#mstdtech

From this week’s readings it is clear to see how important a clear and searchable website is for a museum to be able to maintain its mission. Museums are repositories of the world’s information and in this digital age it is critical to ask “if the collection is not easily searchable does the information still exist?”

The simple answer to this question is “no” it will not be able to reach its intended audience and will not provide any usability. Museums must understand that UI UX design is imperative for patrons both local and abroad to be able to use their collection. Julia Folkowski’s article “Custom Collections Content and Generous Interfaces” gives examples of how a museum might use social media as an influence on this. She shows how Spotify, Pandora, Etsy, and Pinterest have all created user interfaces that allows the customer to easily find and share items related to their interests allowing for a customized experience that will keep them coming back. My favorite museum related example from this article was the Rijks Studio with it’s customizable collection interface.

Below is a screenshot from the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art’s website (https://www.kemperart.org/permanent-collection). I feel that this is a good example of a midrange website when it comes to searchability of its collection. It takes some exploring to find this page from the home screen and it could use some better design when it comes to how easy it is to search for a work.

One thing I found ironic about this week’s readings was the article by John Coburn. While the information in the article was useful when it came to understanding metadata and engagement, it was also interesting that two links in the article given as examples were dead. I thought it went to show how current media can have a short lifecycle if not maintained properly.

Digital technology has evolved to the point where information that could never be accessed before is now available almost everyone across the globe. The web we have created extends to the personal and professional level. This new type of connection has everyone turned on all the time and has museums trying to figure out where they fit in.

Part of piecing together this puzzle starts with the mission of the museum, they have to answer the question of who they are trying to reach and why. More and more social media has put the audience in touch with the brand and how they are represented. This starts a dialogue that the museum has to prepare themselves for; they need to put in place a strategy for how they want to approach digitizing their institution and what best fits with their audience.

It makes sense to approach this from a business standpoint with funding and traffic being a major issue for some museums. However, the mission of the museum should always be a priority and not put on the back burner. This means extending the reach of the museum throughout multiple platforms and across multiple deparments. How these branches work and weave themselves together is essential in developing a digital strategy.

This week’s reading about the post-digital museum, especially the Brooklyn Museum ASK app and the Dallas Museum of Art Friends platform, show just how integrated technology has become in museums, and how it is being used to make engagement with the collections fun and interesting. I especially like the idea behind the DMA Friends platform with free membership and rewards for participating with the museum.

The ability to get badges for visiting galleries or exploring the museum more fully or more often would probably be the most appealing aspect for me or my family. We love collecting (hence why I want to work with museum collections), so having badges as rewards would be something we would all get into. My dad and both of my brothers-in-law compete with badges on a beer app; everyone in my family competes for the most steps and badges through Fitbit. But it’s not outright competition, it’s a way for us to share experiences even at the cross-country distances we are set at now.

This week’s readings about visitor based design and utilizing audio experiences in museums were very interesting. I especially liked the video about designing a new shopping cart and the methods the IDEO group used to design one that tried to appeal to as many people as possible – their wants and needs, as well as things they may not have said they desired but could enjoy nonetheless. The methods of user-centered design, both for that shopping cart and in the museum settings in regards to integrating digital technologies into the museum experience, are much simpler than I would have thought. I’ve always thought design teams and innovation strategies would be more complex and theoretical with lightbulb moments and brilliance just happening (as they seem to do in TV shows and movies, like the How to lose a guy in 10 days scene where Mathew McConaughey’s character decided that telling people to “frost themselves” is the best way to sell jewelry). Instead, it’s asking questions and brainstorming and interacting with the actual audience to get their input, as opposed to telling people what they want/need.

I found this week’s reading about shared authority through crowdsourcing and audience participation very interesting. I hadn’t realized how much went into designing and coming up with ideas to make activities appealing to audiences in order to encourage their participation with the technology. I had no idea that the “I’m not a robot” tests were actually crowdsourcing of poorly digitized data. I find it so random and funny. As far as I was aware before reading these articles, I had only used one crowdsourcing application consciously.

A few months ago, for another class, we had to transcribe X number of words for the Smithsonian Transcription Center as a way to practice reading old handwriting and secretary hand. Most all of us in the class went way beyond the number of words and pages we were required to do because we got so caught up in the satisfaction of being able to read some of these handwritings. Some words or even just letter combinations took 3-4 communications to make sense of but once I became more familiar with the writers handwriting style, I wanted to see how much I could do, how far I could get before he stumped me again. It was like a challenge with myself, and it was so satisfying in the end to “win” (for lack of a better word to describe the feeling). Eventually I ran out of letters in the handwriting I was familiar with and stopped participating in the transcription.

