1. collect pre-existing data from WALLS journals (easy, existing)

Lili is a student intern who works for WCMA. She started working during the summer WALLS exhibit, and one of her tasks was to transcribe handwritten visitor data. WALLS involved having users journal about pieces of artwork, so she spent several hours a day typing these responses into a computer. The responses are organized by artwork. While some of these responses are displayed on the WALLS website, this information is also not easily accessible through the museum database. Lili spends the next several days adding journal responses to the database. She then realizes that there is no good way to search through journal data, so she asks her supervisor about tagging responses by themes. Lili and her supervisor realize that this is only one person’s interpretation of visitor data, and wonder how they can better use this information.

2. collect exhibit thoughts and feedback from representative groups of visitors (difficult, existing)

Bob is a WCMA staff member who ocassionally works the front desk, and other times works in exhibits. He learns a lot about WCMA exhibits through interactions with visitors, and people who stop to give him feedback. Unfortunately, when talking with a curator about the new gel-and-contacts installation, Bob realizes that the only people who really stop to talk with him are either kids or older visitors. Young adults rarely stop to talk, even if they seem frustrated or unimpressed with the museum. Bob also realizes that he receives mostly positive feedback. However, from his time in the galleries, he can tell that not everyone is happy with their museum experience. He isn’t sure why some people enjoy the museum or exhibits that others don’t, but frustated visitors tend to not engage with his questions, and sometimes take their irritation out on him. Bob gets the sense that people who are frustrated prefer not to talk about it, and wonders if they are frustrated because of the exhibit content, a lack of understanding, or something else entirely. Bob wishes there were a better way to get honest feedback from everyone.

3. assign collected visitor data to specific artwork in database (medium-difficult, new)

Daniel is a fairly new WCMA staff member, and one of his first jobs was to give a tour of the museum to a couple of teenagers and their parents. Knowing extensively about the exhibits in WCMA through his research (and the help of others), he gives a successful tour. However, he frequently noticed that while the parents were keenly listening to him and asking questions, the teenagers looked fairly confused while he gave explanations. When they approached the hair-gel-eye-contacts exhibit, he asked one of the teenagers what she thought of it. She replied that even though she had no idea what this piece was about, it certainly made her feel creeped out but curious at the same time. Another teenager pitched in, saying that for some reason he felt the opposite, claiming that he felt calm and thought the piece was hilarious with the music. Noticing that they both gave emotional responses, Daniel wondered at the end of the tour if there was a way to give information about how people responded, like the two teenagers, in the tours themselves. Sure enough, a WCMA curator recommended to put in this information in the HeART database, and once he found the artwork he wanted to share information on, he noticed that there were many other audience responses recorded as well.

4. search database to curate exhibits (easy, existing)

Ashley is a WCMA curator that has recently been assigned to choosing a new exhibit that would replace the Hawaii exhibit. Because she partook in the set-up and management of the Hawaii exhibit, she understand very well the messages that it has provided to the museum go-ers and what responses they came up with as they interacted with the exhibit. She notices that people have responded very emotionally well to the technology of the exhibit as well – specifically the structure of the cylindrical image columns with the mono-directional speaker on top, which helped the audience connect with the images. She realizes that the intimacy established in the connection between the exhibit and the audience cannot be neglected, and proceeds to look for exhibits that illustrate the same sort of emotional response. Because she knew that it would take a long time to find for the perfect exhibit if she just searched through Google, she decides to find a tool that would help her locate exhibits with similar audience responses. She runs into the HeART database, and thanking her lucky stars, finds the perfect exhibit that showcases the intimacy between itself and the audience.

5. summarize and communicate visitor feedback to curators - easy, existing

Antonio is a WCMA curator who manages the Dance We Must exhibit. It has been awhile since many of the pieces in that exhibit have been changed, so he decides that it’s time to swap out some of the displayed artwork with some of the ones that have been in storage for awhile. Furthermore, there was recently an exhibition that had a large proportion of visitors give their feedback about the artwork. Antonio wants to incorporate some of this visitor feedback as he chooses pieces to retrieve out of storage, but he soon realizes that it will take him hours to read and organize all of this information. Additionally, a significant number of visitors talk about things like the weather being too cold, which is currently unhelpful information for Antonio. He wishes there were a better and more efficient way to go through this feedback, so he can get back to finding pieces from storage that he wants to display.

6. establish a direct connection between curators and visitors (i.e. where visitors can ask clarifying questions) - medium/difficult, new

Odell is a WCMA curator who has been walking around the museum to get a better sense of how visitors are enjoying the exhibits. However, as he is walking around, he sees a man and his wife who are debating about the meaning of a painting. They go back and forth, arguing about the artist’s intention, but get nowhere with the conversation. They both realize that neither of them know enough history about the artist to accurately determine who is right. In an attempt to learn a little more about this artist, they start frantically walking around and asking WCMA staff if they knew any more information. After Odell catches up to the couple, he is able to talk to them and explain more about the piece, making the couple happy. They soon walk out of the museum with smiles on their faces as they feel this museum visit was an enlightening experience. Odell realizes that this couple can’t be the only visitors who have frustrations like this. He wishes there were some way where visitors could contact him quickly if they had immediate questions. This way, if he happened to have some free time, he might be able to explain some things that give the visitors a better and more enlightening experience.