Frankly, Green + Webb » hints and tips

Mobile Interpretation and the importance of Stakeholders

Lindsey — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 17:13:47 +0000

We’ve been lucky enough to have a workshop proposal accepted at Museums and the Web this year in San Diego. It’s a workshop we’ll be leading with Sandy Goldberg from sgscripts entitled “Bringing your Stakeholders Onboard: Delivering Vibrant Mobile Projects”

We planned the workshop, after a few clients had talked to us about the challenges they were facing pulling mobile projects together and facilitating the collaboration, which is so often needed. I’m pretty sure that most projects need some form of collaboration but it seems to be that in-gallery digital interpretation, and in particular mobile, needs input from a particularly wide group to ensure a successful roll out. We regularly work on projects that involve the input of as many as seven different departments and ensuring they all feel ownership of the project is a real challenge. And I’ve seen many a project that could have been transformed from poor to good or good to great with just a little more collaboration up front.

Getting the right people involved at the right time can often address those challenges faced at the beginning of a project:

How do we make sure we have the right information in there without being overwhelming?
How do we create the content and keep it up-to-date when we have little budget?
How do you make sure the technical system does what it needs to do?

Or, even more common, the questions that get asked once the system is up and running a while and the impact of decisions made at the development stage are playing out on the floor in the gallery:

How do we stop this negatively impacting on visitor flow?
What happens if the visitor has a problem, how can they get help?
How do we get more people using the system?
Staff are reluctant to promote the system because they are worried it will reduce shop sales/attendance at live talks

One of the toughest things in our experience is gauging when to bring people into the process and what level of involvement they should/could have. We all enjoy the creative input of our colleagues but fear those huge brainstorming meetings where everyone goes around in circles o even worse, stakeholders holding up or derailing the whole project.

Here are a couple of ideas on how to work with your stakeholders. We hope you’ll join us in San Diego to hear more.

Cast your net wide early on

At this point you may well have identified the broad vision or goal for the project. What you need next is support and to identify the parameters you’ll be working within (refine vision, flush out challenges and boundaries, identify which teams we are talking about) Ensuring everyone is on-board with this focus/vision will make everything a lot easier later on. For example, ensuring that the audience is agreed on and any operational challenges of using mobile devices can help you to ensure that curators are giving you the right level of content when it comes to development. Recently we worked with the Science Museum to develop a schools programme. Including the person who manned the phones and took the School bookings helped us to stay focussed on the needs of the teachers and how the project could be sold to them without putting them off with complicated talk of mobile technologies.

Make sure they are comfortable with the technology

We’d also suggest that everyone on the team is given access to a mobile device for a few weeks to see how they use it, what do they do on it, where they use it. The number of design meetings we have had where the leader of the group uses mobile ALL the time while the rest are unfamiliar and lack confidence is frightening.

Testing the Idea

Mobile experiences inside the museum succeed and fail more often on the practicality of operations than anything else and don’t be fooled, this is as much to do with the pace and location of content as it is to do with signage. Midway through the process you’ll want to start testing concept and – most importantly – asking the group you have involved to help you solve the problems using their expertise. This is where your visitor services and marketing teams will come into their own — ignore their advice at your peril!

Everyone Involved

Towards the end of the development process, involve as many people in testing as possible. Particularly volunteers and those who will come into contact with your visitors – the impact of engaging them and showing them how this mobile experience will benefit the visitors and fit into their daily lives will improve your take up rate more than any signs, websites or leaflets.

For more information about the workshop – have a look here: Museums and the Web 2012 (MW2012): Workshops

Designing Effective Content for Mobile in Museums

Lindsey — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 08:00:19 +0000

We probably need to work on a snappier title, but this was the presentation Alyson made at Museums Association conference ‘Creating Digital Content’ I’m currently digging her in the ribs to write a bit more here – but in the meantime, have a look see here . The version on Slideshare has the invaluable speaker notes too…

View more presentations from Frankly, Green + Webb

How do you stop visitors staring at the tiny screen?

Lindsey — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 15:37:23 +0000

The iPhone is a beautiful, seductive but jealous mistress that craves your attention, and enslaves you to its jaw-dropping gorgeousness at the expense of the world around you.

This quote comes from a post on the Magical Nihilism blog (via this post by berg) discovered following a certain amount of ‘Friday afternoon noodling around’

It halted the noodling as it resonated with me so much, in particular ‘At the expense of the world around you...‘ It occurred to me that we’re currently designing apps for devices that possibly ‘enslave‘. I’m not particularly sure we really want to ‘enslave’ visitors to a tiny screen when they are making a special visit to a particular museum/gallery/historic site, possibly paying to enter, for a once in a lifetime visit. Personally, I want to look at the world around me, experience the space and the stories.

