Overview
Norwegian Nature Center (or 'Norsk Natursenter') is one of Norway's leading tourist attractions. Describing itself as a 'modern activity and experience center' it serves a plethora of tour groups and tourists throughout the year and is the official visitor for the Hardangervidda National Park, Europe's largest high mountain plateau.
At the start of 2020 Sarner - a world leading in interactive attractions - tasked myself via Four Waves with the development of 19 applications for interactive displays for the center. These displays would form part of an updated digital experience across three floors of the facility.
Each screen focused on a particular aspect of the natural world outside, covering topics such as flora, fauna, history, prehistory and geology, and work was carried out remotely from my base in the UK and on-site in the Fjords.
Development was carried out remotely with a site visit by myself prior to launch for final testing and updates.
Main Challenges
Each app had to be available in 13 languages to cater for the center’s large range of demographics. This was challenging given the amount of content and the ways it was to be displayed, including graphs, maps and infographics. This was overcome by created a Javascript language selection which integrated with a central JSON content library.
The user experience was designed by an external team before my arrival on the project and often required rethinking from a user experience to work in a modern digital setting. I therefore had to tweak the UI/UX where possible while balancing staying as true to the originally agreed design as possible. Although this is never an ideal scenario I have found this is a key skill to almost any frontend digital project.
There were a vast range of interactive screen sizes and types, which each app requiring a different type of interaction from the user. Whilst some apps displayed information via carousels, others employed navigable video tours or interactive wheels and games. Without all the screens to test at my fingertips when working from the UK, and interactive gestures extremely difficult to replicate via remote technology, my experience and knowledge of the technology was relied on heavily.
Performance was also paramount as the apps had to handle an influx of over 200 visitors at any one time and to be left running without staff intervention day in, day out. Various reporting tools were integrated, and a timeout and various touch features were added to ensure smooth operation.
Result
Feedback was fantastic, and the Natursenter is more than ever a key destination for many tourists exploring the Fjords. I thoroughly enjoyed my time working on this project (especially during my stay in the Fjords where I got to explore from the comfort of my Eidjford nordic cabin) and look forward to carrying out similar interactive experience development in the future.
