Time : 930am - 1230am
Venue : Bank Negara Malaysia Money Museum and Art Centre, Kuala Lumpur
Reason : Research for Dynamic Interactivity
Last Saturday was a freaking holy day, it was the birthday of our beloved Agong, I spend my holiday by outing with my lecturers and friends at Museum Bank Negara. I was so exciting before I was going. I drive by my own, and passed by many of tall buildings in Kuala Lumpur City, and reach Bank Negara. I was wondering where is the place of the museum as I can't search it in GPS, but I found a mini bus nearby, my sixth sense told me that the bus must be the bus of my course mates, I followed the bus and reach the Museum.
The first impression when I reached there. I was like "DAMN NICE". The interior and exterior design of the building is so awesome and classy like a 5-stars hotel. Especially the toilet, it's really nice and clean. Then we went to the 3rd floor which is the history part of Malaysia economy, the display is so high-tech, Natural User Interface, Tangible User Interface, Touch-Screen... It's so much better than the Petrosains (I just went last week). I was being impressed by the user experience design of the museum, very comfort air-conditioner, nice lighting, high-tech devices, nice display of artifacts, nice interior design, rich of information and artifacts, and it is FREEE for entry. I appreciate the attitude of the organizer which they want to share the knowledge to public without earning.
I found many things that is interesting. The things that represents my impression is one of the display in first floor, the economy of Malaysia part. The display have a lot of cubes, and each cube represent an item. The cube listed out the price of the specific item in two different time, and it shown all the prices has grown compare to the past time.
I was curious about the display of cubes, and the message they trying to deliver. As a central bank of Malaysia's government (Bank Negara), why would they put a display to show they had increased the prices of things in the past? If I was the producer of the museum, I will hide these negative message that will mislead users and bring negative image to the corporate (Bank Negara). Another question is, why would they increase the price of the goods? The price of a pack of Nasi Lemak in 60's was 30 cents, but now it would be around RM2 to RM3, while our salary didn't not increased much in ratio compare to goods.
I've learnt a lot in this research. Human has the desire of getting more things and more variations, therefore human start trading in the past. Traders from China, India, and Europe meet at Malacca, which is a strategic place for trading, and did their business there. As the trading grow, money has invented to be the unit of measurement for exchanges. But different country has different measurement, example likes in country A, a chicken is 5 dollars, in country B, chicken is 30 dollars, therefore human need "currency exchanges", to exchange between different money from different countries. Central bank has started by government, to produce the notes, control price rates, and control the currency exchange rate. These are related to the economy of the country, the economy is the variable that control the notes quantities, price rates and currency exchange rate.
Nowadays, the net generations are too rely on digital media and rich information. I think they wouldn't like boring information in the museum bank negara, and the boring stuffs will not reflect them to think further, hence, they might not willing to share the knowledge and experience to each others.
If I was given a opportunity to ask 3 questions, I will ask:
1, Why will the organizer built this museum, share information, but not earning anything? If their main goal is to share the knowledge and information, then what key message are they trying to deliver?
2, What is the relationship between Bank Negara and the Financial Department of government and how do they work together?
3, What is the process and how to calculate the price rates and currency exchange rate?
