Doctor Dada

4P visits the Art Gallery: a blast from the past

2011-11-19T22:29:00.001+11:00

The other day I was going through some boxes of children's drawings (all my children are adults now) and I came upon one of my daughter's exercise books from grade 4. I'm posting an excerpt here because it describes a school excursion to the Art Gallery of NSW. (It is exactly as written – no corrections.)

4P lerning to Look

tues 29th may 4p visits the art Gallery

The art Gallery is a place were you go to enjoy your self and thats what 4p did when they went to the art Gallery.

4p got the train at Tempe and got off at St James. 4p ate recess at Hyde park in front of a wishing fouwntane. After recess we went on the moving walk way. It was fun. We had to walk on the wet grass all the water skwerted up into our shoes. When we got to the art Gallery we went on a chair that went up and down when a man bangs down a hamer. Then 4p was split into three groups.

My dad took one group and two volintir gids took the two other groups. I was in my dads group of cours. There is lots of interesting thing to see at the art Gallery but your not aloud to touch. If you do touch you will get into BIG trouble. My dad and the two volintir gids talked about what the shapes the people in the painting would like and what colurse too. Dads group went down to the aberigenal exerbision then 4p had to leave. We had lunch on the bottom floor of center point then we went in the Queen Victoria bilding were mum took one group and miss poulos took the other. It was fun there to. Then the two groups met each other agen and we walked down to central station were we got on a train that would take us to Tempe station and we walked back up to the school.

The Henry Ford Museum website - too much of a good thing?

2011-02-21T18:02:00.000+11:00

I just had reason to visit the website of “The Henry Ford” (comprising The Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village)

This site is an example of what happens when the aim is to give visitors to a site as much control and as many options as possible, in the smallest possible space.

On the home page alone, I found:

2 quick-link drop-downs: “I am” and “How do I” (see below)
2 ticket-purchase drop-downs: “Purchase by venue” and “Purchase by event”
A search box
A login-in form: user name + password
A “Plan your visit” form: 4 fields + 5 buttons
A menubar with 13 menu items, each with a roll-over drop-down of up to 12 items
13 buttons (apart from the ones as part of forms)
20 text links (including 4 in a scrolling field and 9 in click-to-expand boxes)
3 image links
an auto-start video (with sound) + 5 video links

Many of the features are good ideas by themselves. (I particularly like the “I am” and “How do I” controls; the auto-start video is a mistake, especially on a home page.) But taken together, all these elements would just cause bewilderment.

[More about the “I am” and “How do I” quick-links (shown as “smart site”):

Choices for “I am”:

Just Browsing
Educator
Private Event Planner or Bride
A Local Visitor
Group or Tour Planner
History Enthusiast
Tourist/Out of Town Visitor
Member
With Media

Each choice produces a different menu for “How do I”. Eg, for “With Media” the menu is:

Get Member Discounts
Buy an Annual Ride Pass
Upgrade my Membership level
Renew my Membership
Buy a Gift Membership
Donate to the Annual Fund

MoMA does a similar thing in its navigation footer-bar.]

Collections on websites: Are museums getting less committed?

2010-12-07T16:04:00.002+11:00

Recently, there was some discussion on the museum-ed discussion list, that began with this message:

Our museum has a mix of information/history and artifacts and we are designing a new website from the ground up. As we explore other’s websites, we get the impression that many museums of all kinds are downplaying their collections on their websites. This represents a change over the past several years when many museums’ websites placed their collections in the spotlight.

If this is indeed the trend, we are curious about the thinking behind it. Is it a question of overhead and web maintenance cost? Does this reflect a change in philosophy about the role of a website for a museum / a museum for its culture?

We are, as I said, curious. Thanks.

Gordon McDonough
Science Evangelist
Bradbury Science Museum
Los Alamos National Laboratory

Then came the following two responses:

We will hopefully be going through this process next year as well. Interesting observation; it does seem like many museum websites focus primarily on upcoming programs and/or temporary feature exhibitions. You often have to dig deep to find the permanent collection data. Are we afraid of “giving it away” or that information on the permanent collection will grow stale because it is, in truth, permanent?

