Revisions are in bold for this page.

Summary of Key Findings

Our inquiries analyzed WCMA curators and two Williams students, one who was a summer intern at WCMA and another who is an art enthusiast (we have another CI scheduled at a later date, but this will focus on the people we have interviewed). From these inquiries, we developed a better understanding of both visitor and curator desires for the museum. In particular, the Williams students seemed to want a deeper experience where they can work to understand the art, and possibly even discuss it with others. Curators, on the other hand, want to get better and more direct feedback from the visitors. This is especially useful if they can get a sense of what frustrates people, and which galleries people are most interested in. We asked students what they thought of a low-tech data collection solution, and they liked the idea of post-it walls between exhibits. When asked for their thoughts on solutions for more engaging exhibits, students had varying thoughts on what made a good exhibit. One didn’t like the arrangement of art, while the other student enjoyed having to engage with art and question. The curators didn’t want a way to track emotion, since it is so subjective. Instead, they want some way to hear what is frustrating or interesting to visitors.

Since later feedback advised us to assume data was collected already, we are focusing on ways to use it.

participants

The full writeup for each encounter can be found here.

• U1 is a curator at WCMA who deals primarily in finding art among contemporary living artists. They were interviewed in their office.
  • “find pieces that invoke intriguing ideas and unexpected discussion points”
• U2 is a curator at WCMA who deals primarily with 18th and 19th century portraits and photographs. This was a combination contextual inquiry and interview. It took place in the WCMA prints collection room and ended in the WCMA artwork storage room.
  • “…worry that people who are confused or frustrated aren’t expressing this”
• U3 is an art enthusiast who has taken several art history courses, grew up frequenting museums, and is a student at Williams. This contextual inquiry took place in the WCMA ground floor hallway gallery and Object Lab.
  • “enjoying the challenge of understanding the relationship between artworks (in the Object Lab)”
• U4 is a former summer intern at WCMA and student at Williams. This contextual inquiry took place in the Object Lab.
  • “…figuring out what the work is supposed to mean, versus what it means to me.”

analysis, themes, processes

Our high level themes were space (WCMA, exhibits, relatedness) as an experience, criteria for exhibits, feedback and engagement, and introspection. Visitors expressed a desire to understand, relate to, and engage with exhibits, but without having answers handed to them. Meanwhile, curators wanted to create exhibits for people to critically engage with, wanted immediate feedback on exhibits, and wanted to give context. We met with everyone in WCMA, and performed the majority of student contextual inquiries in the Object Lab. U3 wanted to start in a side gallery, and U4 went directly to the Object Lab.

We identified themes by looking for common statements, concerns, and questions between our participants, as well as their differences. The curators and visitors had opposing responses despite shared priorities. However, all of them – and the disconnect between responses – point to an issue of curator/visitor communication.

The initial tasks we can design for are creating dialogue in WCMA, sharing stories, and collecting visitor responses to exhibits. Beyond that, we’re not sure yet. We are also beginning to wonder if technology is going to be the best answer for some of these problems. Any solution we implement has to be accessible and engaging to all visitors, no matter their level of comfort with technology. A phone application requires downloading, an iPad requires carrying or mounting on a wall. A large touch-screen may be more accessible to people who don’t feel comfortable with the small size of an iPad, but it still requires some level of interest in engaging with technology. We need to ask WCMA if they’ve done this before, but we were thinking about the potential impact of post-it-note responses to selected artwork or exhibits, where people are encouraged to use 1-3 words and  post their thought on the wall next to others (see bottom of the page for ideas on how this could be done). This is not a high-tech solution for data collection, but it is one that would be accessible to all museum visitors. An (unfortunate) intern could transcribe these. By using interpretative phenomenological analysis coding, these responses can be sorted into themes and stored in a database. The data can then be represented through artwork created by Art Studio students, interactive wall panels, or something else entirely. But by engaging with  visitors in a non-technological way, we can provide curators with complex data (potentially viewed through an iPad, phone, or laptop interface). This allows us to avoid the problem of trying to create technology that is “all things to all people,” like our most recent feedback recommended. Additionally we may want to narrow our user base, focusing on either curators or visitors. This may simplify our design, allowing whatever we create to be more purposeful in the task it will aim to accomplish.

