Kiosk and Responsive Web Design & Development For A Historical Exhibit
The Penang Hill Gallery@Edgecliff
Preserving Culture, Embracing Heritage
The Penang Hill Gallery@Edgecliff is a cultural and historical heritage bungalow converted into a gallery and exhibit by the Penang Hill Corporation to highlight the history of Penang Hill. It is a tourist attraction with exhibits that tell the history of Penang Hill while surrounded by the natural splendour of Penang hill. Alongside the gallery, tourists can also buy souvenirs and refreshments from the shop and cafe. New additions came with the recent renovations to modernise the site.
Our Challenges & Goals
With the Edgecliff Bungalow itself restored and its electronic infrastructure built up, the Penang Hill Gallery@Edgecliff needed to establish its online presence and develop its virtual infrastructure. Kode Digital was tasked with designing three aspects of Edgecliff’s virtual infrastructure: the website, the electronic kiosk and the QR code translation site.
Our goal for the website was to develop a fully-functioning site for Edgecliff for visitors to learn more about the place and find answers about visitations. The challenge presented by this project was that we had to develop the website using Joomla and its available templates, which limited our creative freedom with it. The website also had to be developed with its language interchangeable between English and Bahasa Melayu with a single click.
The purpose of the kiosk was to act as an interactable information display for tourists. The biggest challenge of this task was getting the kiosk to load information immediately, as we wanted to conceal the framework of the kiosk’s interface. This was an issue as the area’s weak data connection made it difficult to load pages with the Internet quickly. The QR code, similarly, needed to load information quickly, as they linked to pages with Simplified Chinese, Arabic, Tamil and Japanese translations of on-site information plaques.
How We Helped
Website Design & Development
After some research, Kode Digital was able to develop a fully functioning website. We captured the ‘historical heritage’ theme of Gallery@Edgecliff through the print-like backdrop patterns resembling the architecture of Georgetown heritage buildings against a white background.
For the website’s galleries, we used pictures taken during visits to the site to give visitors a peek at what to expect and to showcase some of the exhibits.
To highlight the client’s guidelines regarding COVID-19, we implemented a pop-up icon to direct visitors to the relevant information on the homepage. Pages were also included featuring the site’s address and contact info to allow visitors to locate it or make inquiries to site staff.
Through a combination of on-site and off-site efforts, Kode Digital was also able to develop the software for the electronic kiosk and QR code system and connect them to the local Edgecliff network. As the kiosk functioned through an interactable touch screen, we optimised the interface to be large enough to be comfortably used by hand and identifiable as an interactive touch screen. While the systems we built for the kiosk were developed using WordPress, we had to create the QR code pages from scratch. The files on those pages were compressed to ensure they could load quickly on a limited Internet connection.
The Outcome
Kode Digital’s work on the digital infrastructure for Penang Hill Gallery@Edgecliff has helped to improve its online presence and make its on-site exhibits more interactive. The inclusion of various translations on both the websites and digital plaques makes them more accessible to a broader audience. With the features we have added to the website, visitors can learn what they need about the tourist attraction, find Edgecliff and contact the site’s team all in one place.
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