Visitors to New Orleans now have an exciting new way to plan their explorations of the city’s famed French Quarter. Ideum and The Historic New Orleans Collection have designed and developed The French Quarter Tours, an interactive exhibit and mobile app that gives guests a wide array of options to explore one of the City’s most diverse and fascinating districts.
Starting with the highly detailed 3D map at the heart of the exhibit, users can select dozens of highlighted structures and locations and learn about their history through then-and-now photos. Additional maps from different historical periods provide information on architectural styles, home ownership patterns, and important events in the area’s history, such as the devastating fires that swept through the neighborhood in the late 18th century.
The experience also includes a range of pre-curated tours focusing on key elements of the City’s heritage. However, users aren’t restricted to tours designed by others—they can also create and save their own personalized tours of the Quarter’s avenues and alleys. Using the French Quarter Tours app for Android or iOS visitors can connect the mobile app to saved points of interest and tours in the touch table application. This innovative approach of linking a touchtable experience to a smartphone app lets guests take their time to gather information before heading outside to explore the City on their own.
The experience runs on an Ideum Colossus multitouch table. Using our largest touch table allowed us to create four user stations around the table’s perimeter, so that multiple guests can immerse themselves in the exhibit’s depth of information simultaneously and share and discuss their discoveries.
The Ideum team was very pleased to work with The Historic New Orleans Collection’s dedicated historians and experts on this unique experience. We look forward to our next trip to the Crescent City to see how visitors and residents alike use the exhibit to learn more about one of America’s most enchanting locations.
