National Constitution Center: Interactive Constitution
www.constitutioncenter.org/constitution
Following the redesign of the
National Constitution Center (NCC) site, Beaconfire partnered with Free
Range Graphics to create a one-of-a-kind, highly interactive application
designed to present the U.S. Constitution in a new, exciting, and educational
way. Featured in kiosks on the museum floor, and online as part of the NCC Web
presence, the application allows users to search through the Constitution and
read related explanatory and anecdotal text, definitions, and news updates, as
well as the text of the document itself. Easy to use and intuitive interfaces
give users a number of ways to explore the Constitution while learning about how
the document came to be, the meaning of the text, and the impact it has had and
continues to have on the world.
The Challenge: The NCC wished to create a visually appealing application that could be leveraged as an exhibit on the museum floor, as well as on the Web. As the Constitution had yet to be presented effectively online, the NCC wished to establish the Interactive Constitution as the preeminent interactive version and extend its use across the Web over a number of different platforms to be available to as many people as possible. It also had to provide users with good usability and easy, intuitive ways for users to navigate and search through hundreds of files of content. Finally, it had to use the open source technology currently employed on the NCC site, as well as provide a means for NCC staff to update sections of it without HTML coding know-how.
The Solution: Working with Beaconfire partner Free Range Graphics, Beaconfire put together and presented concepts for the application. The goal became to present the information and functionality within three screens to simplify the user experience and make the application present cleanly in a kiosk on the museum floor. The use of frames, dynamic tabs and multiple screen layers were conceived to accommodate the large amount of content the NCC wished to display in a limited space. To keep users exploring the content and making sure they never got lost, the search would be made available from all screens, current search terms would be shown along with results text, content would automatically scroll to results text and dynamic text highlighting would be used to point out results text and search terms.
To bring the concept to life, Free Range Graphics designed and Beaconfire developed the Interactive Constitution using a combination of JavaScript, PHP, DHTML and Flash elements to achieve a visually appealing and highly interactive user interface. For the sophisticated searching, Beaconfire took advantage of their main site search Ht:/Dig, an open source search application, and used the CMS in place for their main site, CrownPeak technologies' Advantage CMS, to create topical and Supreme Court case searching. The Interactive Constitution also uses Advantage CMS for site administration, which allows NCC staff to continue adding and updating content to the application. The application was also coded to present a museum visitors a special version tailored for the kiosk on the exhibit floor.
As a final step, Beaconfire conducted usability testing in a live environment
to study how the user interacted with and reacted to the final application. This
allowed Beaconfire to tweak the designs and address any usability issues before
the application went live to the public; ensuring that the deployed product was
intuitive, would satisfy the users needs, and achieve the goals NCC set for the
project.