Museum & gallery services QLD State Conference 2007

Am attending the M&GSQ conference, 3Cs: Contemporary Collecting & Communication, over the weekend and thought I would post some impressions. Yesterday I gave a Masterclass called Using visitor research to plan quality public programs. Seemed to go well and got some very positive feedback. My PowerPoint presentation can be downloaded on my wiki - audience-research » Audience Research Articles (go to the bottom of the page). I have also added some links about measuring impact of museums and some projects I was involved with plus some papers I pulled off the web.

On Saturday there was a plenary session on the theme of cities and museums featuring D Lynn McRainey, from the Chicago History Museum (who incidentally was at my Masterclass yesterday!). Lynn's paper was titled Creating connections to the city: its stories, people and places. She talked about how museums should be thinking strategically about their missions and creating new relationships between museums and their audiences. Lynn's presentation was fantastic and very thought-provoking. She outlined the process that the Chicago Historical Museum (CHM) took as part of its redevelopment which was completed just on a year ago. There were four major areas of focus:

1. A strategic direction for education
   
2. Conversations with professionals
   
3. Detailed audience research
   
4. Experiment with new programs
   

The CHM also developed a set of guiding principles that underpinned all they did:

• History is about everyone and takes place everywhere
  
• CHM is about the entire city of Chicago
  
• Finding a personal connection leads an individual to value history and seek it throughout their life
  
• Purpose of CHM is to turn to the past to understand the present and envision the future
  
• Offerings provide access for many audiences through a rich array of approaches
  
• CHM shares responsibility with other civic leaders for health and well-being of the city and residents
  

The CHM program was reactive and not looking at possibilities – having a quarterly calendar made them too reactive and static. It prevented innovation and they realised they needed to have a core offering but also build in flexibility.

From the audience research and other consultations they also developed some traits for good learning experiences at CHM:

• Be fiercely Chicago
  
• Let audiences into the historical process and tools historians use – they really want to know this and engage with it
  
• Make it special
  
• Be nimble and flexible
  

Final thought – provide engaging experiences and flexible formats.

From the session called Beyond visitor numbers I got the following:

• Need to develop a common, public language of what value is and how to describe it
  
• Intrinsic values (such as joy, discovery, absorption, etc) are hard to measure and report on but are highly valued by audiences
  
• Contingent evaluation is maybe the way to go – look broadly at stakeholders, users and non-users
  
• Call ourselves more-than-profits, not just non-profits?
  
• Use personas (or the digital stories I'm doing) as ways to demonstrate value?
  
• Perhaps the appropriate language of value may be that of the visitors themselves??
  

Seb's talk on Day Two, Highlights of digital media in museum and gallery communication, was also great and very comprehensive. Have just posted some quick points and links.

Why do it? To increase reach, improve access, listen to users, see knowledge as process not product.

People are already out there talking about museums. Why? 'De-professionlisation' of product development coupled with broadband getting cheaper and faster. They are "museum fans". This will mean decentralisation of our content and our brand. People don't start at the front page of a website, 84% begin an information search with a search engine.

What are museums doing?

• Exploring new media platforms, examples of MOMA and Walker Art Center, TATE online portal
  
• Colonising networking sites – MOCA has set up a MySpace page to connect directly with music fans; museums and museum professionals are on Facebook, also the ExhibitFiles example as way to share information
  
• Utilising existing content communities, e.g.Brooklyn Museum: Community photos on Flickr and YouTube of their events and set up a Flickr group
  
• Building official replicas in virtual worlds
  
• Blogging for more non-formal ways of communicating
  
• Community contributed content, e.g. of I like museums (a great site by the way!), NZ example of community-created wiki to connect to each other and the institution
  
• Work with audiences to better classify collections – steve.museum example here, McCord Museum games to encourage tagging
  
• Exploring atomised content – making a site our of content from other sites, e.g. Rijksmuseum widget
  
• About improving digital collection access – went through the development of OPAC 2.0 as an example of bridging a 'semantic gap' between how museums describe and classify collections and how our audiences describe them
  

Future directions: People becoming location sensitive, increased use of GPS and mapping, new ways of exploring and experiencing data. People will increasingly be using maps as a search tool (e.g., what does the PHM have in its' collection that comes from my suburb?)

Challenges:

• Need to develop ways of working ethically
  
• Problematises the old models of ownership and copyright
  
• Trust and the decentralised brand
  
• Search and access and other technologies not publicly owned
  
• Only 16% of globe are online, there is a rural/urban divide (but I'm wondering how this will change??)
  

