A project update, for the Open Culture 2014 conference, that details Surface Impression's work with the Jewish Military Museum and Jewish Museum to produce an interactive (both online and in-gallery) that presents the letters of Marcus Segal, a Jewish officer in the First World War, and Florence Oppenheimer.

1. SURFACE IMPRESSION
Letters and a diary from the
First World War
Roz Currie & Peter Pavement
SURFACE IMPRESSION

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Brief
• Tender was for a museum Interactive to
accompany a First World War exhibition at the
Jewish Museum
• Originally the brief was just to show the letters of
Marcus Segal, a Jewish officer who served (and
died) on the Western Front (1916 – 1917)
• Subsequently it was expanded to include the
Diary of Florence Oppenheimer, a nurse who
served in the Eastern Mediterranean

3. SURFACE IMPRESSION
Personas
• The brief outlined “user stories” to communicate
modes of interaction
• “Alice” – museum visitor who doesn’t know what
she’s interested in
• “Ben” needs to find a letter from last time he
visited - to show his friend
• Museum visitor “Zebedee” needs to find out how
many chickens Marcus received during his time in
the trenches.

4. SURFACE IMPRESSION
Personas
• Museum researcher “Morris” is researching the role of
rats in wars
• Staff member “Colin” spots a typo in a transcript and
needs to edit a letter
• Staff member “Rebecca” finds a new letter in a drawer
and needs to add it to the system
• Staff member “Henry” finds 100 letters written by
another Jewish person serving in the Armed Forces and
wants to add a new section
• Museum staff member “Freda” wants to change or add
a theme around a Jewish festival

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Strategy

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Kiosk
• To save on a tight budget
we experimented with
using consumer PCs to
run the kiosk
• We used a touch screen
“All in One” plus an MDF
cabinet (as part of the
exhibition build)

15. SURFACE IMPRESSION
Challenges
• Hardly any time for content production and
design – some rough edges went live
• Conceptualising the diary content
• Connectivity within the museum for a web
hosted system
• Built in software on the kiosk threw up some
nasties!
• Visitor confusion over headphones and audio

16. SURFACE IMPRESSION
Benefits
• Makes a huge amount of content really accessible
• The kiosk will become part of the Jewish
Museum’s permanent galleries
• The interactive will be available online, reaching a
wider audience for a longer period than the
exhibition
• The content can be extended with new document
collections if they become available

17. SURFACE IMPRESSION
Roz Currie
www.thejmm.org.uk
@JewishMilitary
Peter Pavement
www.surfaceimpression.com
@peterpavement
@surfimpress