Visitor Experience – Page 2 – Interactivate Blog

September 6, 2013

Beyond the comfort zone

I’ve recently returned from a month-long sojourn in the US. In contrast to my frenetically paced, museum-focused study tour of 2012, this trip was primarily a holiday. Nonetheless, while in New York I eventually decided I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to see the immersive theatre production Sleep No More. If nothing else, I itched to find out for myself what my venerable colleagues Suse Cairns, Ed Rodley and Seb Chan had been talking about all this time.

Sleep No More in Brief

The links above provide more detail that I won’t duplicate here, but to give a quick rundown: Sleep No More (SNM) is an immersive performance staged over five storeys of a converted warehouse in Chelsea. Upon arrival you navigate a dark, labyrinthine corridor to emerge at the Manderley Bar, which has a 1930s, film noir kind of feel (as does the production as a whole). In small groups you are escorted into an elevator, briefed, given a mask (only the performers are unmasked) and instructed to remain silent throughout the performance. Then, over the next three hours or so, it’s up to you to create your own experience: wander the spaces, explore the sets, follow different characters as they move through the different spaces and interact with one another. There is no dialogue, just a music soundtrack, movement, gesture and dance.

The Reluctant Visitor

I confess I needed some convincing to go see SNM (Seb finally talked me around when we caught up over lunch in NYC). Based on what I’d read, I suspected it wouldn’t particularly be my thing. Firstly, there would be lots of things happening at once and I’d need to make snap decisions about what to see and where to go, constantly facing the possibility I’d missed all the important bits (I hate that). Secondly, the performance is loosely based on Macbeth, a play I’ve never read and only have the vaguest idea of its plot (that’s the price of being in the science stream at high school). Finally, when it comes to theatre I feel like a bit of a dimwit at the best of times – I’m tone-deaf to its nuances and unless something’s really spelled out, I can miss the point spectacularly. So, chances were I wouldn’t have the foggiest idea of what’s going on at SNM. However, Seb finally appealed to the exhibition designer in me, saying that if nothing else I should have a look at the layout of the spaces and the detail of the set design.

The Misfit Visitor

As it became time to head out from my hotel, I began to worry that I would be a bit of a square peg at this kind of gig. SNM being a piece of non-mainstream theatre in a city like New York, I pictured the crowd as being uber-hip arts afficionados. With my look being distinctively more housewife than hipster (especially given I’d packed for comfort, not trendsetting), I feared I’d stick out like a sore thumb – an unsophisticated out-of-towner who’d showed up to the wrong show by accident. Now this discomfort wasn’t enough to put me off from going – after all, I was there to research and observe, not fit in and make friends – but still I’m grateful for the reassurances I received over Twitter on my way there (thanks Mia, Seb and Suse!).

I emphasise this point because I think it’s instructive to go places where we think we won’t fit in from time to time. If we’ve been going to cultural venues for most of our lives, it’s easy to forget that visiting such places is not a natural and obvious thing for everyone. Particularly considering demographic groups who don’t tend to visit museums, I wonder how many of them are put off going because they’re worried that they’ll inadvertently do something inappropriate, or that staff and fellow visitors will somehow look down their noses at them? It’s useful to walk a mile in those shoes every so often.

My Experience

Similarly to my experience at MONA earlier this year, I made a conscious decision to be a “passenger” rather than a “driver”. I would go with the flow, explore and not worry too much about trying to “get” everything that was going on. This turned out to be a good approach as I would not really be able to tell you anything meaningful regarding what SNM was “about”, and I’m not really sure I’d do any better even if I had tried to follow and decode it more closely. I recognised up front that trying to make sense of all aspects of the experience was an exercise in futility. This strategy helped me avoid the frustration I’d normally experience when something happens that I don’t understand.

When it came to following the action I had an added practical problem – my size. I’m only 155cm (5’1″) tall. Most of the action was taking place within relatively confined spaces, in which I had to compete with lots of other audience members to get a glimpse of what was going on. Sometimes it was just too hard for me to get a clear line of sight to the performers, especially at times when they suddenly darted off to another part of the building (and I didn’t feel sure-footed enough in the dimly lit environment to join the scrum running after them). This frenetic pace got a bit much for me and most of the time I preferred to simply potter around the incredibly detailed sets: flicking through books, opening drawers, touching costumes, reading letters, and in some cases feeling through the darkness to see if a hidden area would reveal itself. These spaces appealed to literally all the senses: a range of different smells; the subversive feel of taking sweets from the sweet shop; the shock of unexpectedly brushing up against wet laundry hanging out.

On Seb’s recommendation I visited SNM alone, so the solo nature of the experience did not bother me. In fact I liked being able to follow my nose and spend as much or as little time as I wanted to at various things. However, despite ushers encouraging solo exploration during the briefing, I noticed a large number of couples and groups attempting to stay together during the performance (I didn’t see ushers actively separating couples like Ed did so maybe they don’t enforce the solitary-ness as much as they used to).

Closing Thoughts

Overall I’m glad I went, and it’s the sort of thing you could go to again: no two visits would be the same, and you may also get more out of it if you’ve been before and already have a sense of the layout of the space and how the whole thing works. Based on the way some of my fellow audience members appeared to anticipate certain events, I think there were quite a few repeat visitors.

However, even though SNM was interesting to explore and my attention was engaged throughout, it still niggles me somewhat to experience something for three hours and at the end of it gain no sense of understanding regarding what it was all about. I think I’m one of those people who gains pleasure from having a glimmer of recognition and being able to work something out. Without this sense of closure, there is a slight feeling of being left hanging.