For more information go to the fresh+new blog. Also a useful post with relevant links here - museums and web 2.0 blog post

London musings ...

Had a wonderful set of meetings yesterday and learned heaps. Made all kinds of promises for web links, etc so decided to just do a blog post to put them all together. These are my impressions folks, so please feel free to comment and correct!

My first meeting was with Xerxes, Stuart, Susie and Catherine at the British Museum. The BM is at the early stages of implementing an audience strategy, including ways to more closely integrate audience research across the BM, and the use of cross-divisional project teams in planning exhibitions. We had a wide-ranging discussion about the role of audience research, measuring learning, and I finally understand how to use audience segmentation (thanks for that Xerxes!). The way the Interpretation Unit is set-up where staff take on roles of audience advocate and visitor research, among other things, was really interesting with the potential to shake the BM up over the next few years – one organisation to watch I think. I was also fortunate to catch up with Stuart to talk all things web and their plans for e-commerce and online access. Stuart is also very interested in the ideas surrounding online learning, which was great to hear.

Here are the links I promised you:

audience-research » Audience Research Articles – scroll down this page to download the paper
Evaluation, Research and Communities of Practice: Program Evaluation in Museums. This paper outlines the history of audience research in museums, what it's all about and what are the future challenges

audience-research » Museum Learning – here's where various chapters from my thesis can be downloaded. Chapter 2 is the learning literature review and Chapter 7 outlines the major findings, how they relate to the literature and what they mean for museums

Resources page on my website – contains the pdf file Writing Text and Labels (go down the page a bit)

Stuart, here are the blog addresses/posts I promised:

Introduction to museums and Web 2.0 – my post about what Web 2.0 is with relevant links

fresh + new blog – Seb's blog about digital media and museums

Museum 2.0 – Nina Simon's blog about museums, web 2.0, design and many other gems

Post about social technographics on fresh+new. I bought this report and it was worth the money, we're doing a similar study in Australia

M&W paper on web users – proposes a useful typology of online learners

Next was a detailed visit to the Natural History Museum. Catching up on gossip with Michael, sharing various Facebook addiction stories, lunch with Emma and Georgina was followed by a tour through the systema metropolis exhibition with Alice. I have published my review of this exhibition on the ExhibitFiles website, but am unable to upload images for some reason (I think due to my hotel's web access), so I'll add them later.

A very invigorating two-hour seminar followed with a range of staff from learning, interpretation, content, multimedia and web who kept me on my toes! Again a wide-ranging discussion with a focus on how to get findings acted on, different methods for doing research, budgets, using consultants, all things web and the future and, finally, where best to place an audience research function (my answer – needs to be separate and report to a senior level to keep objectivity and enable research to feed in to the institution at the highest levels). The seminar was taped and I might post a short excerpt if I'm feeling brave (and have not been too much my usual tactless elf!). Finally, after birthday cake, I consumed several lagers at the Hoop chatting to some of the curators feeling I could have been back in Sydney – same issues different museums!

Here are the website addresses I promised (additional to above):

AMARC: Australian Museum Audience Research Centre – my website with various links and resources

Audience Research blog

Audience Research wiki

I also need to post a link to my Visitor Voice post on the New Literacy, New Audiences blog but it seems to have disappeared! Will follow that up.

Thanks to all for a great day! See you on Facebook J.

ICOM 2007 Day 4 morning

What am amazing morning of papers ranging from Austria; Mexico; Greece; Italy; Sweden; Taiwan; Scotland; Germany; Australia just to name a few. My challenge will be to post 1-2 major points from each paper (that is if I don't get distracted by that Facebook!!). Wish me luck!

Research Session

• Science with all Senses – gender and science in the making (ZOOM Museum, Austria)
  
  • Both males and females are involved in working with the children, and they come from various backgrounds apart from science
    
• Learning from the best: success factors for effective audience research (Eva Reussner, Germany)
  
  • Challenge to use the evaluations findings – responding to and taking notice of them in planning
    
  • Identified 12 success factors – including integration, acceptance, senior management support, audience orientation, research utility, research quality, communication, responsibility, understanding, readiness to learn, involvement, resources (on a sliding scale – so integration is the most important and then down from there)
    
  • Success of audience research not only depends on the researcher but needs the commitment and involvement of senior management and staff
    
• Using generic learning outcomes (GLO) as a strategic tool to evaluate impact of learning (Jenny Fuchs, Scotland)
  
  • Beyond the Palace Walls exhibition used with the evaluation to inform the development of new galleries and an evaluation (200 questionnaires, 20 pre- and post-interviews) using the GLO framework
    
  • One of the questions used "Was there anything in the exhibition that surprised you?" – I like that one!
    
