Touch That Screen

Visitors guide themselves with touch-screen programs.

While it’s sometimes difficult to bring our ever-growing, technology-based society to nature, at Minnesota State Parks we’ve come one step closer to bringing nature to people in a fun, interactive way.  That’s what I want to share with you: how to easily create touchscreen programs for your visitors.

Instead of shuffling through a field guide to find a bird, visitors can touch through a series of options to key the species, learn about it, and even listen to its song. They can play a game to learn about local fish, or take a quiz on their knowledge of hardwoods versus conifers.

Touchscreen programs are easy to set up with PowerPoint.  And, you can put the finished product on outdated, surplus computers, since these programs will be run without the need for extra software.

In this example, we’ll create a touchable field guide to the wildflowers of central Minnesota.

What you’ll need

• Computer with PowerPoint software
• Spare computer for visitor use
• Touchscreen monitor ($700-$1700)

Step 1: Create a PowerPoint Presentation

Open a blank document in PowerPoint.  Make the first page your title page.

Example 1: When touched, the title page will take users to the main menu (below).

Step 2: Create a Main Menu

Insert a second page.  Make this your main menu.  Insert buttons into your main menu.

Example 2: Buttons allow users to explore 3 options: spring, summer, & fall flowers.

Step 3:  Insert 3 new pages to compliment your 3 new buttons

On each new page, create buttons to allow visitors to explore further.

Example 3: From the "Spring Flowers" page, users can choose a color to narrow their search.

Step 4: Insert 5 new pages to compliment the 5 new buttons

On each new page, create buttons to go further!

Example 4: From here, users are able to view and choose flowers to learn more.

Step 5: You guessed it!  Insert 4 new pages to compliment the 4 new buttons

On these new pages include the information of each flower- much like a field guide would!

Example 5: Here the user is able to identify and learn more about specific flower species.

Step 6:  Repeat, repeat, repeat

Repeat these steps for all of the information you’d like to offer.  These programs can easily be a couple hundred pages long!

Don’t forget to insert “Back” buttons on every page.  Always allow the user to retrace their steps or start over.

Once you have the skeleton of your program, the fun part is jazzing it up with fancy backgrounds, clipart, sounds, animations, or videos.

For example, our Amphibians program starts out as a game where the visitor “touches around” to find the amphibians.  When they find a frog, a magnifying glass pops up, and the visitor is invited to touch the notebook to view the Herpetologist’s notes about frogs.   The visitor can then touch the various tabs to learn a wide variety of information about the frogs of Minnesota in a fun, somewhat silly, way.

Download the full PowerPoint presentation (2 megabytes).

Step 7: Transfer the program to the visitor-use computer

Once your program is complete, it’s as easy as copying it to a jump drive to transfer it to your spare computer for visitor use.  (The computer can be set to automatically start up and run the program.)  As long as the computer is connected to a touch monitor, the monitor will automatically transfer a “mouse click” command to a “touch” command.

Many types of interactivity can be used with touch screens.  These programs could be set up to provide to-the-point information about a specific park, act as an animated field guide, include videos and virtual tours, or run as an interactive game.

If you’d like more information on the touch programs that have been created within Minnesota State Parks or on how to create a program yourself, contact me at Kacie.Carlson@dnr.state.mn.us.

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