Virtual Tour Tutorial
Welcome to the tutorial for the virtual tour of the Charles Dickens Museum. This will help you take full advantage of the features included in the museum's virtual tour.Along the left side of the screen, you will find navigation links. These will stay visible throughout the tour, so if you ever want to change to another room, return to the title screen, or this tutorial, you can simply click on the respective link. Here is a short description of some of the important links:
Main: This returns you to the main title page.
Museum Map: This will bring you to a complete floor plan of the museum. All of the rooms are named, and can be clicked on to bring you directly to that room. Use this to gain a better awareness of how the museum layout is.
Museum Guide: This link brings you to a page of highlights for each room. Use this to make sure you've explored some of the most important and favorite exhibits featured in the rooms.
Tour Tutorial: Clicking on this link will bring you back to this tutorial.
Room Links: As stated earlier, each of the remaining links will bring you to the virtual tour of the respective room.
It is also important to note that no matter where you are in the tour, there is a navigation feature to help you. Along the top of the virtual tour, you will see "Location Links," showing where you are in relation to the museum as a whole. Any of the links can be clicked to go back to that item/room/floor. For example, while looking at the Morning Room Panoramic, along the top it says: The Ground Floor > Morning Room > Panoramic View. This lets you know that you're looking at the Panoramic View of the Morning Room, which is located on the Ground Floor. As stated, you could click the words "Morning Room" to return to the overview, or "The Ground Floor" to go to the map of that floor.
So, to continue this tutorial, let's explore a room. We'll choose The Morning Room, located on the ground floor. If you click on the link along the left side for The Morning Room, you are then brought to an overview of the room. A general description of the room, and some highlights of the room are featured. Links are provided here to the items in the room. In addition, a small panoramic photograph of the room is along the top of the page.
The next feature to be aware of is the Panoramic Photograph. If you click on the small panoramic photo, you will be brought to a new web page. This features a larger panoramic of the room. You will only be able to see a small section of the room, but using the scroll bar along the bottom of the picture you can "look around" the room.While viewing the panoramic photograph, there are even more features to explore. You can click on almost any item you see in the room to see a close-up view of that item complete with a text description. As you move your cursor over the panoramic image, you will notice it change from and arrow to a pointed finger. Whenever you see the "pointed finger" cursor, you will know that you can click and be brought to a new page. From the new page, you can then click on the close-up picture to look at a further zoomed in view of the item. To return to the description, simply click on the zoomed in picture.
It is important to note that not all the areas have all the features noted above. Some rooms are too small for a panoramic view. The same is true for the stairways. In these areas, you simply click on the links for any items you wish to explore more in depth.
One other thing worth mentioning is that there are some steps you may need to take to ensure you have a positive experience while viewing the virtual tour. First of all, while we have decided to use a larger-than-normal text size to make the text easier to read. However, this size may not be appropriate for you. If at any time you feel the need to change the size of the text, you may do so in your internet browser's "View" menu. From the view menu, you should see an option for "Text Size," and then Increase or Decrease. Keyboard shortcuts should also be available to make this process easier, but this will vary depending on the software program you are using. You may also want to ensure your monitor's settings for brightness and contrast are set appropriately, as there are numerous images present in this tour. Please refer to your monitor's manual for more details on how to adjust these settings.