August 19, 2013August 18, 2013

Museum Visitor Experiences Part 4: Broadening

This is Part 4 of a four-part series of posts based on the book “Designing for the Museum Visitor Experience” by Tiina Roppola. Go to Part 1. Go to Part 2. Go to Part 3.

Broadening: visitors making sense of the museum experience

Broadening is the term Roppola uses to describe “[h]ow visitors find themselves in relationship with the interpretive content of museums” (Roppola, 2012, p.216) as they negotiate “the poetics and politics of display” (ibid. p. 217, original emphasis). Examples of broadening that take place in museums include:

Experiential broadening: seeing or doing something you would not normally have the chance to
Conceptual broadening: improving understanding of a theoretical principle
Affective broadening: exploration on an emotional level
Discursive broadening: considering an issue from another point of view

Roppola’s study encompassed a wide range of exhibit types – classical dioramas, multimedia exhibits, artefact-based displays and so on – covering topics across the sciences and the humanities. I’ll summarise some examples very briefly.

Broadening in the sciences:

Physical to Theoretical, Theoretical to Physical: the links people made between conceptual scientific knowledge and the physical experience of using hands-on interactive exhibits.
Standing in testimony to life: the ability for natural history and nature-based exhibits to increase an appreciation of the value and beauty of the natural world.
Science as storied: exhibits provoking visitors to think about the processes of science, science as having agency and acting in a broader social and political context.

Broadening in the humanities:

The guts story of people: engaging with powerful human stories on a visceral and emotional level
Who is telling whose story, and how? The representation of different cultural groups in the museum context prompts visitors to critically evaluate the way different cultures are presented and from whose perspective.
Speaking silences out loud: exhibits providing an opportunity for visitors to talk about things which usually remain unspoken – for instance death or a family member’s experience of war

Conclusion: Bringing it all Together

Framing, Resonating, Channelling and Broadening are not a sequence of processes that visitors undergo – all four can be seen taking place simultaneously over the course of a museum visit. What I find appealing about this study is that the theoretical constructs have emerged from the words of actual visitors in an exhibition context – it is a ‘home grown’ museological theory. Interestingly as well, three of the four concepts, Framing, Resonating and Channelling, are all relatively “content neutral” in that they describe the relationship between visitors and exhibits in a way that transcends the specific interpretive messages that exhibits are meant to convey. This is a novel insight, particularly since most museum visitor research historically has taken as its starting point what visitors “learn” from a given exhibition (however learning is defined). It’s also encouraging as it mirrors the content-neutral approach my own research has attempted to take: trying to understand the gamut of visitor experiences that include but are not limited to the specifics of exhibit content.

Summarising the complexities and nuances of a whole book in a mere 4 blog posts is an impossible task – I’ve necessarily been superficial in my treatment. However, I hope I’ve adequately conveyed the main ideas (and encouraged you to read further).

August 12, 2013August 6, 2013

Museum Visitor Experiences Part 3: Channelling

This is Part 3 of a four-part series of posts based on the book “Designing for the Museum Visitor Experience” by Tiina Roppola. Go to Part 1. Go to Part 2.

Channelling: the museum visit through space and time

Museum exhibitions can be considered as four-dimensional media – we physically move through them in both space and time. Roppola describes how visitors navigate this trajectory in terms of “channelling”. More than simply wayfinding, channeling describes how “visitors [find] their way through museums conceptually, attentionally, perceptually as well as physically” (Roppola 2012, p. 174). She defines three different types of channels – spatial channels, narrative channels, and multimodal/multimedial channels.

Spatial channels

The most literal interpretation of the channelling concept, spatial channels pertain to the way that visitors ‘read’ museum environments and act accordingly. Some spaces encourage visitors to linger, others chivvy them along. Seating allows time to rest, recharge and ponder. Where seating is provided, it sends visitors a message that lingering is encouraged. Visitors are more likely to sit and watch a video to the end if there’s a place to sit. Conversely, thin galleries may be perceived as corridors and moved through quickly. Doorways and escalators can have a magnetic effect, pulling visitors towards them. But for other visitors, such thresholds may act as a barrier and they hover at the edges rather than enter. In the same way, small enclosed spaces are inviting to some, offputting to others. (In my own research, I’ve noticed how doorways or even just a slight narrowing of gallery can act as a sort of “reset” function– visitors can be seen to act as if they are in a new environment once they’ve crossed that threshold.)

Visitors also vary in the extent to which they want spatial channels to guide them along a certain path – something which emerged in my visitor interviews and which I’ve commented on previously.

Narrative Channels

While spatial channels address the physical movement through an exhibition, narrative channels pertain to the conceptual journey of the visitor. Again, this is something that I’ve been thinking about lately, with respect to my own approach to museum visits. An absence of narrative is often confusing and disconcerting for visitors, but then again not always: it depends on your expectations – do you want to take control or are you happy to go along for the ride? (This brings us back to the concept of Framing which was discussed in Part 1 of this series.)

Without a discernible narrative, an exhibition can be seen as “all mixed up”, “all over the place”, “cluttered”, or having “no real point” (visitors quoted in Roppola, 2012, pp. 204-205). Many visitors described the importance of some kind of theme as a way of organising an exhibition (which will be music to the ears of many interpreters!)