  • Some learning outcomes difficult to measure in informal settings
    
  • GLOs provide a common language to talk about learning; help steer projects that focus on the learner; helps focus evaluation
    
  • Limitations: some GLOs difficult to measure; responses are self-reflective; measures immediate intent; no measure of long-term impact (although I believe that these are all able to be addressed)
    
  • I'm very interested in the GLO framework – check it out here Inspiring Learning for All
    
  • Jenny's presentation can be found here
    
• Training of museum personnel in Lombardy's museums (Italy)
  
  • Umm, sorry, this was in French and I forgot to get my headset thing ...
    
• Museums, universities and schools (Athens)
  
  • Working together with teachers shows that learning outcomes are better for the students – teachers can play a very important role in reading, using and enjoying museums of all different types
    
• An exploratory study of learning styles of visitors in the Museum of World Religions (Wanchen Liu, Taipei)
  
  • Used Kolb's theory of learning styles – divergers, accommodators, assimilators, convergers
    
  • Important to provide different points of access/learning styles to enable visitors learn about religion
    
• Education, learning and leisure (Holger Hoge, University of Oldenburg)
  
  • Talked to visitors about their concepts of learning: first thing they said was acquisition of knowledge
    
  • After visiting a museum they are relaxed, satisfied, tired...
    
  • Museums need to be aware of free-choice learning and how it fits with leisure
    
  • Here's his website IAEA - International Association of Empirical Aesthetics
    

Papers

• Pushing the pedagogical boundaries at South Australian Museum (Chris Nobbs)
  
  • Presented a range of really interesting educational and outreach programs based on different learning principles
    
• Do heritage museums preclude visitors' constructing their own narratives (Niza Levavi, Israel)
  
  • Historical museums presented narratives as closed texts with no opportunities to talk about different points of view – even if the museum says they are doing it needs to be better incorporated into how they plan their programs from the very start
    
• Needs and desires, the evaluation of an open-ended exhibit (Silvia and Leticia, Mexico)
  
  • Talked about the exhibition and the range of methods used to evaluate it – will post the presentation to CECA site (here) when Silvia gives it to me
    
• Training for museum education and learning ... (Anne Liden, Sweden)
  
  • Reported on a range of student projects in areas of diversity and immigration – some of the students were also from these groups
    
  • Students from immigrant backgrounds have many challenges when studying in universities and schools – this is also a challenge for museums
    
• Cultural heritage, lifelong learning and social economy (Henrik Zipsane, Sweden)
  
  • Problems – what is lifelong learning? Seems to be about employability when defined by groups such as UNESCO
    
  • Many discussions suggest lifelong learning has its natural end at retirement – he believes (as do I) that it goes from cradle to grave
    
  • Elderly people are over-represented in museums in areas of genealogy research, visitors and volunteers
    
  • Focussed on learning to learn in their research – regard the third age as another learning cycle and that heritage institutions have a lot to offer for elderly people and their learning
    

That's it from me at ICOM/CECA'07 folks. This afternoon is the Market of Ideas and I'll kill myself trying to blog that! Instead, look at the program to see what you missed.

ICOM 2007 Day 3 Morning session

Gave my talk this morning – nerve-wracking, yet satisfying at the same time. Here's the links to my paper and other things mentioned in my talk:

• ICOM/CECA'07 paper in pdf – go to bottom of page to access my paper
  
• audience-research » Museum Learning – again go towards the bottom of the page to find Chapter 2 (Literature review) and Chapter 7 (Conclusions and what museums can do in their physical exhibitions) are also here as pdf files
  

I was truly honoured to share the stage with Elaine Gurian, one of the leading museum thinkers and a really nice person who has been very supportive of my work – thanks Elaine! I have to spend some time digesting what Elaine was talking about as well as our discussion so I'll post something later. I did place all the links to sites that Elaine and I mentioned on the What's new: August 2007 page of the CECA website.

Then had to rush on over to INTERCOM to give my paper about Museums and cultural diversity in Australia. Was slightly stressed at this pint as I was the last speaker after a looong morning, but all seemed to go well. Have posted my PowerPoint presentation as a pdf file on this wiki here (wasn't able to post the presentation here unfortunately. All papers from INTERCOM will be on their website.