These articles also reminded me of an application or computer system that I heard about over the summer called Mukurtu CMS that was designed and meant to allow indigenous peoples to “manage and share digital cultural heritage” (http://mukurtu.org/). Though not exactly crowdsourcing and audience participation as the articles described it, I feel like this is another form of targeted group participation. It allows indigenous peoples to have an access platform to share their input and knowledge about their cultural heritage with others. It gives these groups back control of their heritage and culture, of what information is shared and how it is presented. This is especially important when combined with museum settings where many of the Native American collections were obtained before there was much respect for Native cultures, and especially without Native input.

If it hasn’t been apparent for the past few years, engaged company pr departments attempt to make their social media accounts popular and likable. From Denny’s to Sonic the Hedgehog, the idea of a friendly image is very ideal for institutions like museums which rely on regular visitorship. 

The Clark County museum has their own facebook page which makes up for the rather small site. From the moment you see the profile image you can tell who is the face of the museum.

His name is Mark Hall Patton, and he’s the administrator of the Clark County Museum as well as the Howard W. Cannon Museum and the Searchlight Museum. He’s also a well known authenticator and consultant over in the t.v show Pawn Stars. Known also as the “Beard of Knowledge” he’s been on the show for a long time. See this youtube link for some clips of him on the show.

Most museums don’t exactly have a staff member that famous around the world, but in terms of outreach it’s a good substitute. The museum didn’t start using his presence until several years ago, and a lot of the familiarity exists there. Is he a trustworthy figure? He certainly builds himself up to be as he’s very much a representative of the museum field as a whole. 

Of course social media is important when you consider collective loss. The Las Vegas shooting is one of the most deadly mass shooting in our nation’s history, and given the role of the Clark County Museum, it’s one that needs to preserved and not forgotten. Here is the facebook post about the museum gathering objects for one of the main lobby display cases as well as the permanent collection. Also joining the museum are the memorial crosses which for the past month have been placed behind the “Welcome to Las Vegas” sign.  

With so many people of different ages, races, and backgrounds using social media now, it’s almost necessary for institutions that aim to have an impact to have their own accounts. Museums have joined this wave and have done so rather well, with posting newly digitized collections, interesting facts and figures, jokes and holiday greetings, and postings related to current events and issues. However, museums and other cultural institutions still face the same dilemma online as they do in person: inclusion. Though social media has made some aspects of museums more accessible since visitors don’t necessarily have to ‘visit’ to interact and be involved with certain events (such as celebrations of Black History Month or Women in Science), the museum must first take a stand in order to be inclusive.

I found the articles this week on inclusion using social media platforms, especially for the African American Community, very interesting, especially in conjunction with idea of the museum’s social media voice. The SMM’s (Social Media Managers) have a complicated job of not just making the museum look good and not putting their foot in their mouth (see Valentine’s Day mistake), but also of keeping up with current events and issues. By staying up-to-date, SMMs keep the museum relevant in general as well as to typically marginalized social groups and those who may not visit museums either for lack of opportunity or because they feel excluded.

The National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) social media accounts include African American culture and perspectives of history that have typically been excluded. In doing so, however, they can be seen as taking a side politically. When the violence in Charlottesville, VA occurred on August 17 of this year, the NMAAHC twitter account posted a thread about the systematic violence against African Americans and racial terror that the community has faced overtime. Reading through the comments following this thread, I found much support for the African American struggle against such violence, but also several arguments about ‘now’ being different, or political debates about political party ideas.

This week’s readings mostly looked at making collections and images of collections openly and freely available online, with or without restrictions. Some issues that were considered included concerns about copyright or the financial costs of digitizing collections that would not be repaid if the images became freely available. Though I understand these concerns, I agree with the articles that pointed out that the original objects are held in public trust and can be viewed free of charge in their museum setting, and images that guests take can be used and distributed freely. Having guest images disseminated on the internet – poor quality that they likely are – would not be beneficial or helpful to education about the object. If the image is going to out there anyway, it would be better for a good quality image with correct and relevant information (possibly in the form of metadata) to be widely used than a grainy image Jane from Wisconsin took on her personal camera a few years ago that has her finger in the top corner and a glare from the flash on the exhibit case.