We also want to further explore the idea of immediate feedback via text, whether texts are sent to a curator or AI. This system could use a piece, exhibit, or theme-specific key word so that responses were sent to the right individual or team. This is inspired by the curator’s comment that “he wished he could get visitor questions directly sent to his phone so he could answer them (given he had the time), that way it might eliminate some frustration.” Furthermore, assuming we already have some qualitative and quantitative data, we could build an app that organizes and communicates that data efficiently to the curators (e.g. maybe has a mix of visitor comments, number of people visiting exhibit, number of people who liked a certain artwork, etc.). Then, in an attempt to engage visitors (and possibly creating a more direct connection between visitors and curators), we could also have an interactive wall panel that displays a portion of that data, and allows them to interact with it in some way or another (e.g. touch a pink bubble that splinters into different pieces of information about certain exhibits).

We’re recording these ideas here so we don’t forget them, and can revisit them later during critique and brainstorming.

We have an additional inquiry lined up with an Art History professor who specializes in occupied spaces. She has gladly agreed to meet with us in whatever way is most helpful, once we get actionable feedback. A student who is doing a contract major in Living Art History (studio art combined with art history) has also offered to meet with us.

affinity diagram

task analysis questions

1. Who is going to use the design? ⋅⋅⋅ In our current ideation, curators will use the technological aspect of our design. We will still try to incorporate museum visitors as much as possible, but the curators will be the main focus.
2. What tasks do they now perform? ⋅⋅⋅ They create exhibits based on time, date, style, or theme. Curators select artwork and arrange pieces in specific sequences in order to educate, inspire, or confront visitors. Curators also ocassionally review feedback left from people who are willing to engage with current WCMA systems (exhibition feedback and feedback given to front-desk staff).
3. What tasks are desired? ⋅⋅⋅ Exhibit curation based on analysis and understanding of visitor experiences. ⋅⋅⋅ Reviewing feedback from a more diverse group of people. Non-response silence cannot be ignored, and must be minimized.
4. How are the tasks learned? ⋅⋅⋅ Through formal education, personal style development, and mentorship.
5. Where are the tasks performed? ⋅⋅⋅ Primarily in WCMA offices.
6. What is the relationship between the person and data? ⋅⋅⋅ Curators want more precise, yet diverse, data. They need visitor experience, quantified. Right now they have a gap in data due to people who don’t take the WCMA experience surveys or exit interviews.
7. What other tools does the person have? ⋅⋅⋅ A rigorous education and training with specialized expertise. ⋅⋅⋅ Interns, both undergraduate and graduate. ⋅⋅⋅ Other museum databases, peers.
8. How do people communicate with each other? ⋅⋅⋅ Curators hear from visitors through exhibition feedback and feedback given to front-desk staff. ⋅⋅⋅ Curators communicate with each-other through conferences, in-person meetings, data sets, and emails/phone calls.
9. How often are the tasks performed? ⋅⋅⋅ Curators are designing new exhibits about 2-3 times a year, it depends on the scope of the project.
10. What are the time constraints on the tasks? ⋅⋅⋅ WCMA is small, and exhibits must change in order to keep new visitors coming. Chad said that WCMA curators have a quick exhibit turnover and spend around 4 months (if Landon’s memory serves us correctly) curating an exhibit. Once the exhibit is curated, installed, and live, then it’s on to a new project. We are focusing on real-time reporting of data to curators, with features that allow curators to examine feedback over different timespans.
11. What happens when things go wrong? ⋅⋅⋅ Museum visitors leave exhibits feeling frustrated, confused, and disengaged. However, “most of the feedback U2 receives is positive, which made him worry that people who are confused or frustrated aren’t expressing this information to him.”