Languages and Tangles

This week my task was to find a way to make this app available for those who do not speak English as a first language or at all. I have spent the last few days updating the app so that it can be translated into Mandarin, Traditional Spanish, Haitian Creole and German. Other languages can be added later on.

I am going to use the AI translation software as the starting point for obvious reasons due to my inability to speak any of those languages. The goal in the future will be to work with an individual who is fluent in each of the languages to correct any mistranslations or refine them in a more accurate way. Since these tours and exhibits will be fairly consistent we won’t have to change the language much and this process won’t be too hard to continue. The museum staff would only need to update the tour every time something major changes and then only the part that is new.

The other issue that was brought up in my last meeting was the ADA compliance. That will take some more time to work through because I need to understand what the requirement exactly is and then figure out how best to implement it. My understanding of it now is that anything visual like a photograph or map needs to have a description of it for those with visual impairment. This will work out with my next internship for the fall since that is all about helping the visually impaired.

For this I am going to need about 2 weeks to learn about compliance and how to implement it in the application because it is going to be subject to governmental oversight. It will need to be thoroughly tested so it doesn’t fail and become out of compliance. It will have to come at the end once we have all the photographs and illustrations set.

In the mean time, I will also be helping the museum and the Polk County Historical Association deal with the over 170 gigs of oral history interviews they have had digitized. They want a Youtube channel where the interviews can be housed for public consumption so I just have to set that up but the issue is the password. There are several individuals who are on the board who have had or have the password and none of them know what it is and someone else entirely it seems, is the phone number for the 2 step verification. So this wil have to be worked out at the PCHA banquet on the 23rd.