15  Photo Contest Interface

University Museum Director Arakawa asked Craig to develop a large format slideshow to display images submitted to a photograph contest related to an exhibit opening. Director Arakawa obtained a ~75” diagonal display around which Craig developed an interface.

This was Craig’s first experience designing on a large display of this kind. Multiple considerations needed to be taken into account. At high pixel counts, objects including fonts and images can appear very small. Craig opted to set the display at less than maximum resolution. A second consideration is the distance between the monitor and the viewer. With larger monitors, viewers may find it comfortable to distance themselves from the display. Craig worked with Johnson to configure the display space to address this matter.

Craig initially built an interface directly in native JavaScript, but later opted to use Quarto’s lightbox extension which builds on the GLightbox JS library. The interface page was laid out using fenced div’s with the .column-screen-inset page overflow method and a 5 column layout.

In addition to building the interface, Craig was asked to implement a method for individuals to submit photographs to the contest. Craig used the Museum SharePoint to establish a file drop. Microsoft Support refers to this as a “File Request” and offers documentation of how to set one up. Craig implemented a SharePoint File Request for submissions to the photography contest.