Aim Higher. Work Faster. Make Museums Better.

One of my new sheroes is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the recently elected congressperson from New York.

Representative Ocasio-Cortez wants to aim higher and work faster to solve problems for her constituents.

With that spirit in mind, here are three areas of museum work that I think we can all make better by aiming higher and working faster.


1) LIVING WAGES FOR ALL MUSEUM WORKERS
It is unconscionable that museums do not pay all their employees and interns living wages.  I've heard all the excuses for low museum pay, and they all sound like bunk.  Unpaid internships and substandard wages are not the way to run any organization, let alone organizations that claim to have a higher social purpose.

One step to address this challenge: Stop "salary masking"! Commit to transparency by requiring salary ranges in all job postings.  Kudos to professional organizations like ACM, AASLH, and MAAM for being leaders in this effort.



2) JOINING OUR WORK TO OUR COMMUNITIES  
Does the staff, board, and programming of your museum truly reflect the communities your institution wants to serve? If not, why not?

One step to address this challenge: Start conversations with communities IN those communities, not your museum! Attend community events as a participant, not an "expert."  True engagement is an ongoing process, not a one-time focus group meeting -- and that process might begin with a simple and sincere Facebook or email message.



3) VALUING PEOPLE OVER SCREENS
Museums seem more willing to pay (or overpay) for screen-based opportunities over staff-facilitated activities, even though many studies show that visitors to cultural institutions often prefer non-screen based experiences.

One step to address this challenge: consider WHAT you want visitors to take away from an experience before immediately jumping to HOW you will deliver that experience. You may find an elegant non-screen based solution or a great "phygital" (mixed physical and digital) opportunity to explore.


I hope you aim higher and work faster to face whatever museum challenges you encounter in 2019!



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Is This Tech Necessary?

I often have a fraught relationship with how technology, especially digital technology, gets used in museum exhibits. The devices we choose so often seem to overpower the messages they are presenting.

I've been thinking about technology and museum visitor experiences a lot lately, since I'm an advisor on a project funded by the National Science Foundation called HCI+ISE.  The acronym stands for Human Computer Interaction in Informal Science Education.

Next week,  HCI+ISE will hold a conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico that will bring together 60 museum exhibit designers and developers, learning researchers, and technology industry professionals to explore the potential impact of new HCI technologies in ISE settings. The conference will explore the balance between exhibit technology and the visitor experience.  I'm really looking forward to some meaty conversations! (Which I certainly will report back on in a future ExhibiTricks post.)

As I've been preparing for the HCI+ISE Conference, two previous ExhibiTricks posts kept bubbling up in my mind.  The first, Are Screens Killing Museums? continues to generate lots of passionate responses from people (in fact, it's still my only post that generated hate mail!) but I think the issues inside are still worth thinking about.

The second, Screened Out: Preferences for Technology in Museums reports on research that wrestles with whether museum visitors are as entranced by technology as we think they are.

I'm sure these (and many other!) tech-related topics will come up in Albuquerque, so stay tuned for updates here on the blog or on my Twitter feed (@museum_exhibits)


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The Most Popular ExhibiTricks Posts (So Far)

 

I'm off idea-fishing, so I thought I'd point out the most popular posts on this blog (to date) and what they seem to reveal about the museum/exhibit/design zeitgeist.

By far the most popular post to date was "Screened Out: Preferences for Technology in Museums" a guest posting by Susie Wilkening from Reach Advisors.  I'm imagining that many designers and museums are struggling with both the economics and the true usefulness of technologies in effectively delivering content, and Susie's analysisprovides some interesting things to consider.

Also, screen-based technologies in particular seem to be a "hot button" topic for many people as evidenced by the enormous number of comments generated by the posting entitled "Are Screens Killing Museums?"   The use, or deliberate non-use, of screens in museums seems to be an almost religious discussion, with strong adherents on each side.   Despite all the heat this posting generated I still think we should continue to carefully consider our choices of technology, not only from a design aspect, but from an environmental standpoint as well.

Which is a great segue into the most popular interview I've done so far for ExhibiTricks, "Green Exhibit Design: An Interview with Tim McNeil"

Tim provides some wonderfully thoughtful commentary on what green design in museum means, as well as highlighting some great Web-based resources to learn more from.  I'm heartened that people are still continuing to seek this interview out to aid in their thinking about environmentally-conscious design practice.

The last popular posting in this compendium involves some thoughts about untethered and/or consumable materials and their effect on learners and learning environments:  "The Theory of Loose Parts: A Different Kind of Exhibit Design?"  Does deliberately "bullet-proofing" every part of your interactive design create unintended behavioral and learning consequences?

Let me know if you enjoyed this round-up, and whether you'd like me to put together the occasional re-cap of thematically related postings in the future in the "Comments" section below.


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Screened Out: Preferences for Technology in Museums

I asked Susie Wilkening from Reach Advisors to summarize some of the data from their latest research that could apply to exhibit developers and the use of technology in exhibitions. (A larger version of the graph shown above can be found by clicking here.)

She kindly agreed, and here is her guest post:



We live in a tech-heavy world.  Screens are everywhere, including airports, restaurants, gas pumps, backseats of SUVs, and perhaps furtively pulled out of pockets during children’s soccer games.  Earbuds are in place at work, on commutes, and even when walking dogs.  For many, it is difficult to imagine going a day without logging in and tuning it at some point.

And then there are museums.  

People come to museums for lots of reasons.  To learn something new. To relax.  To socialize.  To see something beautiful.  To unplug . . . literally.  To drag their kids away from screens.  To take the earbuds out.

