Working with the Makarios III Foundation, Blupath worked to deploy the Infopoint platform and use it to help the organization engage with visitors and tourists to the Byzantine Museum and the Makarios III Art Gallery. The objective of the project was to support the Foundation by providing mechanisms by which visitors could find out more information about the various thematic areas and exhibits on display on the two institutions, enriching the visitors experience with rich digital content and multimedia. The solution eventually decided upon was to deploy a number of tablets within secure tablet stands within the premises of the two institutions, acting as digital kiosks that visitors could interact with to find out more about the various items on display. The decision to use tablets within secure enclosures, rather than allowing visitors to access the information through their own mobile phones, was made as a means of preventing visitors from retaining access to the information and media assets on display after leaving the institution.
An account for the Makarios III Foundation was registered on the Infopoint platform, and a database of information about the exhibits and thematic areas the two institutions focused on was generated. Similarly, a library of digital assets, including photography, audio, and video was set up in the platform, with assets covering more than 300 exhibits. A multi-media rich, multi-lingual digital guide to the institutions was generated by the platform, with pages providing details about more than 30 thematic areas. Individual pages divided information into sub-themes and showcased individual items on display. Multimedia experiences with video and audio where also incorporated into the guide, the control and content of which was managed by the Infopoint administrator’s console by an administrator from the Foundation itself.
20 digital kiosks using ipads in enclosures were deployed, each tuned to a different page from the digital guide created, focusing on the closest subjects on display. Users of the digital guide could navigate to view additional information about the other thematic areas of the institutions at any point. Visitors accessing the digital guide could also use it to view a map of the floorplan of the institutions, whereas the Foundation itself is able to get useful statistical information about the interactions of visitors with the deployed tablet kiosks.