Multimodal/Multimedial Channels

Multimodality is a semiotic concept that encompasses all ways a culture might express meaning. Text, speech, images, gestures and sounds are all examples of semiotic modes. Even fonts and colours can be considered modes in some contexts. Multimodality is thus the integration of multiple modes in the creation of meaning – in a conversation, for instance, meaning is conveyed not just in the words spoken but through tone of voice, gestures and proximity of the speakers. Furthermore, individual modes can be manifested through different media – the mode of text can be communicated through a wide range of media such as a magazine, a scroll of parchment, or an exhibit label.

Multimodal and multimedial channelling thus describes how visitors interact with the different modes and media embodied in museum exhibits. Roppola describes the following:

Restorative channelling: a diversity of media helps “break up” content, enhancing interest and reducing fatigue associated with reading “panels and panels and panels of text” (visitor quoted in Roppola, 2012, p.190).
Selective channelling: a way of directing visitor attention. Less is more with selective channeling – a minimalist approach helps to provide a clear focal point to a display. Text hierarchies are also a form of selective channeling by suggesting an order in which to engage with the content.
Fragmented channelling: caused by too much complexity without sufficient coherence to enable visitors to make sense of it (touching on Kaplan’s theories I’ve described previously – complexity is only pleasant if it’s legible enough for us to make sense of). Fragmented channels can also result from having too large a physical distance between related items (e.g. a label too far away from the object it describes), or having adjacent exhibits competing with each other for visitor attention.
Synchronous channelling: a harmonious relationship between the multimedial elements of an exhibit. The different parts of the exhibit enhance and complement each other rather than competing for attention. Unlike in fragmented challenging, the complexity of multiple modes and media is complemented by coherence.

One good example of channelling I’ve seen is the “Voices from Eastern State Penitentiary” exhibit (see here). This combined synchronous channelling (the pairing of text, audio and images) and spatial channelling (the sequential positioning of the images along a corridor) help to create a coherent experience through space and time.

Next week – Broadening.

August 5, 2013July 29, 2013

Museum Visitor Experiences Part 2: Resonating

This is Part 2 of a four-part series of posts based on the book “Designing for the Museum Visitor Experience” by Tiina Roppola. Go to Part 1.

Resonating: features that attract and repel visitors

In interviews, visitors often described feeling “drawn to” particular exhibition environments and displays. Roppola uses the concept of resonance to characterise this interaction between visitors and features of the exhibition environment. In physics, ‘resonance’ is used to describe the amplification effect observed when two bodies vibrate at the same wavelength. Similarly, visitors and exhibits can be considered as being in a resonant relationship when they are ‘in tune’ with one another.

Certain environmental features, such as “size, beauty, colour, light, a quality of realism, sensory change/movement and opportunity for action” (Roppola, 2012, p. 126) tend to attract visitors and draw them in. Spatial characteristics can also be resonant – environments that feel pleasant to be in owing to characteristics such as light, spaciousness or aesthetic appeal.

Perceptual resonance

Resonance can be achieved by the way that sensory cues of exhibits interact with our perceptual systems. Sensory cues can be seen as “bottom up” data, which we interpret using “top down” mental constructs – an example is how we readily interpret two dots and a curved line as a smiley face (see below). This process of “filling in” the gap between bottom up sensory data and top down constructs can happen within one sense or between multiple senses (eg. visual cues working with auditory information to create an integrated whole).

Exhibits can take advantage of this intrasensory augmentation to create an enhanced sense of realism – for instance simulator exhibits combine immersive visual stimuli with a relatively modest amount of movement to create a feeling of flying or being in motion. In immersive exhibits or recreated environments, sound effects and smell can be used to enhance realism by hinting at the presence of things unseen – such as bread baking in an oven or the faint cry of a child in the distance. However, simply combining sounds, sights, smells and textures does not automatically create a coherent perceptual whole; the sensory information needs to be congruent with the top-level mental constructs through which visitors interpret them.

Coalescent resonance and how visitors define “interactivity”

Coalescent resonance occurs when two separate entities come together to form a complementary whole. In an exhibit context, this can mean feeling “part of” the exhibition environment: “visitors can physically, personally and socially interact with, or feel part of, exhibition environments” (Roppola p. 151, original emphasis). Physical coalescence can be literal, such as being able to directly touch or get up close to exhibits; it can also be conceptual as visitors are encouraged to imagine themselves in a given setting or scenario.

Interestingly, Roppola describes several instances where visitors use the term “interactive” in a sense that is very different from the way exhibit designers and other museum professionals use it – namely, that an “interactive” exhibit is one that visitors physically touch or manipulate in some way. This prerequisite seemed less important to visitors, who also used the word “interactive” to pertain to exhibits that allowed physical proximity or social interaction, but not necessarily hands-on contact. A museum professional may call this latter type of exhibit “immersive” rather than “interactive” [1]. This different understanding of the term “interactive” shows the value of qualitative research in validating the terminology we use – when people say they want more “interactive” experiences, do they mean what we’ve assumed they mean?

Impeding Resonance

Just as environmental stimuli can enhance a resonant relationship between visitors and exhibits, they can also impede it. Things that can impede or block resonant experiences:

“You can only take so much in” – a museum visit can saturate your sensory and cognitive capacities. Visitors deploy strategies to allocate their time and mental budgets according to their interests. A sense of “too much to take in” can be overwhelming and prevent visitors from engaging with an exhibition.
“It’s all jumbled”- the sense of there being too much to take in can be exacerbated by the lack of a clear order or logic with which to make sense of an exhibit. The ‘signal’ of an interpretive message is lost in the ‘noise’ of an overly cluttered display – different features compete and cancel each other out.
“The people I’m with won’t let me” – visitors might spend less time on an exhibit than they would like if they feel they’re being hurried along by their companions. Queues and crowding can impede resonance by getting in the way or making an environment less pleasant by their presence.

