Talk on the co-design work done on the meSch project. Presented at the University of St. Andrews (UK) and at University College Dublin (Ireland)

1. The Collaborative Design of Tangible
Interactions in Museums
Dr. Luigina Ciolfi

2. Interactive digital technologies for cultural heritage have a long
history
Providing new possibilities for access and interpretation as part
of a variety of heritage practices
However, it’s a fragmented landscape:
gap between digital information and heritage holdings; between
heritage institutions; between different expertise and roles
within an institution; between research and practice

3. 50% did not touch the table at all; 17% had longer than a single-click interaction
“[Only] few educational conversations were observed at the table except for
reading aloud”
Eva Hornecker
“I don’t understand it either but it’s cool” – Visitor interactions
with a multi-touch table in a museum”

4. 50% did not touch the table at all; 17% had longer than a single-click interaction
“[Only] few educational conversations were observed at the table except for
reading aloud”
Eva Hornecker
“I don’t understand it either but it’s cool” – Visitor interactions
with a multi-touch table in a museum”
“Art Game” by Leo Caillard

5. “Strike a Pose”, Gallery One, Cleveland Museum of Art

6. Crafted tangible and embedded interactions are evocative,
memorable and effective…
…but they are expensive, time-consuming to realise and not
easily portable. Not many museums can afford them and sustain
them.
Often, HCI researchers realise these as “interventions” that have
a short life, and little impact (e.g. the academic paper lifespan)
meSch wanted to make these compelling visitor experiences
affordable, manageable and sustainable for heritage institutions

7. In order for these types of interactive exhibitions to
truly impact on institutions in the long term, Cultural
Heritage Professionals (CHPs) must be able to design,
manage and adapt them
We worked for 4 years (2013-2017) in a collaborative
way to realise the meSch vision
Link to strong Do-It-Yourself trend within cultural
heritage

9. + 6 external
Museums and
their visitors
Art, design and
public making
Digital heritage
Personalization
contextualisation
Embedded systems,
smart objects
HCI, co-design
co-evaluation
Information
curation and
access

11. - Exploration of cultural heritage challenges:
Establishing collaborations with a network of heritage partners, many
different typologies of heritage and of institutions
Extensive interview study: how do cultural heritage professionals design
exhibitions? How do they use technology (if any)?
Workshops, focus groups

12. - Exploration of cultural heritage challenges:
Establishing collaborations with a network of heritage partners, many
different typologies of heritage and of institutions.
- Research through design - Concept generation and rapid prototyping:
Ideation, prototyping and evaluation of meSch tangible interactive artefacts
for cultural heritage sites
How can we make their building and customisation relatively cheap and easy?
How can they be ported from one to other heritage site? Exploratory labs
The prototypes became “recipes” to populate the toolkit

13. - Exploration of cultural heritage challenges:
Establishing collaborations with a network of heritage partners, many
different typologies of heritage and of institutions.
- Research through design - Concept generation and rapid prototyping:
Ideation, prototyping and evaluation of meSch tangible interactive artefacts
for cultural heritage sites
How can we make their building and customisation relatively cheap and easy?
How can they be ported from one to other heritage site? Exploratory labs
The prototypes became “recipes” to be populate the toolkit
-Defining requirements for and building a prototype of the meSch do-it-
yourself toolkit (from hardware level to user-interface)
-Using the authoring environment of the toolkit to design three case studies
for our three partner museums. Encourage collaborating institutions to re-
make and appropriate meSch prototypes, and create new ones

17. Partners collaborating with local heritage institutions
and with the meSch heritage partners
Early prototypes to try out ideas and generate
“templates” of interaction (“recipes”)
Functionality just one aspect, design and look & feel
equally important
Portability: what is the interaction concept?

19. - Explore conceptual and design directions
- Develop user scenarios
- Making and re-making of demonstrators through co-
design

23. Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8NdtIYZgw8

27. Design “recipes” populating the toolkit
How will meSch enable cultural heritage
professionals realise these concepts
(and more) for their museum/institution?

28. Case-studies: long-term museum exhibitions integrating meSch
technology, in the hands of heritage institutions:
• “ The Hague and The Atlantic Wall: War in the City of Peace”
exhibition at MUSEON, The Hague (April-November 2015);
• “Feint: Unravel the Illusion of Movement in Greek Art”
exhibition at Allard Pierson Museum, Amsterdam (June-
August 2015);
• “Voices from Forte Pozzacchio” at Museo della Guerra, Trento
(Permanent exhibition)

29. Figure : The complete set of smart replicas.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sK3AdQU9kkc

30. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8M5Ryn0aQAA

31. https://www.youtube.com/watch?
time_continue=75&v=QpFb98zB268

32. -Online environment for browsing, editing, customising and sharing recipes
Interfaces with external content management systems as well as its own
content library
- Scripting environment connecting heterogeneous components: meSchup
More info: http://mesch-project.eu/mesched-up-a-first-set-of-physical-
components-for-the-creation-of-interactive-exhibits/
- Set of physical components that can easily be recombined into different
installations (meSch recipes): 1 meSch hub, 2 nfc LED rings + nfc tags, 1
projector module, 1 media module (to connect external devices), 1 phone
for AR and nfc tags, 3 blidgets, 1 small printer

35. Four dedicated events where CHPs, designers and developers
worked together to build an interactive exhibition from scratch
using meSch in just two days (Amsterdam [2]; Sheffield and
Limerick)
Each event focused on a specific set of museum/heritage
artefacts. Each group developed a different idea and built a
prototype.
Each event organiser made resources available to participants
such as prototyping lab/FabLab, help with using software for
editing content, technical support, etc.
MeSch authoring environment and toolkit were demonstrated at
the beginning
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2qw6N9X7rM

41. • Sustaining the co-design process outside of dedicated “events”
• Finding a shared language
• Understanding the “meSch vision”
• Relying on each other’s expertise
• Difficult balance between providing guidance/level of
facilitation and complete openness
• Dedicate time to reflect on the process
• http://codesign.website/; http://mesch-project.eu/Co-design/

42. • Internal expertise/staffing/resources
• Different use of resources
• New way to envision exhibition design teams
• New issues of management/control (over
content, visitor interactions, technology, etc.)
• New vision of what type of technology and/or
interactions they are able to manage

43. The project (2013-2017) receives funding from the European Community’s Seventh
Framework Programme ‘ICT for access to cultural resources’ (ICT Call 9: FP7-ICT-
2011-9) under the Grant Agreement 600851.
Thank You!