The Smithsonian Institution's 'African Voices'

When moving a museum exhibition online, designers have to decide just how literally they want to translate the actual experience into the virtual one. A full-screen, high-resolution, QTVR (QuickTime Virtual Reality) tour might be nice, but the download time would take longer than an actual trip to the museum. Text and a few jpegs will load quickly, but the experience can be less than inspiring.

In the end, most sites aim for a middle ground between these extremes, and the Smithsonian Institution's African Voices offers an imaginative compromise in the online exhibition of exhibitions.

In the category of 'welcoming homepage' it would be difficult to do better that African Voices. The Flash-based page loads briskly --even with a dial-up connection-- and greets the visitor with color, animation, and attractive photography - and some atypical navigation.

Strictly in terms of layout, African Voices' navigation breaks from the standard by placing viewing options at the bottom and right of the browser window. On an HTML-based page, these decisions could be problematic since, depending on the viewer's monitor resolution and/or browser window size, navigation could require constant scrolling in order to access one's options. With Flash, however, the entire page resizes according to the visitor's preferences, and therefore there's no compelling reason to stick to convention.

But this isn't the only way that African Voices' navigation differs from the norm -- the website's designers at Terra Incognita also wanted to 'blur the line' between content and navigation.

On most sites, the division of these two elements can be reminiscent of the separation between church and state, (think of sites with separate navigation and content frames for the clearest examples) and in most cases, that separation is logical, or even necessary, to allow visitors to quickly get to the information that they need. (In much the same way that a library's contents are stored in a logical, standardized manner.) Museum exhibits, on the other hand, are much more flexible and interactive - encouraging visitors to choose their own unique paths through the same information-- and Terra Incognita decided to mirror this difference in the online companion.

To that end, what we would call the Navigation Bar at the bottom of the browser window has been turned in to an "Exploration Bar.' On first encounter, the Bar looks entirely conventional, with text headings for Africa's History, (from 5 million B.C. To the present day) such Themes as Wealth, Working and Living in Africa, a Learning Center, and the Focus Gallery - exhibiting the work of Lamidi Olonade Fakeye, a master woodcarver.

As you enter the site however, the bar uses a combination of images, text and interactivity to draw the visitor further into the exhibit - the heavy use of visual elements especially being employed (as in a real museum) to attract visitors to artifacts they might have otherwise moved past.

Enter History, and the Bar creates an interactive illustrated timeline, which itself creates more detailed timelines with each era selected. In Themes, a similar approach is used - Wealth in Africa uses the exploration bar to display images of artifacts in the exhibit. In both cases, clicking on an image takes the visitor to background information and a more detailed photograph.

Departing from this method of navigation, (but even more reminiscent of a real trip to the museum) is the Market Crossroads display, using what can be best described as an 'online diorama.' Here, information is available by clicking on 'active' vendors, as you pan through the scene. (Whether deliberately or not, the effect is made complete with the audio track - which has the same intrusively obvious sound loops I've heard in so many brick and mortar museums.) The Focus Gallery (introducing visitors to a master woodcarver, his work, and an interactive demonstration of the Five Stages of Yoruba Woodcarving) uses more conventional navigation, and as such, stands slightly apart - an exhibit within the exhibit.

The Exploration Bar eats up more screen real estate than a conventional navigation bar, and can cramp the content area, but you can regain all that space by turning off your browser's own navigation bar. (You won't be needing it while you're at the site.) And, like real museums, the exhibits only scratch the surface of their subject matter. But unlike real museums, African Voices, also has instant access to a thorough collection of websites (as well as suggested reading and audio) for those wanting to learn more.

African Voices can be found at http://www.mnh.si.edu/africanvoices/ .

(If you'd be interested in a more detailed explanation of how Terra Incognita adapted a museum exhibit for the Web, check out A Walk Through an Online Exhibit, written by the site's creative director for "Web Techniques".