Next week – Channelling

[1] In my own research, I found that “immersive” was not a word that resonated particularly with visitors when asked to describe exhibit environments. I used the word in my pilot questionnaire and several visitors said they didn’t know what the word meant (and the pilot results suggested these people were just the tip of the iceberg). Given the amount of museological discourse there currently is around “immersive experiences”, this is a point worth noting – we’re potentially talking about visitor experiences in terms visitors would not recognise.

July 29, 2013July 26, 2013

Museum Visitor Experiences Part 1: Framing

Over the next few weeks I’ll be featuring “Designing for the Museum Visitor Experience” by Tiina Roppola (Routledge) [1]. This book is based on Tiina’s PhD research, during which she interviewed over 200 visitors at more than 20 exhibits across a range of Australian museums. Four key elements of visitor experiences emerged from this qualitative, grounded study: Framing, Resonating, Channelling and Broadening. I’ll be presenting summaries of each of these in turn – this week: Framing.

Framing – the assumptions we bring with us

Framing is a semiotic concept used to describe the overarching structures people apply to objects and situations to aid their interpretation. Frames are essentially a collection of categories, criteria and expectations we use as part of the meaning-making process.

People have frames for museums and for exhibits, which are informed by their past experiences. These “frame” the encounters they will have as visitors. Not everyone brings the same gamut of frames to their museum visit, although there are some common patterns. Accordingly, Roppola identified a number of frames that people tend have about museums and exhibits:

Museum Frames:

The “displayer of artefacts” frame: for visitors holding this frame, the defining characteristic of a museum is the display of material objects. Other types of displays and interpretive media may be dismissed or ignored as not being “real things”.
The “learning” frame: an expectation that museums are primarily a site for learning, and that the museum will be an authoritative source of facts and knowledge. People may visit museums to enact their identity of being learning-oriented people.
The “enjoyment” frame: held by visitors who find museums pleasurable places to be. This could be through interaction with certain kinds of interpretive content or simply through appreciation of the general ambiance. “Enjoyment” can mean “fun”, but not necessarily so: people can also talk about “enjoying” more solemn experiences in a museum context. [2]
The “pilgrimage” frame: applies to visits to see specific personally or culturally significant objects or sites. People queue to see the Mona Lisa so they can say that they’ve seen it. In an Australian context, many people visit Melbourne Museum specifically to see the racehorse Phar Lap. War Memorials are also a site of cultural pilgrimage.

Visitors may also hold different frames for different types of museums. So what is deemed appropriate (ie.,frame-congrent) in an art gallery might be considered baffling or even offensive in the context of a natural or cultural history museum. In the art gallery, there is an expectation that exhibits may be metaphorical, but transplant the same item to a museum and it may be taken literally and not recognised as art at all.

Exhibit Frames:

“Materially distinct” – an expectation that exhibits will be different from things you can see elsewhere (e.g. in a book, on the web, or on TV).
“Explanatory” – exhibits should provide sufficient information and adequate labelling. Insufficient information can leave visitors frustrated and unsatisfied.
“Temporal” – exhibits should be regularly updated so that there is always something new to see.

In many cases, these frames were only specifically mentioned when they had been violated in some way. When visitors encountered exhibits that were contrary to their frames of what an exhibit is “supposed” to be, the response was often negative. This is typical of frames more generally – we aren’t consciously aware of them unless we encounter something which is incongruent with them.

Reframing

Our frames are not static and they will evolve and change as we encounter new situations. This reframing can be both positive and negative. For instance, modern museum buildings that are open and bathed in natural light can represent a positive reframing for people who see the traditional museum as “dark and dusty”. But conversely, some visitors may find discordance in the juxtaposition of old objects and modern architecture.

Satisfying encounters with different types of interpretive media can lead to reframing – for instance moving from a more passive “displayer of artefacts” museum frame to one that incorporates a broader mix of media including more tactile and interactive elements.

Next week – Resonating

[1] I first met Tiina at the 2010 Museums Australia conference, where I tracked her down and quizzed her about her research (it was while I was developing my own PhD research proposal). We’ve since become friends and colleagues and her work has been a big influence on mine. As I go through my own data I’m seeing many parallels with her findings, although I remain in awe at the depth and sophistication of what she produced for her PhD. It’s an exemplary piece of qualitative research and I can’t really do it justice here. I highly recommend the book, which is richly illustrated with quotes from the visitor interviews.

[2] Roppola draws the distinction between “enjoyment” (a word that spontaneously emerged in her interviews) and “entertainment” (which was seldom mentioned). This is an important semantic difference to my mind, and one I’ll come back to in a future post.

June 7, 2013July 4, 2013

Psychology of Visitor Experiences

This morning I participated in a Google Hangout as part of Interpretation Australia’s “Thought Leaders in Interpretation” series. It was an opportunity to share some ideas based on my research in a small-group format. Some participants requested a bit more background to the theory I mentioned, so this post is a brief summary of some of the psychological concepts I discussed in the Hangout.

My research is based on principles arising from Environmental Psychology. Environmental psychology is the study of the interplay between people and their environments. It is conceived as a reciprocal relationship, in that people both affect and are affected by their environment (where “environment” comprises physical, social and cultural elements).

