Reflections on MW17, UX in museums and all the red rocks
Earlier in the month I got back from the USA where I presented at Museums and the Web (MW17) in Cleveland, Ohio. The US MW has always been the conference I’ve wanted to attend so I was thrilled when my paper got accepted back in November. I must admit Cleveland has never been on my bucket list but I was pleasantly surprised and found some good pockets to explore in the city. Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) and the rest of Wade Park District was very impressive — building, collection and technology wise.
My paper was about product management processes and what the Experience & Digital team at ACMI has delivered since I started at the museum in March 2016. I presented a more palatable and practical version at the conference with some key takeaways for museums.
Before flying to Cleveland we had some time in sunny California. After hearing Keir Winesmith’s talk at MuseumNext Melbourne in March and reading all the literature surrounding SFMOMA’s building redevelopment and app I was very much looking forward to experiencing it first hand.
SFMOMA
Arriving at the museum you’re welcomed by a grand but very minimal foyer and you instinctively know to make your way up the staircase to the ticket desk. You can join the queue for entry tickets or download the app and purchase tickets that way. Normally I’m anti-apps for a single visit but because I knew it would be integral to the rest of my museum experience I was fine with it. (The apps I don’t like downloading are those at the likes of Messina when you can pay with cash vs ‘download an app to pay for your ice-cream’?!).
I experienced some issues downloading the app which was a little frustrating but being in this line of business I know that there are always teething issues when you launch a new product. My partner couldn’t download it at all which meant we could compare experiences with and without the app but we missed out on trying the ‘sync with friends’ feature.
While in the queue observing what’s around, a lot of real estate is given to promoting the app which is great to see. If you don’t have an iPhone you can use one of the museum’s. They’re working on the Android version at the moment. After speaking with Stephanie Pau, Head of Content at SFMOMA while I was at MW17 it was interesting to hear they’d had similar feedback from visitors to what we got about the Scorsese audio guide.
I entered the first floor galleries and began by listening to the ‘I Don’t Get It’ Immersive Walk with Martin Starr and Kumail Nanjiani from the TV show Silicon Valley. This one has had the most publicity because of their celebrity status and their popularity with a more general audience. Stephanie had sent me the audio earlier so I could get a feel for the format because are thinking about new ways to offer content to visitors at ACMI. Unexpectedly I enjoyed the ‘walk’ more sitting at my office desk than when I was wandering through the galleries. I don’t think I’m the audience for the app — I like to go at my own pace and find things of interest. Also, this particular talk is targeted to the more puzzled or skeptical museum-goer of which I am certainly not. For me, this raises the question of ‘why isn’t the audio also available outside the museum for general consumption?’
My favourite part of the app was wandering up to a work I recognised or was drawn to and based on my location the app suggesting related content. The most powerful and thought provoking piece of content was the poem I heard while standing in front of Anselm Kiefer’s Sulamith, 1983. The piece of prose really moved me and gave more context and understanding to the piece. It’s in the German Art After 1960: The Fisher Collection exhibition — the pick of the galleries for me.
Overall the app user experience was impressive — speedy and smooth with clear navigation. While I only scratched the surface of the app I found it slightly overwhleming for the three hours I had. There’s a lot you can do on it. For a local or regular visitor this would have value but for me I was too concerned about everything I was missing out on.
Moving between floors was made easy with the ‘informative lifts’. The doors are a map of the different floors so you can decide where you’re heading while you await your ride. The poster bays in the lifts were also great and highlight something on each floor — a must see, cafe or special exhibit. Food for thought as we rethink wayfinding at ACMI.
In Melbourne we’re thinking about how we can bring the collection into the museum more and in front of visitors. SFMOMA have done this in a fantastic way and have included the Interpretive Photography Gallery in their redevelopment.
Keir Winesmith thinks the photo floor, cafe and Interpretive Gallery is the best executed of their physical spaces. I was so charmed by the space and how visitors naturally used it. They’d order their coffee and then look around the space before settling into an area to go deeper. There were interviews, articles and collection items to explore and the content was accessible to different levels of knowledge. Families, couples and groups of friends all engaging with coffee in hand. What a great sight! There is a lot for us to learn from this — quality coffee being a good start.
There were also some lovely spaces to have a break, reflect on what you’d seen and if you’re travelling, do some life admin over the wifi.
MW17
Arriving in Cleveland was a stark contrast to San Fran — a different climate, different pace and different people — almost like a different country and culture altogether.
The pre-conference workshops I attended were both brilliant.
Leading from within: having transformative dialogue with museum leadership
This was run by Carrie Barratt who is the Deputy Director of Collections and Administrations at The Met. It was so incredible to be able to tap into people like this when geographically we are so far away.
The session was all about managing upwards and outwards. The key things I took away:
- Give context when you are talking to leaders. While it’s clear in your mind, they have so many other things on and need to be reminded about why you’re where you are and why it’s important.
- Be a mentor when trying to get your point across. You’re most likely working in a new way or with new technology that your colleagues are unfamiliar with. They’ll need to be brought up to speed in gentle way.
- To bring someone along you need to meet them where they are. You might have very different opinions so instead of fighting in your corner you need to first understand where they are coming from and then explain why your way is better for customers and the organisation. Bit by bit they’ll come a little closer.
- Adapt your skill at paying attention. What’s the reaction of your audience when you are presenting or pitching an idea? Do you need to change direction part way through?