ICOM 2007 Day 2 Afternoon session

Was going to go to the NATHIST group this pm (the natural history museums group). Their program sounds fantastic with several Aussies presenting. Unfortunately I didn't get there as my lunch only arrived at 2pm!! I was disappointed to miss Janet Carding's talk Can natural history museums change the world? A view from Sydney. However, I know that she would be talking about a discussion held at the Museum about the Tom Hennes Hyperconnections article in Curator. Some of that discussion can be found on this wiki - audience-research » Hyperconnection article.

Pity, but luck was with me as I proceeded to have a great lunch with Eilean Hooper-Greenhill and Graham Black. We ranged over the world of Web 2.0 and what this means for museums. I promised that I would give them some links to further information so are two:

• Blog post about museums and Web 2.0 – a good (if I say so myself!) post explaining the main concepts of Web 2.0
  
• Mike Ellis paper about organisational barriers and Web 2.0 in museums – easy-to-read paper that outlines how Web 2.0 will force museums to change the ways they work and relate to their constituents
  
• The Machine is Us/ing Us – short video explaining Web 2.0 which I think is essential viewing!
  

Enjoy!

ICOM 2007 Day 2 Morning Session

Spent this morning at CECA. Have to take notes quickly so some will be abbreviated – hope you all understand!

Rick West, who I have long admired, gave the first keynote address at CECA. Called Native
America in Museums: The Passing of the Talking Stick, Rick discussed issues around who gets to talk at museums and the concepts of authority and representation. Change in view to idea that communities need to be involved in the work of the museum and in telling their own stories. Scholars have written that need to move museums beyond one-dimensional representation to multiple ones to fully represent the many diverse communities. He feels that US museums are well on their way to a position of shared authority. Motivation came from within the museum community itself, moved away from the metaphorical "temple". All people with legitimate claim may not view museum material in same ways as museum. Widening of concept of authority means museums are becoming different places. Programs based on shared authority widens museum's scope, with a direct benefit to the visitors. Museum as a true forum, gathering place for diverse views has a salutary impact on museums. Museums as forum draws it closer to the community of which it is a part. Becomes a public and civic space.

Experience of NMAI: Museum has a deep relationship with native peoples across North America who were involved in all aspects of development of the museum and shares authority with Native peoples. Five guiding principles for NMAI based on consultations with Native peoples:

1. Community
   
2. Locality – Indian land
   
3. Vitality – we are here now
   
4. Viewpoint – we know the world differently
   
5. Voice – these are our stories
   

The next speaker was Martin Scharer from the Alimentarium, Vevey, who's paper title was Museums – places for merry discovery. Martin stated that he dislikes the term "learning" and that museums aren't places for learning (I beg to differ – see my thesis
J). Stated that people won't visit museums with boring learning materials – well, yeah! He also talked about the juxtaposition of boring learning and mindless entertainment. Again, he could read some work in my thesis on museums and dumbing down – it's on the wiki. I found the opposite: that visitors well-understood and appreciated the differences between learning, education and entertainment. One interesting part was the presentation of the different exhibition languages for enjoyment, knowledge, experience and thinking. We ran out of time which is a shame because I thought that could have been further explored.

The keynotes were followed by a panel discussing the key ideas of the morning. Cheers to Silvia Singer, one of the panellists, who stated that without the visitors museums are nothing! Objects are not the only way to showcase culture, many things are intangible and this shouldn't be dismissed. Bravo to you Silvia and great to see you here – you look terrific!

BTW I'm not being as good a blogger as I should be as I'm hanging out on Facebook – check me out Facebook | Lynda Kelly.

After morning coffee Graham Black from Nottingham Trent University gave a paper titled Creating a learning environment. It was a thrill to meet Graham as we had previously only corresponded via email when he was writing his wonderful book The Engaging Museum – check out more about Graham here. Going to take fast notes now:

• When planning for engagement need to look at the whole visitor experience
  
• Not just the responsibility of those with "learning" or "education" in their titles
  
• Factors in developing a learning environment:
  
  • Provide stimulus to visit in first place – positive image, arriving expecting to engage
    
  • Keep visitors in right frame of mind – first impressions vital; create informal, user-friendly atmosphere; key role of FOH staff; minimise user effort
    
  • providing opportunities and support to engage – encourage reflection
    
  • Enable follow-up – potential of the web
    
• Graham offered to email people his paper – so email him Graham Black

International Council of Museums General Conference 2007, Vienna

This conference (ICOM) is the second triennial I have attended. Traditionally these conferences are terrific, bringing together museum professionals from all around the world. There is a good Aussie contingent here, a couple of New Zealanders and a sprinkling from the Pacific region. It's been great to catch up with colleagues from Taiwan, UK, US, Canada, Netherlands, South America, Mexico, Korea, to name just a few! So far I have attended functions at INTERCOM (the committee of management) and the CECA Board meeting (CECA being the Committee for Education and Cultural Action).