Environments as Information Landscapes

I’ve been influenced by the work of Rachel and Stephen Kaplan (e.g. Kaplan & Kaplan, 2009; Kaplan, 1987, 1988), who conceptualise people as information-seekers and environments as information landscapes. The person-environment interaction will therefore depend on what information is present in the environment, and which parts of that information are salient to a given person in a given context at a given time. In other words what we perceive, how we feel about it, and how we behave as a consequence are all a function of not only the stimuli present in the environment, but what we are looking for, needing or expecting at the time.

Kaplan and Kaplan have classified our information needs under two broad categories: understanding (making sense of our environment) and exploration (the promise of additional salient information). Information can be further categorised based on whether it is immediately apparent or can be inferred or predicted. This gives us four different types of information: Coherence, Complexity, Legibility and Mystery (see table).

So we like to be able to make sense of our environment, but not have it so featureless and predictable that it’s not worth investigating further. But too much complexity can also be a turn-off, if it makes the environment too information-rich for us to process. Our cognitive systems can only deal with so much new information at once.

The Need for Safety

More fundamental than the need for information is the need to feel safe – we tend to avoid environments where we feel vulnerable or exposed, or at least move through them quickly. This can be explained in terms of Prospect and Refuge theory (Appleton, 1988). Going back to our evolutionary roots, we seek out places where we have a good vantage point of our surroundings (Prospect) without being vulnerable to an unexpected approach (Refuge). While we no longer need to evade predators on the savannah, the same general idea holds as we navigate the urban jungle. Safety can be interpreted in terms of physical safety, but also “sociocultural” safety – we don’t want to put ourselves in positions where we are vulnerable to judgement or ridicule.

The Role of Affect

This is a big topic area in and of itself so I’ll just make one brief point here. Our affective state (how we are feeling as opposed to what we are thinking) influences how we interact with our environment. When in a state of positive affect, we are more open-minded and attuned to big-picture thinking, whereas we focus more on specific details when we are in a state of negative affect (Norman, 2004). This can even affect what we see – we have greater acuity in our peripheral vision when in a state of positive affect. An ironic consequence of this is that people who are lost (and therefore in a state of negative affect) are less likely to see a directional sign if it is not in a place they are expecting to see it.

Implications for Visitor Experiences

While this has been a very superficial review of the theory, a few points should be apparent as a consequence of considering the person-environment interaction as an exchange of information:

Coherent branding and signage: whether visitors arrive off the street on a whim, or have planned beforehand by reading your leaflets or your website, all that information needs to “hang together” to form a coherent whole. They should have a similar look of feel, consistent usage of logos, colour schemes, etc. They then all become recognisable parts of the environment, lending it coherence and meaning there is one less thing to have to process and make sense of. Contrast this to places with signs dating from different eras and different branding strategies, all competing with each other (and often cancelling each other out).
Making places legible and approachable: an entrance should be unambiguously an entrance, ideally affording a view beyond so visitors can be reassured that they’re in the right place, you are open and ready to welcome them (unlike some ultra-modern “statement” buildings where the entrance appears to be strategically hidden for some reason). Not that I want to let traditional museum buildings off the hook here – the vast expanse of big steps up to imposing-looking doors can be a pretty threatening arrival statement too. Check signage sight lines so that it’s provided where it will be seen, particularly by those that are struggling to find you (coherent branding, giving something recognisable to “scan” the environment for will also help here). Ensure people have space where they can plan their visit, decide what tickets to purchase, etc, in a place they don’t feel exposed and scrutinised by staff and fellow visitors.

A museum entrance that doesn't exactly shout "Welcome! We're open!" — A museum entrance that doesn’t exactly shout “Welcome! We’re open!”

Challenge but not confuse: none of this is to say we have to make everything easy for visitors in a sense of “dumbing down” (whatever that means). People are information-seekers and that’s the whole reason they’ve visited in the first place. Visitors choose to go to places like the Holocaust Museum expecting to be challenged, and may even say they “enjoyed” their experience. This is an important point – enjoyment is not the same thing as unalloyed delight, it’s the sense that you have participated in something that is enriching and worthwhile. It’s OK to challenge visitors. But it’s a different thing entirely to confuse them unnecessarily through poor design or presentation. There’s no excuse for that.

References

Appleton, J. (1988). Prospects and refuges revisited. In J. Nasar (Ed.), Environmental aesthetics: theory, research and applications (Vol. 3, pp. 27–44). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Kaplan, S. (1987). Aesthetics, Affect, and Cognition: Environmental Preference from an Evolutionary Perspective. Environment and Behavior, 19(1), 3–32. doi:10.1177/0013916587191001

Kaplan, S. (1988). Where cognition and affect meet: a theoretical analysis of preference. In J. L. Nasar (Ed.), Environmental aesthetics: theory, research and applications (pp. 56–63). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Kaplan, S., & Kaplan, R. (2009). Creating a larger role for environmental psychology: The Reasonable Person Model as an integrative framework. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 29(3), 329–339. doi:10.1016/j.jenvp.2008.10.005

Norman, D. A. (2004). Emotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things. New York: Basic Books.

May 28, 2013May 29, 2013

Reflections on a visit to MONA

Visiting MONA was my birthday present. An odd choice maybe, but when I clocked up another year back in February I couldn’t think of anything I wanted. But a chance to visit (arguably) Australia’s most talked about museum? I couldn’t pass that up. So in lieu of a gift, my family helped fund a trip to Hobart, which I finally got around to doing earlier this month (I also saw the recently refurbished Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, more on which in a future post).

So . . . what is there write about a place that has already attracted hundreds of column inches already (including some penned by yours truly)?

MONA’s owner/founder David Walsh on the cover of the February 2013 issue of The Monthly.