One of our key questions when designing content and concepts for mobile in-gallery experiences (and one of the reasons that I enjoy so much about the work we do) is:

How do we make sure that the visitor remains in the space and not transfixed by the tiny screen in front of them?

For me, there’s something very magical about entering a space and having a tiny machine that helps you navigate, interact and understand that space. However, when that machine demands you give it maximum attention and you lose contact with that space – there is nothing worse. I haven’t come to your house just to be barked at by your dog.

When we work on multimedia tours or guides we work to a really simple, tried and tested rule – more audio than video. In fact, we use a ratio; maximum 30% screen time and 70% audio i.e. the visitor should only be looking at the screen for 30% of the time otherwise they feel dislocated from the experience they have come to enjoy.

This definitely works if you are providing content, particularly linear tour content with audio component. But, as Ed Rodley mentions here, museums are, and increasingly need to, move beyond the tour format when it comes to apps and explore more of the functionality available. The opportunities are endless but that key design principle of keeping visitors in the space makes it all super interesting.

I’m really looking forward to the next couple of years as these challenges and opportunities start to be addressed, as a new set of principles and ideas are tried and tested.

Seven tips for moving past the ‘no phone’ rule

Lindsey — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 22:41:40 +0000

We’ve had a few chats over the last couple of weeks with people who are nervous about launching a mobile in-gallery experience because their visitors aren’t currently able to use phones at all.

In the past most museums operated a simple ‘no phone’ policy in their galleries. A simple rule, easily understood. But, as phones have morphed from simple devices for making voice calls to ones with cameras, access to the internet and a multitude of applications, things have got a little more complicated.

If your collection contains works from the recent past you may well have been wrestling with how to manage the combination of phone cameras, mobile phone tours and artworks that are still in copyright. Or perhaps, you’re a member of the operational or front of house team dealing with a confusing set of old rules that no longer work when faced with an audience who tweet, text, listen and play from their mobile device. If so, you have my sympathy – been there and have the scars to prove it.

Here are my top hints and tips culled from my experience:

1. Identify who’s going to ‘own’ the policy.

Often one of the biggest challenges in establishing a new policy in this area is the number of departments involved each with their own concerns and needs. Without someone taking the lead – and the risk of it not being quite right first time – nothing will change. A confused or out of date policy will, inevitably, lead to conflict with visitors. This is not an issue you can ignore. The caveat is that everyone who is affected in the organisation needs to be consulted and their needs considered.

2. Make sure the final policy is clear and straightforward.

Everyone in the organisation needs to understand what the policy is and why and be able to communicate that, so no lengthy, complex technical explanations.

3. Accentuate the positive.

Write a policy that includes the type of behaviour you would like to encourage rather than focusing solely on what visitors can’t do. Framing your conversations with staff and visitors in terms of what is possible rather than what isn’t can transform everyone’s perception of the issue: “We’d love you to tweet about your experience today” beats a whole heap of negatives every time.

4. Share the policy with everyone

I learnt the hard way that creating a mobile phone policy is no use at all if the only people who know about it are the three who made it! Once you’ve shared it with the team who work directly with visitors, share it with the teams who may use mobile as part of their service (hint: that’s usually everyone!)

5. Don’t just focus on the ‘what’, share the ‘why’.

If everyone understands the policy and the reasoning behind it they should feel more confident in discussing the issues with visitors and able to avoid confrontations. Help them identify welcome behaviours versus unwelcome, encourage them to try out and play with smartphones if they haven’t already, role play situations.

6. Identify where you can best share the policy

We all know that signage only works a very small amount of the time. You might want to consider adding the message to any content you are providing on mobile or asking staff at the entrance to mention it to visitors. But remember, keep it positive where you can – for example you might want to consider identifying any images where the visitor can take photos.

7. Admit you won’t catch them all

If someone is very determined to take a photo they will and there’s not a great deal you can do regardless of your policy. A phone may in fact be the best way for them to do this – the resulting image is unlikely to be of print quality!

Do you have any hints and tips on how to use mobile in cultural sites with copyright issues? Whose responsible for the mobile policy in your organisation? Have you seen a particular example of a mobile policy that worked?

Photo by JonnyPhoto – used under Creative Commons