Designing Visitor Experiences with Mobile Platforms in Museums

Designing Visitor Experiences with Mobile Platforms in Museums. Loïc Tallon IT University of Copenhagen, 17th September, 2009

Why use a audio / handheld guide in a museum? Leads to questions of: - How one should interact with an exhibit in a museum - What is a museum experience - How can we measure a successful interaction.

Two parts to designing a mobile experience: 1. There is the content / the visitor interaction. Obviously this is important. Bad content = bad experience 2. But also there is how the visitor accesses the content / interaction. Excellent content visitors can’t access = pointless This presentation though focuses primarily on the former

Remember the visitor’s perspective: “Why in the devil is there an handheld guide, and why should I take it?”

So how did they start?: Why did museum’s actually invent them?

1950s Philips Radio Tour – Stedelijk Museum, Holland, 1952.

1950s News Footage Stedelijk Museum, 1952

1950s Guide-a-Phone – American Museum of Natural History, NY, 1954. LecTour – National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, 1958.

1950s Soundtrek – American Museum of Natural History, NY, 1961.

1960s “In Europe, the virtues of the radio were recognised long ago. The Louvre in Paris has installed it and most of the major cities in Italy are using it. To pick out, in bold relief, each historic site. Britain, with its stolid belief that a visit to a museum of art should be an act of penitence, has not followed suit. […] The new system will bring history alive. At the same time it will do away with bulky, costly and usually unreadable programmes. And finally it will, by its sheer ingenuity, tell the visitor that the City cares about his interest, and wants to make his stay an interesting one” Evening Standard - 6/4/62

1960s Granadafon – Manchester City Art Gallery, 1961. Modern-o-Phone – Science Museum, London, 1961.

1960s “Overwhelming approval and appreciation of our efforts to make the museum objects more interesting and meaningful to people with no particular interest in the subject. Would like to see the idea developed and extended to all museums.” Ministry of Works, 1961 “Tests have merely shown that 9 out of 10 visitors are very enthusiastic about the idea, but I repeat that so would they be if we offered free drinks in the gallery. This proves nothing.” Dr. Ward, Director of the Science Museum. November 1960.

1970s Acoustiguide – National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, 1967

1980s The tape is practical, but visitors have to follow a set route.

1980s “In front of you know is one of Monet’s famous Cathedral series, unless of course you tool a left at the Assyrian wall reliefs instead of a right and are now facing a utility closet.”

1990 Add Digital (Direct/Random Access) Advantages: Access any information directly at any time. No moving parts… eventually with MP3 players Greater audio storage potential Result: Opened the opportunity for permanent collections to be put on an audio tour. Weakness?: Diminishing the educational potential (How important is this?)

2000 Anything is possible… And with digital technologies, today it seems anything is possible. Unlike in the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s, the technology is more capable than museums require. And when anything is possible, we have to start asking, what is desirable?

And that leads to the question today with museums & technology: Who is wagging who? Beware geeks bearing gifts…

Future Lab / Louvre DNP, Tokyo, Japan Image ©Photo DNP

Future Lab / Louvre DNP, Tokyo, Japan Image © Photo DNP

Future Lab / Louvre DNP, Tokyo, Japan Image ©Photo DNP

Favorite / Memorable audio guides

Be aware that audio on its own is v.powerful

Audioguide advert, 1980

Who makes the audio content?…

Who makes the audio content?… Smart Mobs @ MoMA, 2004

And how is the audio packaged?

Why use a screen?

Ubiquitous Art Tour, @ Galleria, Tokyo, Japan Object Identification

Navigation Ubiquitous Art Tour, @ Galleria, Tokyo, Japan

Content

Content Navigation

Interactivity?…

Now: Pod Casts Mobile Phone tours IPod Touch applications

What’s changed and what’s new? - the design context / and the designer team’s objectives? - the technology / what is possible? - the visitor’s expectations inside museum?

And what are the next ‘stages’: • Using visitor’s own platforms / technologies. • Social networking functionality in a museum. • Let visitors create and share their own content. • Adapt content, and content delivery, so as it meets each visitor’s personal interests & learning preferences. • Make the internet accessible inside the museum: no Information filter.

loic@pocket-proof.com

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Designing Visitor Experiences with Mobile Platforms in Museums

by Loic Tallon on Sep 29, 2009

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Designing Visitor Experiences with Mobile Platforms in Museums — Presentation Transcript