The museum as antidote to our tech-heavy world?  Perhaps.

In Reach Advisors’ latest study, over 40,000 core visitors to museums were asked how they prefer to experience museums and historic sites.  Turns out, interpretation solutions involving screens, earbuds, or cell phones were not high on the list.  In fact, for some audience segments, they were decidedly unpopular.

Let’s see what the data says.  First, the counterintuitive part.  When it comes to audio tours, videos, and movies, older respondents were significantly more likely to say they prefer them than younger audiences.  That’s right.  Older audiences like them better than younger ones.  Respondents over 70 are well over two times more likely to prefer audio tours than respondents in their 20s or 30s.  And older respondents are much more likely to enjoy video clips and movies.
  
And then comes the other important part.  Computer interactions, whether more information, databases, even games, were even less popular, this time across-the-board.  Only 11% of respondents said they preferred experiencing museums and historic sites with computers.  It peaks, at nearly 14%, for respondents in their 40s (statistically hardly a peak, by the way.)

While we didn’t ask respondents why they did (or did not) choose certain interpretation methods, some respondents told us anyway.  Here are some sample comments:


        •  Quality family time that isn't centered around electronic
            equipment is something we could all use more of. 
            We are forever grateful for this activity.

        •  When there are screens around, exhibits tend to become
            things children observe, rather than participate in.

        •  Too many . . .  screens or videos distracts and detracts. 
           Adults and kids alike are just stunned into information
           overload.  Museums are not for information downloads. 
           They are places to encounter/experience something out
           of your ordinary . . .  in my view, different media have to
           be thoughtfully integrated into exhibits.


If the majority of core visitors generally do not prefer technology in museums, is there a place for it?  If it is well-integrated, then we still think so.  One of the most effective exhibits I have ever encountered is the virtual dining table in the European Fashionable Living Galleries at the Detroit Institute of Arts.  It truly deepened my appreciation for European porcelain, and it was thoughtfully integrated in the exhibit.
 
But the data also tells us that we don’t have to do technology because we feel we have to.  Or because our visitors expect it.  Turns out, many don’t.  Instead, it allows us to step back and decide if the technology we are considering genuinely adds to, and deepens, the experience for our visitors.  If it does, we still think there is a place for it.  If it doesn’t, well, it might be best deployed elsewhere (a website?  YouTube?) or scrapped entirely.

There is one final caveat.  Our survey respondents were core visitors to museums, solicited through museum e-mail lists.  They don’t represent more infrequent visitors.  Those individuals may, or may not, have wildly different perceptions of the value of screens and technology in museums.  We hope to find out some day.

But when it comes to our core visitors, overwhelmingly they do not prefer high-tech interpretive solutions.  Instead, they want what museums have been providing for generations:  real experiences through exhibits, hands-on activities, and the cool stuff we have kicking around.   I, for one, find that reassuring.


Susie Wilkening is Senior Consultant and Curator of Museum Audiences at Reach Advisors.  For more information about Reach Advisors’ latest study of museum-goers, please visit their blog.


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Are Screens Killing Museums?

Having just returned from SEGD's Sixth Annual Symposium on New Directions in Exhibition and Environment Design held at Cranbrook outside of Detroit, I was very much reminded of Nina Simon's recent post about small "camp-like" meetings instead of conferences.

The SEGD Symposium really was like a design camp with a small group of participants in Cranbrook's idyllic setting learning from each other.

I was fortunate to give a talk during the symposium about "Right Tech." Building upon the notion that museums' strengths lie with the "Triple S" of Stories, Stuff, and Social Engagement, part of my Cranbrook presentation focused on the contention that "screens" are destroying truly interactive experiences in museums. Since my thoughts seemed to elicit about 50% heads nodding in agreement, and 50% gritted teeth in the audience, I'd thought I'd share my "screed against screens" condensed into a top ten list with ExhibiTricks readers:

A SCREED AGAINST SCREENS


10) Screens are not "green".
I don't care how you slice it up, screens are not a sustainable design technology.

9) IMAX.
The biggest gateway to "cheesiness" in the museum business.

8) The "death trap" introductory theatre.
Didn't forcing people to sit through a boring movie before they get to the "fun stuff" die out with the 1964 World's Fair?

7) BIG Touch Screens/Touch Tables.
Somehow the technology that looked so cool in the Tom Cruise movie "Minority Report" has landed inside museums. Proof that bigger is not always better.

6) Individual Experiences Instead of Truly Social Experiences.
Screens hypnotize, not socialize.

5) Screens in museums emulate TV or movie experiences.
But poorly.

4) Screens in museums emulate videogame experiences.
But poorly.

3) Screens become the "easy answer."
Since visitors will stare at a screen, even if nothing is on it, screen-based technologies often become our default design choice.

2) Screens often become "electronic labels" or encyclopedias.
Screens often become a dumping ground for huge volumes of text that we would never dare stick onto a printed label.

1) Screens don't age well.
Screen-based technologies and techniques become dated very quickly, but unfortunately don't seem to get replaced as quickly.

What do you think? Are screens destroying museums or are they the last hope for engaging visitors? Feel free to hurl your bouquets or brickbats to us via the "Comments" area below.

Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to get updates via email or your favorite news reader. Just click the "Free Updates" link on the right side of the blog.

P.S. If you receive ExhibiTricks via email you will need to click HERE to go to the main ExhibiTricks page to make comments or view multimedia features (like movies!)