The problem with visiting such a well-known place is that the answer to the question “so what did you think of it??” is so often “pretty much as I was expecting”. You’ve heard so much, there’s not much room for surprises. That’s still better than when you visit a place and don’t think it lives up to the hype. For me this wasn’t the case, although what I saw vindicated my decision to visit solo (my partner is less than impressed by most contemporary art and I think the whole thing would have just infuriated him).

The other thing is that I think I’m getting really bad at being just a visitor and experiencing museums for what they are. My visits have become “meta-visits”: rather than being able to just be in the moment, part of me is always mentally standing back – observing how things are laid out, watching what others were doing, deconstructing my own responses. Occupational hazard I suppose.

To get to MONA I took the ferry, which I think is the usual way for tourists to get there. And this is where the MONA experience starts. There is a dedicated terminal and ferry, the MONA Roma, which is decked out in the sort of irreverent fashion you’d expect given MONA’s “brand”:

On board the MONA ferry. Graffiti art adorns the stairs while model cows and sheep (which double as seating) adorn the deck.

So the ferry doubles as a mode of transport and a (pre-) entrance statement – something akin to what Falk and Dierking would call an “advance organiser”. And while I didn’t realise it at the time, I think this pre-experience had an impact on how I approached the museum visit itself. But more on that later.

Upon arrival we were escorted up the stairs from the dock and into the museum, heading back down again to start the visit at B3 level (three levels underground). Here we were given our “O” devices to guide us on our visit (more on those below). In the distance I could hear some periodic pumping and hissing which added to a sense of anticipation / apprehension (it turned out to be Julius Popp’s Bit.Fall which spells out words in falling water droplets). I turned a corner and found myself heading down a long corridor, lined with red velvet drapes that made me feel like I was walking into a scene from Twin Peaks. Heading out of this area I went up some industrial-type steel stairs that intersect at odd angles across the void, exhibits in view in semi-darkness above and below. Here the feel is more like the video game Half-Life (pop-culture references came to mind readily for some reason!).

Mid-way along this level the corridor narrows, with small galleries off to each side. One of these works is Brigita Ozolins’ Kryptos – an eerie-feeling room-within-a-room-within-a room that you meander into like a labyrinth.

This work brought out the environmental psychologist in me – the darkness, confined space and the lighting effects creating the sense of a floating floor all worked together to give me a real sense of trepidation about walking in (even as my rational side was telling me there was no real reason to fear). It was interesting to see how this environment was able to elicit such a visceral response in me (there I go, meta-visiting again . . .) Shortly after leaving this space, the corridor opened out into a wide open space covering two levels. After such a sense of confinement, this sense of openness an relative light (it was still pretty dark) provided a sense of welcome relief. I wonder if it’s just me, or if this orchestration of emotion was a deliberate move on the part of the architect.

The open space featuring Sidney Nolan’s “snake” along the wall

From Driver to Passenger – going along for the ride

I’ve written a couple of times this year about how some visitors like to know where they are at in a museum’s spatial and content narrative, whereas others are happy to go with the flow. I’m usually in the former but at MONA, I was happy to surrender myself to the experience more than I usually do. That raises the question – why?

I had a chance to give this a bit of thought during a workshop held as part of the Museums Australia conference in Canberra last week. I’ll flesh this out in more detail in a later post, but I started to think about how we “cast” ourselves in a visitor experience – do we like to be in control (a driver) or surrender to the experience (a passenger)?*

Reflecting on my own experiences, I’ve decided that in most cases I like to drive. But in this instance, I decided to be a passenger. I think that was partly because of some specific circumstances, and partly because my expectations of MONA were different from those of a “typical” museum.

Although they have visitor maps, I didn’t actually pick one up upon entry (they escorted us, the first ferry arrivals of the day, in a way that we bypassed the main ticket desk which is where they are located). So I only had the “O” device to guide me, and while this does have a map function, I didn’t feel overly worried about using it. I only picked up a map towards the end of my visit, just to double-check there wasn’t anything I had inadvertently missed.

As I said before, I’m also wondering if the ferry ride had a role to play in all this, by providing a temporal separation between the first sense of arrival (embarking on the ferry) and getting into the museum experience proper. Once you were on the ferry, all the logistics of worrying about whether you were in the right place, had the right ticket, etc. etc were behind you and you were – literally – cast in the role of passenger. Did this make it easier for me to be a passenger during the visit itself?

The “O”

Anyone who has read anything about MONA will know that they have no labels. Instead, you are given a device called the “O”, which is essentially an ipod touch made location-aware by wifi transmitters installed around the museum. I already knew a bit about how this worked (having researched it for an article I wrote back in 2011), so it was interesting to have a go and see how it worked in practice. Generally speaking it worked quite well, and it does offer quite a different experience to that with standard labels.

As you move around the museum, the O lists works which are near to you and you can select them to read a standard label (these are titled “artwank”) or more atypical musings (titled “gonzo” or “ideas”). You are also invited to “love” or “hate” works and when you do so, you find out how many other visitors felt the same way. Not all labels are accompanied by audio but some works were pieced with music which I thought was an interesting idea, and one which had me lingering longer at some works than I otherwise would have.

A couple of things about using the O though – while each work had an identifying thumbnail image, sometimes it took a while to find the corresponding piece of work because of scale – the work you were looking for might be a tiny thing in a peephole, or a giant installation hanging overhead. Also (and this might just be me) I found the O gave me an obsession with “collecting” all the works in a particular area before moving on – I wanted to mark everything as “seen” in a way I wouldn’t have worried about with just regular labels.