Also took some time out to visit the Natural History Museum and Historical Museum. For this somewhat jaded museum-goer I was absolutely blown away by the natural history museum. The building is absolutely breathtaking and the dinosaur/fossils hall was really wonderful with many great ideas about how to inject some contemporary features into beautiful hisitorical showcases. The display of dinosaurs was stunning, also demonstrating some great interpretive features. Might try and do a separate post about that somewhere else if I get time.

Now I will attempt to blog this conference – have learned several tips from my colleague, the good Sister – which I will try and implement.

Watch this space!

University museums engaging university students

This question from Sebastian Moody:

Hello Lynda,
My name is Sebastian Moody I am a Masters student in Museum Studies at the University of Queensland. I have commenced a case study of how university museums engage with the wider student population.

I was hoping that you would be able to inform me about other research that has been done in this area.

Sebastian - I don't know of any studies in this area - maybe some of our university museums colleagues could advise?

Measuring the impact of museums in their local communities

I have been asked to be a member of a steering committee established by Museums & Galleries NSW (mgNSW) to work on the Regional Audience Development Study. So how do we measure the impact of museums in their local communities? This is an issue that will continue to be of relevance to a broad range of museum folk across a range of institution types and sizes.

There have been two studies that I have been involved in that have looked at this issue from the local museum perspective. All the relevant papers and links from those studies can be viewed and downloaded on the measuring impact page on my audience research wiki. Some of the papers came from doing a simple Google search called "impact of museums", so there is a lot of available reference material.

I'd be interested in hearing about any other studies that people know of or have been involved in.

Audience Research Readings

Digital Eva asks: I'm wondering if there any precise and comprehensive guide of evaluation process available. At this point, the information that I have is just basic. Is the evaluation process in museum exhibits different than other kind of evaluation process?

Hi Eva, there are plenty of texts that relate to museum evaluation. I have noted some of them on this post, with a link to my website where there is a downloadable list of texts.

The best one to start with is Judy Diamond's book Practical Evaluation Guide: tools for museums and other informal educational settings (Walnut Creek: AltaMira Press, 1999) and the paper I wrote for the Journal of Archival Science which outlines the whole process and gives examples (and also has a very comprehensive reading list). I plan to post this paper to my wiki. George Hein's Learning in the Museum (London: Routledge, 1998) is also a good introduction to museum evaluation methods.

The evaluation processes used in museums are no different to those in general social and educational research, and any general methodology text is very applicable to refer to. When doing my doctorate I found Cohen and Manions' text Research Methods in Education (London: Routledge, 1994) the most useful as it outlines a huge range of methods/approaches that can be used in evaluation.

Climate Change and Museums

Fiona Cameron asked me about audience research we have done on the topic of climate change. We conducted several studies as part of a larger research project investigating future exhibition topics.

The first study in 2006 consisted of two quantitative surveys — one with an online sample of 538 respondents from the greater Sydney region (mix of visitors and non-visitors to museums and galleries); and one with 319 visitors to the Australian Museum. Climate Change was chosen as the preferred exhibiton topic by 21% of online respondents and by 22% of the onsite sample. It was of high interest to 39% of Australian Museum visitors and 26% of online respondents.

Why is this topic so appealing? A range of reasons were given by respondents:

* It’s an important subject that we all need to know about:
“I think climate change should be of interest to everybody because it is our future. Will we survive?”
“I think we need to know more about climate change as it’s already happening.”
“Topical and at the forefront of everyone’s attention. Will foster necessary public debate. Is of great interest to all ages and backgrounds.”

* It’s a topic that children need to be educated about:
“Climate change is an important issue and one that I could take my children to see and discuss.”
“Educating the community and my kids about this pressing issue so we can make immediate changes.

* There is a lot of misinformation around and we can trust the Museum to give us the real facts:
“I think we need to know more unbiased reasonably proven facts regarding climate change.”
“Climate change is very current and something that the whole world, and even more, needs more in-depth study, shown and interpreted for us normal people out here.”

* We need to know what we can do:
“… we all need to be made aware, with tangible examples, of what’s happening and how we can help.”
“Climate’s a very good indicator of the environment, must learn so we can save the planet before things go very wrong.”

