fullscreen button) and the photos are dynamically sized by the server to look good at almost any resolution.
• Our HD video strategy. The details are still being worked out, but the video widget should hint at where we’re going. Even now, you can download 720p HD video, in addition to iPod-sized video. And we’re not wasting the resources on crappy video. I think you’ll see some great video stories come out of this “newspaper.”

And we have some exciting things happening behind the scenes. Most importantly, outside the network layer, most of our technology infrastructure is built and managed by our editorial tech team, with editorial goals and deadlines in mind. We use a Python/Django-based CMS that our (crazy smart )programmers Doug Tywman and Kit Dallege can hack at a moment’s notice. Our Flash widgets are mostly built by Zach Wise, our multimedia guru, and can be adjusted at any time. We can add storage to our servers, tweak the database and drop in utility servers – like a streaming server – whenever we want, even in the middle of the night as news breaks. It’s flexible and very freeing.

Our team and strategy might be a little unorthodox but I think it will serve us and our audience well. Keep an eye out for more features and projects launching in the coming months.

Curiosity Stations are a chance for visitors to take the National Zoo home with them. The kiosks allow visitors to enter their name, email address and select Asia Trail topics of interest to explore in depth at home.

Two banks of Curiosity Station kiosks are located in high-traffic areas: one by the indoor Giant Panda viewing, the other by the outdoor Sloth Bear viewing. Given their prominent locations at the exits of the Asia Trail, the exhibit experience was designed to be quick, as a lengthy kiosk experience could not and should not compete with the two flagship species.

The kiosks are a three-part experience.

First, the Flash-based kiosks receive random lists of topics of interest from dynamically generated XML feeds via ColdFusion, Internet Information Server and SQL Server. Visitor information, including name, selected topics and visitation tracking information, are passed back to the Asia Trail server on the Smithsonian-wide exhibits network. All information except email addresses is logged to the database.

Next, ColdFusion generates and sends a custom email, with both an HTML and text-only version, to the visitor with a link to a personalized Web site.

Lastly, users explore their personalized Web site that contains in-depth answers to their topics of interest. All page views are tracked to help the Zoo understand how the exhibit is utilized.

The in-park kiosk experience takes about 45 seconds. The at-home, Web piece is designed to be a leisurely experience.

My role in the exhibit included information architecture design, Flash and ActionScript development, ColdFusion development, database design, HTML/CSS coding for the email and Web site, and co-writing the exhibit.

I also specified the touch screen, LCD, computer and VGA/Serial via Cat5 hardware for the mixed indoor/outdoor kiosks. See my paper on building outdoor multimedia exhibits for details.

Skills: Project Management, Videography, Final Cut Pro, Multimedia Storytelling, ColdFusion, SQL Server
Total Number of Kiosks: 5

The two banks of Decision Stations on the Asia Trail exhibit at the Smithsonian National Zoo are meant to illustrate a very import message: conservation is hard.

At each set of kiosks, one representing Indian issues and one representing Chinese issues, visitors are presented with three conservation dilemmas affecting the respective country. Visitors select one of the dilemmas and are given a brief description of the issue. Visitors then have to make a black and white decision about a land use issue with lots of shades of grey. For example, a China story forces users to decide whether or not to build a dam.

After their initial selection, visitors are given the opportunity to watch three videos of real people who have a stake in the decision: a pro view, an anti view and a compromise view. At any point users may change their vote and submit their final decision.

There is no right or wrong answer, only consequences. The final screen reflects the pros and cons of any decision and shows a pie chart of real-time statistics of how other users voted on the same issue.

Any given story of the six, three in the India kiosks and three in the China kiosks, is designed to take about four minutes.

While specific to the people and places represented by each set of Decision Stations, the issues are broad enough to be applicable to domestic conservation issues and accessible to Zoo visitors.

The outdoor kiosks are Flash based and communicate with a SQL Server via ColdFusion and Internet Information Server.

My role in the exhibit included project and contractor management, videography and photography for the China stories, all video editing and I co-wrote/developed the exhibit.

I also specified the touch screen, LCD, computer and VGA/Serial via Cat5 hardware for the outdoor kiosks.

The kiosks were designed and developed by Terra Incognita with art direction from Asia Trail exhibit designers.

The Science Stations are two 32” touch screen kiosks adjacent to the indoor Giant Panda viewing at the National Zoo.

The huge, vertically mounted screens invite visitors behind the scenes with three Giant Panda-based stories of Zoo science: veterinary medicine, reproductive science and animal management.

Designed for families, the Science Station kiosks have layers of information and interactivity. The three interactives are chocked full of video, photographs and a very interactive mating game, in addition to the basic science stories.

“A Day At The Doctor” has a video of the head veterinarian at the National Zoo explaining the importance of preventive veterinary medicine and lets visitors “perform” four procedures. Selecting a procedure shows video of the procedure being performed on Mei Xian, the adult female Giant Panda at the Zoo.

“Pandadate.com,” has a video of a Zoo scientist explaining the importance of selectively choosing captive panda breeding pairs. Visitors take the advice of the scientist and try their hand at choosing female partners for a series of fictional captive male pandas. The key is to remember the “three A’s:” age, access and ancestors.

“Keeper Stories” has video of the Giant Panda curator and three panda keepers talking about their favorite moments with the pandas. The fun interviews incorporate B-roll of the moments.

My role in the exhibit included project management, information architecture design, Flash and ActionScript development, videography for some video and producer for the other shoots, all video editing and co-wrote/developed the exhibit.

I also specified the touch screen, LCD and computer for the indoor kiosks.