- Know the personalities of your team and most important stakeholders. Carrie has found doing the HBDI (Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument) with her teams good as the data helps to communicate and work with people that are different to you. Otherwise they will not hear you no matter how articulate you are being. An example she gave is that some of us are ‘feelers’ and some are ‘thinkers’ and you need to appeal to both differently.
- Think about the challenges you’re going to face and what kind of networks you’ll need to address them and start building relationships with those people. Who has insight into someone you need to work with?
Design sprints for awesome teams: running design sprints for rapid digital product development
The afternoon workshop was led by Dana Mitroff Silvers of Designing Insights and Ahree Lee, a UX strategy, research and design specialist.
In this session I had no time to write anything down. It was so hands on and frankly the best workshop I have ever participated in.
Dana runs this website Design Thinking for Museums so there’s lots on here about her work with groups. If you want to give it a go with your teams Dana kindly shared her slides and this is recommended reading.
I’m looking forward to using this approach for the next nuggety problem our team faces and also rolling it out to other teams at ACMI for issues that go beyond the digital. Perhaps wayfinding in the museum …
My favourite conference sessions
The next three days were packed with presentations, forums and crits. I got the most out of the professional forums because of their more strategic focus. It was such a treat to see presentations by people who I’ve followed for most of my career.
People First: Building and Leading a Successful Team
- Douglas Hegley, Minneapolis Institute of Art, USA, Anne Bennett, Toledo Museum of Art, USA, Brad Dunn, The Field Museum, USA, Susan Poulton, The Franklin Institute, USA
Some tips on hiring:
- check their social media profiles — are they living the job and passionate about their trade?
- hire for attitude and character. Look at a candidates aptitude for skills not just the resume — hire their character and train them in the skills. Douglas recommended this book Hiring for Attitude: A Revolutionary Approach to Recruiting and Selecting People with Both Tremendous Skills and Superb Attitude.
- don’t always hire someone because they fit in with the team because then you’re team will have no diversity of ideas or backgrounds.
- close email. Work remotely. Block out time for focused work. Email is like a drug!
- Brad has put all their helpdesk requests onto Trello — transparent and allows the team to be more strategic.
In And Out Of Start Up Mode: How Museums Manage The Shuffling Of Digital Projects Through Periods Of Launch, Maintenance, Revision And Redesign
- Jane Alexander, Cleveland Museum of Art, USA, Loic Tallon, Metropolitan Museum of Art, USA, Marc Cima, National September 11 Memorial and Museum, USA
There was lots of advice in this session around structures of technology, digital and product teams. For example at The Met they’ve got three product teams each comprised of a product manager, developer, designer etc — one for transactional products, one for collection products and one for audience products. An importance was placed on digital and IT sitting together and working closely.
Some other valuable sessions were the video crit run by Jonathan Munar, ART21, USA and Sarah Wambold Clifford Still Museum, USA. It was interesting to see how a crit is run and also learn more about video production from some pretty great producers. Jonathan shared their latest project which is just beautiful:
The final evening of the conference we were lucky to spend lots of time playing at CMA.
Studio Play was the most fun by far, the best was ‘Reveal and Zoom’ and the ‘Art Star’ game at the end!
On the final day of the conference Jane Alexander of CMA her colleagues Emily Hirsch and Seema Rao ran a session called What’s new in Gallery One? There were only a few of us in the room which was a blessing because it meant I basically had them all to myself and could ask lots of questions about the interactives we experienced the night before. Lots to take back to the teams at ACMI.
Overall MW exceeded my expectations. It’s such a friendly and open community of passionate, professional and fun people. I’d been told the networking was such a large part of it but I never realised how valuable it would be. I’ve now got a larger network of ‘product people’ to stay in touch with as we go into a period of change at ACMI — it will be so beneficial. Thanks MW for such a great week!
Roadtrippin’
After the conference we’d planned a few days roadtripping back to LA through the national parks of Utah and Arizona.
We visited Bryce Canyon, The Arches and Zion National Parks. The landscapes are vast and the rock formations spectacular. Everything is so much bigger than you can even imagine. The whole time was like being on the set of Westworld!
I was also blown away by the user experience from the point of entering a park to leaving it some hours later.
- The rangers that greet you, the visitor guide and map you get on entry were consistent across all the parks. They contained really useful information about the length and difficulty of the walks, weather conditions, what to take and what the must sees are.
- The staff at the visitor centres make a point of talking to everyone that walks in.
- The wayfinding was clear and simple and all the signage and messaging was on brand and in keeping with the surroundings. Beautifully executed and maintained.
We met Smoky the Bear at all the parks and he made sure we were safe from fires. It was nice seeing a familiar face along the way!
The last stop was Palm Springs to check out the mid-century architecture and lap up a bit of summer sun before jumping back on the plane in LA for Melbourne. In just over two weeks we (briefly) visited California, Ohio, Colorado, Utah and Arizona and they were all worlds apart. It’s safe to say I have a new appreciation and understanding for the immensity of the USA. We saw a lot in a small amount of time and have added a lot more to the bucket list for next time.
Thanks to Seb Chan and ACMI for sending me to MW and for your advice on my paper. Thanks to all those that carved out time to meet with me when I was in the US and tell me what you’re doing and how you’re doing it. Looking forward to more of it!