The second study in 2007 consisted of focus groups with a range of target audiences to unpack the issues further. Again, climate change was clearly the most popular exhibition topic across all groups because:

* It’s an issue that’s become personal
* In the past 12 months, the issue has moved beyond the realm of science into the mainstream
* The sense of personal responsibility has started to hit home
* People are confused and overwhelmed – can’t trust politicians, industry or lobby groups
* With all the media coverage and THAT MOVIE, there is significant background knowledge, but much of it is contradictory, making the issue even more confusing!
* With so much conflicting information regarding climate change, audiences are craving an authority on the issue to clear things up once and for all, and assist them in adopting a stance

We found that participants felt the Museum was in a perfect position to be that authority, as audiences see us as:
* A trusted source of scientific information and not aligned to a political party, lobby group or big business partner:
"It’s a perfect fit for the Museum, it’s science!"
"I think the Museum has a great chance to be the authority on this issue, people trust the Museum and its science."

Some questions people wanted an exhibition to help them with were:
What are acceptable levels of warming?
What are the possible outcomes, at varying degrees of warming?
Are these changes due to emissions or part of normal cycles?
What is our ability to reverse the effects?
What can I personally do?
What is renewable energy and what is its role in beating climate change?
How does my everyday existence contribute now?
Is there a tipping point, and have we passed it?

So, the interest is there, what are museums and like institutions doing about it??

Logging On: Culture, participation and the web

Reading this interesting report at the moment - Logging On: Culture, participation and the web. Published on the Demos website and written by John Holden, it is a fascinating account of a major online initiative funded by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport in the UK. Some of the key points I picked up [my comments in square brackets]:
* Trends in internet developments show move from passive --> active; unidirectional --> interactive and from few --> many
* Early use of internet in museums was to digitise content
* 2007 use of internet was transformed in the UK through uptake of broadband with the net becoming the primary way that people access information. As well online commerce has transformed the music and film industries [who have had to respond to the illegal use of downloading to making it easy to do and minimal cost]
* “Rather than people using technology to adapt to their own needs, they are now using the capacity and functionality of technology to create and shape new potential.” (p.17)
* “... new web tools, greater computing power, better connectivity and increased uptake have changed the perception of the cultural possibilities of the internet from being a passive pool of digital information to being a vibrant fourth dimensions of life with limitless opportunities for interaction.” (p.17)
* Museums need strategy of user-generated content – this was why culture online was successful in actively engaging young people and adults in generating their own content
* The organisations in the pilot learned, as well as users developing their own IT skills and deeper understanding of the content
* [lessons for us – share resources such as developer expertise and project management; build projects across institutions and content areas. Is climate change/sustainability one we could do in Sydney?? Indigenous/Pacific stories are another]
* Lessons section (p.33 on):
# Need an external broker to bring partners together
# Clear project plan, roles and responsibilities
# Some institutions not used to rigorous project management systems – through the commissioning process gave them contractual obligations to deliver
# Need absolute clarity about who creates, controls [and signs off on] content
# IP needs to be sorted
# Need a recognised and established lead partner (i.e. the big museums) who can bring organisational resources to the project
# Start small-scale and move up from there
* Challenges:
# Bureaucracy often want control – therefore be clear on goals and responsibilities up-front
# Focus on user means that child protection is a big issue
# Sustainability needs to be factored in
# Need specialists in both the technology and the content [and the audience??]
* Useful section on moderation pp.39-40
* The Tate considers its website as the 5th gallery
* People don’t want to abandon the physical object, just want to find new ways to communicate about it
* “New web tools enable users collectively to express their preferences through their actions, without having to be asked.” (p.44)
* All the tools that Web 2.0 offers "... extend beyond simply the digitisation of data to models of linking and sharing information." (p.45)

Using visuals in evaluation

Digital Eva asks:
"I am also looking (or this is what basically my project aim) at how designer could design a tool in assisting summative evaluation by integrating drawings as the medium to reveal or gather information about audiences' experience."

I have used drawings quite successfully when evaluating exhibitions - it's a great tool for both adults and children. When I evaluated the Indigenous Australians exhibition I gave people a blank page with one question: "Draw how the exhibition made you feel". The responses were really amazing. As part of a front-end evaluation we asked children aged from 2-6 years to keep a journal of their museum experiences. The results were quite incredible as they mixed drawings with photos that they had taken thoughout the Museum. As part of our current research project, Culturally Diverse Audiences and Museums, we again used the journal method, this time to record participants' leisure activities and where museums fitted within their lives. In this study we also used photographs when interviewing people post-visit as a way to prompt memories of their experiences and as a deeper way to discuss their visit. They were photos that they had taken.

