Batik Scan: Empowering Cultural Heritage Knowledge Through Mobile Innovation

Abstract

Batik Malaysia, a type of textile art known as Batik originated in Malaysia, especially in the east coast states; Kelantan, Terengganu, and Pahang. The Batik mostly uses features flower motifs and designs instead of living creatures, such as humans and animals. Even though Malaysian wear it every day, they do not have sufficient knowledge about Batik. Besides, there is a limited number of platforms where Malaysian can get access to the information of Batik in the easiest and fastest way. Hence, this study aims to design and develop a mobile app for batik identification by only capturing the motifs and designs using a camera feature. The app, called as batik scanner, provides quick information related to Batik Malaysia. This app is especially suitable for adults, batik lovers, and new learners.  The advances in digital technology play an important role in helping people to identify the type of Batik Malaysia. It also can reduce the effort of new learners and Batik lovers to find out information of Batik. To ensure that users will have a good mobile user experience, an understanding of the importance and limitation of the mobile app features and behaviour is necessary. Therefore, the design thinking approach was applied as the development methodology as it provides a solution-based approach to solving problems. User requirements were gathered through interviews followed by defining the core problems. Next, innovative solutions were identified using the brainstorm technique and mind mapping. Once the batik scanner prototype was completed, user testing was carried out with the targeted respondents to refine the solution. An online form also was distributed to evaluate the usability of the prototype. The results of the evaluation indicate that the Batik Scanner need to improve some of the interface designs. The respondents were also satisfied with the functions of managing the information in the Batik Scanner. The study contributes toward understanding users’ needs in creating the solution to the identified problems. It may serve as a guideline for other developers and researchers to develop similar apps or to enhance the features of Batik Scanner to become better and easier for users.