If you enter your email address, you get sent a summary of your visit as recorded by the O. This is what I was sent. — If you enter your email address, you get sent a summary of your visit as recorded by the O. This is a screengrab of mine, which shows my visit in impressive detail. It’s also interesting to see how the visit unfolded over time. Oh how I would love to get hold of all of MONA’s visitor data!!

Technically speaking, the O worked well overall – in some instances the location got a little confused, but this was easily fixed by pressing a reset button. The only thing is, I think my device didn’t record all of my visit. Going through the summary, I noticed a number of works that the website says I “missed”, when I know I did in fact visit it. Looking at what’s been missed, I wonder if I accidentally reset something when I nipped into the loo because it doesn’t seem to have recorded anything I visited after that. Oh well.

*Extending the metaphor, you might end up being a “backseat driver” when an experience affords you less control than you’d like.

April 11, 2013April 11, 2013

Signposts or Serendipity?

There has recently been a fair bit of discussion online about immersive theatre, and what the implications might be for exhibitions (helpfully summarised on Ed Rodley’s blog). One thing that has struck me about this discussion is that people seem to fall into one of two camps: those who cheerfully check their inhibitions at the door, go with the flow and lose themselves in the moment; and others who are consumed by anxiety at not knowing where the whole experience is headed and whether they’re going to miss the most important bit because there’s no obvious route to find it. These are ideas I’ve circled around a couple of times in different contexts over the past few months – firstly in considering meaning making versus meaning reading, and later in a discussion on exhibition layouts.

It seems some people delight in the serendipity of not knowing what’s coming next, while others need their signposts – without them, they feel cast adrift.

This raises a couple of questions for me – are these two inherently different kinds of people, or do circumstantial factors (e.g., audience expectations, social context, design of the setting, how an experiences is framed from the outset) play a significant role?

The answers to these questions have important implications for visitor psychology in general and exhibition design in particular. If we are dealing with distinct personality types, how can they both be accommodated in a given exhibition experience? Is this even possible? If circumstantial factors are important, then which ones? How can we orchestrate experiences and design spaces that assuage the anxiety of the signposters without spoiling the punchline for the serendipitous?

January 14, 2013January 14, 2013

US Museum App Review 3: History Museums

This series started off with art museums and then moved on to natural history. Now, for the third and final review of apps I used in the US, here are a couple of history museum apps.

New York Historical Society

This museum is only a block away from AMNH and offers a welcome relief from the throngs of holiday crowds there. It was one of the less high-profile museums on my itinerary, but one I made a point of visiting as I had the opportunity to meet someone from the Society at the VSA conference.

The app was designed to accompany the New York and the Nation Exhibition, a new permanent exhibition and the first space you encounter on the ground floor. I liked this exhibition, which covered the history of New York and its broader influence on the US. It combined historical/archaeological objects, art pieces and technology in a clean and simple (but not too minimalist) style. Unfortunately they did not allow photography so I won’t be able to share my favourites in any detail.

The app features additional content such as videos and interviews that added an extra layer to the experience. For instance, while the ceiling structure over the ticketing desk was unmistakably Haringesque*, the app revealed that it was an actual part of Haring’s Pop Shop from the 1980s (I’m not sure if this information was duplicated elsewhere – if it is I didn’t see it but then again I was using the app as my main guide through this exhibition).

The app lists exhibit by title and there also is a map (which something has happened to since I visited so I can’t put up a decent screen grab). I remember having a bit of trouble using the map at times, as the icons were quite large in relation to the map, so sometimes it was hard to tell if you were in the right place (that could be just my map reading skills). Besides that I thought the app worked well. It often had more detail than I wanted to read or look at but I think that’s OK so long as you can find what you want to look at easily enough.

Interpretation of a multi-part sculpture which is positioned right at the entrance. At first glance, it looks very much like a typical 'grand old men' sculpture with marble busts. Closer inspection reveals something more sinister, in the form of slave shackles and badges. The interview with the artist reveals the intent was to show two sides to 'heroic' figures such as Washington - as freedom fighters on the one hand, slave owners on the other. — Interpretation of a multi-part sculpture which is positioned right at the entrance. At first glance, it looks very much like a typical ‘grand old men’ sculpture with marble busts. Closer inspection reveals something more sinister, in the form of slave shackles and badges. The interview with the artist reveals the intent was to show two sides to ‘heroic’ figures such as Washington – as freedom fighters on the one hand, slave owners on the other. I wish I was able to take a picture to show in better detail.

Access American Stories

This app is an interesting idea, although I have to confess I really struggled with it in practice. It’s a bilingual (English and Spanish) “crowdsourced” companion to the American Stories exhibition at the Smithsonian Museum of American History. So it means you can contribute as well as hear the voices of others. It’s also intended to enhance the experience of visitors with low vision.

You can choose whose voices you wish to listen to, and what they will be talking about:

Select or deselect the voices you wish to hear.

You could then choose the gallery section:

So far, so good. However I found that when you selected a particular setting, off it went, and there was no way of easily corresponding what you were listening to to what you were looking at (the gallery sections above all contain numerous exhibits). It seems to leap straight into a description of something and you’re desperately looking around to see what it might correspond to. It felt a bit like listening to an audio guide that was stuck on shuffle play.

I might have got the hang of it had I persevered – but I was just trying to get my bearings of the exhibition in general and (like all my museum visits in DC) I was on a pretty tight schedule to see as much as possible. I think this exhibition was pretty new when I visited (late July this year) so I’d be interested to hear if there have been any evaluations of the exhibition and the app.

