Path-o-Logic

Path-o-Logic is an interactive navigation system for museums, trade shows, conferences, and large exhibitions at which the user has a finite amount of time to visit many works, booths, and tables. Path-o-Logic divides large areas into smaller spaces to ease the burden of being inundated by content at a large space. Each space, or “zone,” contains an interactive kiosk where the user places a RFID-equipped paper map (velum, actually) onto a touchscreen, transforming the paper map into the GUI, giving the user an artifact that they are free to mark up however they like and take with them to other kiosks in the space.

A RFID reader identifies the user as unique. Using Java’s serial library the tag is read, and a PHP script is called to enter the tag’s ID into a MySQL database so that the user’s choices will be remembered at subsequent kiosks. The working prototype used at the 2008 ITP Spring Show asked the user to select a project category. The software would display dots on the screen signifying each project’s location within the current zone, and the user could draw his or her own path directly on the map. When the user exited the zone (an area determined to contain the proper amount of projects to ask a user to interact with) another kiosk was strategically placed on the border of the next zone. The next kiosk suggested projects to see within its zone based on previous choices made in other zones. The system received very positive feedback and users were pleased with the ease of interaction and especially the artifact in the physical map.

• Conceptualize a navigation system to benefit trade shows, conferences, museums and large exhibitions
• Develop dynamic software that can easily be adapted and reused.
• Software built with Java and Processing
• Networked system achieved with PHP/MySQL

Map with RFID Tag
P = kiosk location

Interaction Plan