Portsmouth Dockyard - Part 3

Hey everyone, it’s time for another addition of the Portsmouth Dockyard series… I have a confession to make - I made a mistake in my last blog post about the Dockyard; I accidently said that I went to the Jutland Gallery, when in fact it was called the Victory Gallery. So, sorry about that. I edited the post on my website, but unfortunately, I won’t be able to edit Social Media previews.

Anyway, let’s get onto this last visit… On Friday the 18th of January, I went to the Victory Gallery again to see if the interactive exhibit was working, but a member of staff told me that it wasn’t working, so I went into another bit of the Dockyard. To my surprise, a few moments later, I got a message from the staff saying that they had managed to get the interactive section working, so I was able to go in to see it! I was very impressed with the staff letting me know about this, it was fantastic customer service. The interactive section is called the “Trafalgar Experience”.

As well as going into the interactive exhibit, I went onto the ship called the M33, but I am going to write about the “Trafalgar Experience” first…

I had to wait a few minutes before I was able to go in (I’m guessing they wanted to double check that it was working ok), so I had a go on an interactive quiz. To play this quiz, you have to press buttons. I thought that these buttons were quite difficult to get to. The quiz is displayed on a curved screen, which made it difficult to see what was on it. I don’t know if it was my eyes, the angle, the colour, or the quality, but the display seemed very blurry, and that impacted on my ability to read it too.

When I was trying to read what was on the screen, the computer didn’t give me enough time to read the information. It changed to the next page before I could read it. I couldn’t read much of it at all. I’m not the best at reading anyway, but this made it almost impossible to read. I think that it might be improved by putting a flat screen on the wall (the same height), so that it is easier for everyone to read. Putting a flat screen on an adjustable arm, so that people could move the screen to fit different people's needs would improve the experience for everyone. As for the speed of the information changing, it might be better if you could change it manually, although I’m not sure how they would make it accessible to everyone because some people can’t press buttons. I think they would have to experiment.

The Trafalgar Experience was split into three parts. When I was in there, I tried to have a look at the model, which was below a barrier, but I could only see a small part through the glass. The picture below was my view…

The people I was with took photos of the display below from above so that I could see what was in there. This is what I should have seen…

In the Trafalgar Experience, there were lots of loud sound effects. This is good if people want to experience the same noises as there were in the battle, but to be honest, I didn’t enjoy it because of the loud noises, it made me feel uneasy and made me jump quite a lot. I think that there should be a notice up outside the room warning people about the loud noises.

I then went onto the M33. The M33 is a small ship that was specially made for the First World War, for something called the Battle of Gallipoli. To get onto the M33, I went in the lift. I was impressed to see that there is a lift to get up this area. When I got out of the lift, there was a non-slip surface, which is great! On the lower deck of the M33, there is an opportunity to watch a video. Unfortunately, I couldn’t see the top deck because there is no wheelchair access to enable people up there in wheelchairs. The lower deck of the M33 has an area where you can watch a video. Some people might like it, but again, I didn’t like it at all due to the loud noises and being in the dark didn’t help either. I realise that not much can be done about this, but when I went, I also thought it was extremely cold on board. They did have a small electric heater, but I don’t think it helped much.

That’s just about it for this blog post, so I hope you found it insightful. If you did like it, give it a little thumbs-up. Come back next time. Thanks for reading, bye for now.