*Assuming you are familiar with Keith Haring of course. Visiting a Haring exhibition in the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, in 1996 was one of my foundational museum experiences.

January 10, 2013January 10, 2013

Free Choice and the “Forced March”

Nina Simon has just posted a thought-provoking piece on her blog about linear storytelling and how it relates to the design and layout of museum exhibitions. She observes that while the digital world theoretically allows for infinite possibilities when it comes to navigation and storytelling, “simplicity trumps possibility” and most digital storytelling still has a linear backbone. She goes on to ask:

“[D]oes this preference for linearity impact people when visiting museums? Are people overwhelmed or confused by the “infinite paths” that we offer through galleries, collections, and exhibitions?”

Simon describes museums like the International Spy Museum and the US Holocaust Memorial Museums (both in Washington DC) as “fixed march” experiences: visitors are fed into a common entrance and the exhibition galleries follow a fixed linear path, like beads on a string. You always know you’re on the ‘right’ path because there is no real mechanism to stray from it. Simon, like a lot of museum professionals, was sceptical of this approach – aren’t fixed marches dictatorial? Are we sacrificing opportunities for visitors to do their own thing, make their own meanings, because linear exhibitions are easier to operate and manage? But she is now questioning this scepticism – museum professionals likely take this view because they know museums well. The standard experience seems boring and humdrum to them, and they want to explore different ways to subvert it.* But perhaps less frequent visitors like the comfort and grounding of knowing they are on the ‘right’ path?

My PhD research to date would suggest that most visitors like to know they are on the ‘right’ path, or at least that they haven’t missed anything. On accompanied museum visits I conducted last year, some of my research participants said things like:

“. . . it’s very difficult to choose where you’re going to go from here. You almost need like directions about where you should be starting. . . “

“. . .and it’s a bit of a maze, in a way, in terms of um there’s no obvious, um, path to proceed around, in terms of um you could just follow them around but there’s a lot of branches that you could, navigate . . .”

“Um I find it a little bit tricky because I like to, go through and know that I’ve seen everything, whereas if there’s lots of different pockets that you need to go past, um you lost track of which areas you’ve seen and which you haven’t.”

But it is also true that linearity limits a visitor’s options, particularly if they are more interested in seeing something in particular than checking out the museum in general:

“. it’s less linear in terms of, er, it’s not so, it’s um .. .it’s it’s less like a sausage machine you’re going in one and coming out the other, you seemed to be able to get more lost and be able to go from one thing to another as we certainly did today.”

“. . .it’s a gallery to me that makes you wind around, which is probably intentional but, sometimes it’s nice to be able to see a big view and work out ‘yes I’m interested in one particular aspect I’m heading over there’, whereas you are forced to wander around, the gallery to find something.”

I visited both of Simon’s cited examples, the Spy Museum and the Holocaust Museum, earlier this year. While I understand what she means about the ‘fixed march’, the experiences did not seem overly restrictive to me. Yes, the galleries were in a fixed linear order, but once you were in a particular gallery it was sufficiently open and spacious that you could choose what you wanted to see or decide what would be a logical path (or how to navigate around the summer crowds). And you were able to tell when you’d seen everything and were ready to move on.

In this sense I think ‘fixed march’ experiences are suitable for museums where a majority of your visitors are likely to be one-off tourists. I could imagine if you were a regular visitor to such museums, the need to trudge through a line of galleries to get to what you really want to look at would be a chore. It brings to mind a trip to Ikea where (except for a handful of easy to miss ‘shortcuts’) you are forced to walk through every section before you get to the checkouts. The rationale for their strategy is clear of course – I have never left Ikea with the ‘just one or two things’ I went there for!

As an alternative to the fixed path I would suggest layouts that incorporate a common ‘home base’ – for instance a central spine off which galleries radiate (like a lot of ‘traditional’ museums) or a hub-and-spoke or cloverleaf arrangement where all galleries open off a central hub or atrium. This is supported by space syntax [1] studies in museum spaces. Space syntax characterises spaces in terms of two main properties: connectivity (a highly connected room has many other rooms opening off of it) and integration (a measure of how directly you can move from any given room to another in a building). A highly connected central hub or spine (or atrium across multiple levels, as below) limits the linear trudge, while at the same time providing a common navigational reference point: all roads lead to Rome, so to speak.

The central atrium, National Museum Scotland

The need for common points of reference in a building has been reinforced to me during some visitor observations I have been doing this week. Most of the exhibition spaces are in a long, thin building that spans four levels, with stairs and lifts at each end. I was tracking visitors in an exhibition space that takes up the entire second floor, where the ‘logical’ route would be to enter via the stairs/lift at either end, and then exit the other. In contrast, I observed several visitors traverse almost the entire length of the gallery, only to double back to enter where they came from. In a couple of instances, visitors did exit from the other end, but shortly thereafter turned around and re-entered the gallery to head back to the exit they came in from. Presumably ending up somewhere different from where they started meant they felt lost, so their solution was to retrace their steps. I would expect that common hubs (where practical) would eliminate this problem.

*Comments on Nina Simon’s blog suggests a cultural dimension to the distaste for linearity. One commenter observed that linear experiences are the norm in Germany, so it is something that German visitors do not question as it has been ever thus. I wonder if the US, as a highly individualistic culture, has more visitors with a yearning to be able to carve out their own path?

[1] Hillier, B., & Tzortzi, K. (2011). Space Syntax: the Language of Museum Space. In S. Macdonald (Ed.), A companion to museum studies (pbk., pp. 282-301). Wiley Blackwell.