Also when doing a trawl, came across this useful resource Social Research Update published quarterly by the Department of Sociology, University of Surrey. There is an article there Visual research methods, although a tad old it has some interesting ideas. The article Using diaries in social research is also really good and relevant too.

I think that drawing and visual methods are a really good tool, especially when coupled with interviews (as you still need to get them to interpret their material). I'm wondering if there are any other examples out there??

A suitcase of portable meaning

Lynda, thanks for inviting me to post here.

As I was writing my paper, After the Show: Making sense after the event, for the Museums Australia Conference 2007, I was ruminating on the many ways that metaphors help exhibition visitors to make sense of their visiting experience. The National Gallery of Australia exhibition, Egyptian Treasures from the Louvre: Journey to the Afterlife, used the metaphor of the journey in its title and structure. When we spoke to visitors while evaluating the exhibition, we found that they often referred to the concept of a journey when speaking about their experience of the exhibition.



This had me thinking about whether the journey metaphor might apply to any exhibition.

It also had me thinking about the power of metaphors in any kind of communication. Looking around, I could see that metaphors are recommended in various communication fields. For example, Brian Clark espouses the power of the metaphor in writing on his Copywriter blog.

Given that museum exhibitions aim for excellent communication, I suddenly see the potential for more exhibitions to be conceived and structured around a powerful metaphor that can be a convenient suitcase of portable meaning for visitors. Or a handle they can grasp when they get challenged or disoriented. (See, it's fun playing with metaphors.)

What is your experience? How useful are metaphors as shaping-points for exhibitions? What exhibitions have you seen or presented that used metaphors? What were some lost opportunities?

Gillian Savage, Environmetrics.

Museums remixed

Lynda
have a look at this blog from an American Musem conference on:

visitor-authored experiences and other forms of user participation in physical museums and online. This blog now serves as both a resource and a forum for those interested in continuing the dialogue regarding visitor-authored experiences. Whether or not you attended the sessions, please contribute your thoughts to our blog!

Exploratorium Explainers

Lynda have a look at this blog - perhaps a good one to discuss for the forum, or the regular web meetings. It is put together by floor staff at the Exploratorium. Not exactly audience research, but a good slant on museum blogs.

Writing Survey Questions

My offsider, Pauline, is embarking on the new world of question writing as we develop surveys for our Museum Shop and Science in the Suburbs. This got me thinking about what I would recommend as resources for question-writing.

Found a good online resource from the Committee on Audience Research and Evaluation called Visitor Studies 201 presented at the 2006 AAM, with a downloadable pdf on developing questions. There is a 'how to' on writing questions posted by the Evaluation and Visitor Studies SIG with a link to an online guide to designing and conducting visitor surveys by Julie Leones, The University of Arizona.

As mentioned before, Judy Diamond's 1999 book Practical Evaluation Guide: tools for museums and other informal educational settings (Walnut Creek: AltaMira Press) is a good starting point. For general advice on sampling and suggested questions for a whole range of areas try:
* McManus, P. (1991). Towards Understanding the Needs of Museum Visitors. In G. Lord & B. Lord (Eds.), The Manual of Museum Planning (pp. 35-52). London: HMSO. (I think there's a newer version of this book and it's in our Research Library).

You could also look at general social research texts - one I have used is:
* de Vaus, D. (1991). Surveys in Social Research (3rd ed.). London: UCL Press, especially Chapter 6 (also in our Research Library).

Good luck!

Museums and Web 2.0

While at the MA conference I have been asked by several people here what Web 2.0 is ... this is worrying! My straw poll of museum professionals at this conference revealed that noone has heard of Web 2.0, let alone doing any thinking about what it might mean for museums. So I promised to send them something, and have blogged it instead (I have been kind and sent them an email also!).

The three things I recommend people view/read are:
* The Machine is us/ing us
* Nina Simon's blog post about implementing Web 2.0 in museums
* paper discussing organisational barriers and Web 2.0 We are going to discuss this on our wiki

Of course there's lots more but I don't want to overwhelm people! Jerry's papers presented at the MA conference had a great summary of how strategy needs to come before tools so, at the risk of now overwhelming people I would add this to your list.

Museums Australia Conference 2007

HI all, am attending the annual Museums Australia conference in Canberra and am going to attempt to blog my experiences. There are no internet facilities at the conference (!!) so will check in when I can.

