by Jessie Tsai

　　The Museum Computer Network (MCN) 2009 Annual Conference was held from the 11th to 14th of November this year in Portland, Oregon, U.S.A. As usual, the event was a gathering of numerous professionals in information related affairs of museum. The 4 day conference program offered over 40 workshops and sessions and had over 300 participants, making it the place where the latest information and news of museums were exchanged. Below we share with readers what was seen and heard during the keynote presentation and case studies.

Keynote Presentation

　　User experience designer Karen Donoghue, the founder of HumanLogic, was invited to be the keynote speaker this year. Donoghue was the leading designer of a wireless photo frame and FrameChannel platform for Kodak and cell phone software for Associated Press and Motorola. The theme of the presentation was “Eye on the hand, mind in the cloud”, in which Donoghue started out with her rich experience in practice and shared her understanding of the field.

(Karen Donoghue at the keynote presentation. Photograph by Ting-Li Lin)

 

　　Cell phones possess immense development potential, considering its integration with cameras, the internet, multi-touch panels and location sensors in recent years, coupled with the vigorous development of Web 2.0. However, the development of cell phone services has brought a great number of challenges to user experience design, especially in network system stability, because it involves the integration of software, hardware, advertisements and user interfaces. Furthermore, due to limited time for product design or other requirements of the client, the design team must find a way to complete a project before the deadline, even if results are not entirely satisfactory. There are many other factor that needs to be carefully considered, for example the user’s purpose, requirements, location of use, environment, mental state, network bandwidth, data storage, hardware, supportive services, to ensure that information can smoothly reach users.

　　Donoghue emphasized that a good design must be able to encourage meaningful dialogue between users and other people, matters or objects, and that it should be effectively managed. We hope that not all of the feedback we get is vague and general like “Cool, great, I want one, too”, but will instead inspire creativity, encourage knowledge sharing and help people to understand one another. For example using the multi-touch function to boost user interaction, or pre-tagged twitter client, or helping users find specialists on certain topics via an interconnected social network.

 

　　

Donoghue especially stressed the importance of usability. Although visual design is not to be overlooked, if it is presented too early during software development, it will often mesmerize the design team and client with its beautiful appearance and cause them to neglect usability. During software development or before a website goes online, various prototypes need to be tested, or other software need to be used to simulate interface operation to ensure that information flows smoothly and the interface meets user requirements. If usability is not considered, users will feel that the software is hard to use and won’t often use it.

Case Study

　　During the conference program, five sessions are held concurrently for each time period, which is why the morning case studies seem so special, they are the only occasion besides the keynote presentation where all participants are gathered in the same conference room. Each case studies session has 6 themes, covering various information related cases and experience sharing. After each case is briefly introduced, the participants are free to exchange opinions with the speaker at the large table at the back of the conference room. Due to the numerous issues involved in the case studies, only a few of themes are listed below:

 

• University of Oregon’s experience with Flickr Commons
• The Field Museum’s experience with adopting Google’s Gmail platform as their e-mail platform
• The Luce Foundation used games to encourage user interaction
• Design of the Pathfinder tour guide platform by the Art Institute of Chicago
• Yale University Art Gallery’s Digital Archive Project
• The Indianapolis Museum of Art’s Artbabble audiovisual resource platform
• The Davis Museum and Cultural Center of Wellesley College’s unique music appreciation device
• V&A Museum’s experience with providing free download of high resolution digital images
• Results of the study on users of visual interactive platforms by the J. Paul Getty Museum

(A case study in progress. Photograph by Hsiao-Li Chu)

 

　　Case studies allow participants to learn the latest news of information affairs in different museums and holding institutions, which benefits both museums and participants. For example, many information personnel of museums might be willing to join Flickr Commons to increase the visibility of their museum’s collections, and by hearing the experiences of people who have, they will have good idea of the application process and know what to expect, such as needing to sign heavy and complicated legal documents, possible exposure of the collections and benefits. Or in the Field Museum’s case, using Google Corporate Gmail instead of setting up an individual e-mail server, not only did it save a lot of maintenance cost, but it also allowed them to enjoy Google document and calendar services. These experiences all help practitioners to formulate better implementation plans, or gain the approval of their museum and convince relevant personnel to cooperate.

　　The Luce Foundation presented an extremely interesting case. The foundation is located at a corner of the American Art Museum, and unlike the conventional exhibition method, the foundation adopts an open storage approach to its collection, meaning that pieces not being exhibited are also labeled and displayed for visitors to see. Once an artwork is borrowed for a long amount of time, the museum finds another artwork with similar features to fill in. The foundation on one hand encourages dialogue between the public and artworks, and on the other hand hopes to find good ideas. The Luce Foundation launched a Fill the Gap activity this year, in which a photo of a gap in its wall is uploaded to Flickr, and users are invited to search through its database to find a piece they want to put in the gap; the activity received many interesting responses. The Foundation also once held a physical Fill the Gap activity in the museum. In addition, there was a game named Ghost of a Chance held in the museum as well.

　　Another interesting case that applies the concept of Web 2.0 is Artbabble, an audiovisual platform launched by the Indianapolis Museum of Art. Many American museums have audiovisual files on the production of artworks, but they are scattered about and hard to search for. This website cooperates with numerous content providers and gathers the audiovisual files into one place, providing a number of channels with different themes, and allowing users to search for data under different artists, themes and producers. The website has designed many tools to encourage sharing and to provide information on artworks, including rating, file download, personal collection, intellectual property right announcement, sharing files to other online platforms, comments, and tags. The homepage lists latest news, latest comments, and comments on twitter. Although this website is not very different from most audiovisual platforms in terms of functions, its concept of integrating art related audiovisual files, clean and aesthetic visual design, easy to use user interface, and efforts to encourage searching, feedback, sharing, and uniting user communities are all worth learning from.

 

　　Pathfinder, the tour guide system of the Art Institute of Chicago, not only presented in the museum with 30” Apple Cinema Display, but also provides an internet version for visitors to learn about artworks before and after their visit. Pathfinder has an aesthetic and consistent interface, of which users can start by selecting artwork, exhibition or location on the left. When users click on the image of an artwork, the location of the artwork is displayed on the right. Users can also see the full image of some locations, and directions are provided for mobility impaired persons. All artworks are linked to the collection database for those who are interested to search through.