The design of the user interface in the first version and its visualization was also realized by the students. Picturing a Century CD-ROM demo was shown in 1996 at the 90th anniversary exhibition of the Finnish Art Teachers Association, where it also went through preliminary testing. In the spring of 1997 a more complete user survey was done, leading to further development of the contents and function. As the work group underwent a partial change at that time, the user interface and navigation also experienced some changes. A traditional multimedia format was abolished and an interactive and user-configurable operational model was adopted instead.
Pictures are important documents of the history of art education.
In the project, we are trying to develop methods that will open up the pictures to new points of view. The multimedia software developed by Jukka Orava and Jouko Orava offers excellent technical support in analyzing picures. This software makes it possible to compare large quantities of pictures with each other. The user of the Picturing a Century CD-ROM demo first enters an imaginary space, an 'entry foyer'. It has five doors leading to five classrooms, each representing a different period of the twentieth century.