A review of literature on audience research and evaluation for museum websites

There is a clear conception within the literature of the potential within the museum area for online development, given the already inherent value a museum has in terms of its reservoir of high quality content, often with its own intellectual property rights, and an established reputation for quality information provision, objectivity, and authority. (Both Daniel Cunliffe et al and Tom Hennes make similar points).

The challenge for museums on the web is to take advantage of and develop this potential, creating an online entity that is not just a pale reflection of the physical museum, but an exciting expansion into new ways of accessing, interacting with, exploring and developing resources held by museums.

Historically website design has been focused on the visual design, and when overhauling their sites, institutions such as museums may be faced with redesigning a site that may still ‘look’ good, but behind the scenes is dysfunctional, based on obsolete code and almost impossible to add to or update in a simple manner. Added to this is the challenge of addressing web 2.0 issues, including a desire to make the site more interactive and to bring the user into content manipulation and production. This adds another area of concern, with challenges to issues of control and management.

The literature shows that there are basic criteria to assess website usability and audience/user profiles that have been developed over the last 10-15 years, and these are seen as working effectively when applied as a group, rather than depending on any one method or aspect. A clear consensus emerges in regards to key issues.

These include: the necessity of usability testing, assessment and research at all stages of the web development process; the development of user profiles, as virtual users cannot be assumed to match physical visitors, about whom much research has already been done; the importance of a conceptual approach to the site, where the site is not just a reflection of the physical museum but an active entity in itself; and finally situating the virtual museum within a marketplace context.

To achieve this, the agreement is that there needs to be a lot of preparation, research, testing, trials and then more testing.

The earliest article, Usability Evaluation for Museum Websites, offers a thorough analysis of these criteria, which include:
1. user testing- with prototypes within the museum, monitor and observe interaction behaviour, use feedback. The user is usually given a set of tasks to carry out and is monitored. Can be monitored by video, think aloud protocol, observer’s notebook (problems include finding a typical user).
2. interviews- questionnaires about a prototype, an existing site, or ongoing feedback. Could be done via a kiosk in the museum.
3. log file analysis- looking at the data gathered automatically, includes such info as number of hits, type of platform, where the user came from, time spent on page and quite a lot more (problems include amount of data, relevance of data, interpretation, identification of unique visitors, caching) Then how do you extrapolate intention from info – why from what?
4. online questionnaires/feedback – the two major concerns are: self selection of sample; and response rate to draw reliable conclusions. Often there is a low response rate (between 2 and 5%)
5. Heuristic evaluation – doesn’t involve users, evaluates site against a set of agreed criteria or guidelines, research already available.
6. Procedures for ongoing maintenance and development must also be considered.

The article Audiences, Visitors, Users: Reconceptualising Users of Museum On-line Content and Services expands on these criteria to develop a more formal set of principles for web site development and evaluation. They put museum web site development into the context of the marketplace and come up with six design principles:
• acknowledge the marketplace web sites exist within
• have clear site goals, from the perspectives of the market, user, and organisation
• design in relation to these goals
• design an information space, not a museum replica
• test with target users at all stages, many times
• evaluate in terms of your goals, not just according to user demographic or products on site.

There are many examples in the literature (SFMOMA, Museum of Victoria) of organisations that take these basic criteria and offer case studies on how they apply them to their own redesigns, the challenges that emerged, and how effective the process was.
Some general points that come from these case studies are:
o Usability is important in developing an effective, interesting and user friendly website.
o There is a connection between website usage and attendance, however the audiences do not necessarily correlate completely.
o The different approaches – heuristic, user surveys, questionnaires, log file data – all contribute to a more complete picture of users and usability.
o How a user gets to the site is largely based on internet searches, rather than access through the home page.
o Museums have a very active role to play in developing their physical content for the online environment, and need to look at issues of intellectual property, copyright, etc.
o There is a lot of potential for museum sites – both directly and indirectly related to their physical role (see Hennes, Sherry Hsi)
o There are more novel methods of assessing user interaction for example the kiosk approach of the Exploratorium that can have a role in website evaluation.
o Web 2.0 – do the users want it? How do museums implement it in ways that do not threaten users, or waste resources? (see SFMOMA article, fresh and new blog re percentage of active users vs passive)
o How then do museums assess the use of this interactive content – data file analysis has not yet caught up with server side includes, active content, feeds etc.

Overall, for those embarking on web site redesign, or initial design, there is already a good body of research and practical examples to draw on for methods, ideas and examples. The challenge of web 2.0 and how to assess the role it plays in website assessment and audience research wil be another are for research and assessment over the next few years, as museums continue to take up the challenge of implementing web 2.0 concepts and ideas.