By Heather Hart, Technical Assistant, Balboa Park Online Collaborative
Nancy Proctor, Head of New Media
Initiatives at the Smithsonian, went back to basics, crowd sourcing content for
her mobile project and showing the incredible power that something as old-fashioned
as pens and paper can have. She handed out simple paper maps of the museum to
volunteers and interns and asked them to write down questions and comments they
had as they walked through the gallery space. This rich data could then be used
to see what guests were really interested in learning about (instead of just
what we think they should know).
Sherry Hsi, Associate Director of
the Extended Learning Group at the Exploratorium, discussed the evaluation
process for a new mobile education guide to their exhibits. She found that it
was important to distinguish the opinions of different kinds of visitors:
although most passive visitors reviewed the product positively, many teachers
found the experience to be isolating.
Finally, Koven Smith, Associate
Manager of Interpretive Technology at the Metropolitan Museum of Art,
encouraged everyone, in a pretty controversial moment, to please stop with the pilot projects. Most museums learn the same
things from their pilot projects over and over again and it often paralyzes
them from acting in innovative ways. Instead, he urged, we should embrace the
flexibility that iterative development can offer and just go for it.
What I really took away from this
session is that there is still a lot of debate about what the future of mobile
interpretation will be in the museum community. Here is a quick sample of some
of the dilemmas evident in this session: How do we engage without isolating (i.e.
how does someone hear the guide and still hear their family)? How do we enhance
the experience while still allowing room for exploration (a more traditional
narrative audio guide vs. short, soundbite-style tidbits)? Should we abandon those
old school audio devices in favor of guests providing their own devices?
Although we didn’t absolutely solve these questions during this session, it was
great to hear what institutions like the Smithsonian, the Metropolitan Museum
of Art, and the Exploratorium are moving toward.
I can’t say that I definitely
know the answers to any of those tough questions. But, taking a little bit from
each of the presentations, I think we at BPOC need to focus our efforts on
making engaging visitor experiences that the public actually wants to have. We
should constantly be evaluating any and all of our projects, but above all, we should
not let those concerns keep us from doing, creating, and innovating. The
iterative nature of technology will also us to adapt and fix our mistakes as we
go.