http://www.kent.gov.uk/interactivehistory
Living in Kent is a fun and compelling CDROM. It tells the story of the County of Kent in a fascinating interactive narrative from prehistory to the present day. It draws on the collections and resources of more than 100 diverse museums, galleries, heritage sites and other places of interest, and includes fun games and activities and more than 100 videos (featuring Time Team's Tony Robinson) that bring Kent's rich history vividly to life.
Kent County Council appointed DOT to design and produce the Heritage Lottery Funded CDROM as a result of a 6 agency pitch in late 2000. The scope and scale of the project was ambitious and the budget was small. This was a potentially dangerous combination. Up to half the production costs of conventional CDROM authoring can be directly attributed to authors' amendments being implemented by a design team.
Our solution streamlined the authoring process and put the majority of the copy changes in the direct unmediated control of the authors, wherever they wanted to work from. We built a private database-driven web interface for the Kent authoring team that enabled them to author and amend their copy online, and to manage photographic and video assets, and contact details, opening times etc. for all of the sites in the places of interest directory. Working this way meant that the client's budget could be channeled away from implementation into design and interactivity.
The disc has been a huge success with the visiting public and in schools, where it has proved a useful tool to support the National Curriculum. The unconventional choice of authoring software and the database that supports it means that all the information authored for the CD is now readily available for publication in almost any other beautifully-presented format from print to the web to WAP and SMS. It breathes life and value into the work way beyond the original brief.
KCC project leader Verinnia Rees:
I loved their enthusiasm for the project and the subject. Martin and the team made a point of really getting to know our museums, collections and history, and that really came through with a thoughtful approach and inspired ideas.
...We had around a thousand digital images from a hundred different collections and a hundred videos to weave into around 600 interactive narratives. Each of those linked in turn to a historical period and to related pieces on the same theme, and to the places of interest that we wanted to feature in the listings and maps.
The content management tools were just fantastic. Our team could upload, edit and tag all the assets themselves, so the designers knew what every asset was and how it fitted in and could use it straight away.
The writers made in excess of 2000 edits to the content. You can imagine what that would have cost if the designers had made those changes
conventionally. It was a very special moment when the edits were finished and DOT could finally press the button that built the final screens.
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