Clayton Drescher
Education Manager
Petersen Automotive Museum
Los Angeles

and

While I would agree that museums are putting a greater emphasis on providing information on their sites about programs, events and exhibitions, I would not say that there is a move toward minimizing the collections. Museums in the Web 1.0 era were very focused on recreating their experience online – a virtual museum. A key factor in this was the prominent display of collections, and at that time there was a strong push toward digitizing and presenting collections and associated metadata. I would argue that this effort is still very much alive, and in many cases we have still only seen the tip of the iceberg when it comes to collections being wholly and accurately displayed online. In the Web 2.0 era, the focus is now on directly engaging the public – through providing timely and accurate information about onsite attractions as well as through social media channels. The rise of online dialog and participation in recent years has definitely led to a shift away from the one-way presentation format typically associated with collections. It has also brought to light the limitations of typical top-down hierarchies in organizing and displaying collections.

But the social web provides some great opportunities for museums beyond the obvious marketing channels. For example, right now we are working with a number of museums and organizations on redesigning their websites, including the Carnegie Museum of Art, the Gilder Lehrman Institute and the Monticello. All of these organizations have a strong focus on supporting robust and participatory engagement with their collections and online content. This includes faceted searching and browsing features, tagging, favoriting and commenting features, and greater cross-pollination and integration of collections and content throughout their sites. For many museums, their collections are absolutely central to their mission. Of late, there has been a shift toward engaging the public and driving the gate that has, in some cases, pushed the collections out of the limelight. I believe this is a timely but temporary response to both economic factors and social media trends. Ultimately I think that museums will find that their site visitors can and will engage with collections online through interactive and participatory frameworks that help to build meaningful and lasting connections between visitors and institutions, while enriching the online experience for everyone in the process.

Matthew Fisher
President
night kitchen interactive

For what it's worth, this was my response:

I think it’s unfair to associate collections necessarily with one-way, static presentation of content. And there’s nothing particularly “Web 2.0” about “providing timely and accurate information about on-site attractions”. Let’s face it, most museum website put their exhibition programs “front-and-centre” because:

exhibitions change, so promoting them makes their websites look more dynamic, and
exhibitions (or the major ones, at least) come with their own promotional budgets (while, sadly, collections don’t).

While exhibitions can be made to look exciting and dynamic, most museums still present them in a traditional, “Web 1.0” manner: text, images, videos and links.

And while there is the potential for collections to be more engaging and participatory, generally speaking they are still presented as a choice between browsing (using the museum’s curatorial hierarchy) and search (simple or complex). As Matthew said, museums can (and some do) add to this with “faceted searching and browsing features, tagging, favouriting and commenting features, and greater cross-pollination and integration of collections and content throughout their sites”. But just having features like these doesn’t guarantee that a museum’s collection online will be engaging. They can easily be hidden behind faulty interfaces. For example, the collection sections of many museum websites still confront visitors with one or more search fields. My immediate reaction in these cases is usually, “What should I search for? What kind of stuff does your collection contain?” Sure, if I persist, I might get the opportunity to refine my search results (aka “faceted searching”), but if that consists of more text fields without any help or prompting, the engagement level drops again.

So, the challenge for museums is:

to show how exciting their collections are
to provide multiple paths for browsing them (ideally with some of these paths provided by the visitors themselves) and
to actively encourage their visitors to engage with them.

Who is Russell Aridsvalley?

2010-11-07T18:08:00.001+11:00

Everyone’s heard of people with names that go with their jobs (eg Rev. Godwin). But the other day I was thinking of some artists whose surnames seem to suit their style of art. Here’s a list of artists where the surnames have been changed into words that have a very similar meaning. Can you work out who they are? (The first two should be pretty easy.)

Jeffrey Clever
Francis Hogmeat
Peter Ascending
Philip Oddity
Russell Aridsvalley
Sydney Yearn

Hints:
They’re all represented in the collection of the Art Gallery of NSW.
All but one is Australian.
One is a photographer.

Sorry, there are no prizes, just a sense of smug satisfaction. :-)

Can you think of any more?

Prezi: Online zoomable presentations

2010-10-28T20:44:00.002+11:00

Ever seen one of those presentations where everything is on one huge canvas and you zoom in each part (or slide) one after the other? (Used on the ABC-TV series "Hungry Beast"). Well, at prezi.com you can create your own, for free. Here are two I created in just a few minutes:

Are people drawn to faces on web pages?

2010-04-28T15:32:00.000+10:00

Short presentation by Tom Tullis, on an eye-tracking study which looks at use of faces on web pages. Apparently, users tend to be drawn to faces when browsing but the more task-driven they are, the less likely they are to pay attention to anything that resembles advertising, and faces usually mean advertising.

Email newsletters: usability

2010-04-28T12:07:00.000+10:00

Jakob Nielsen has written an interesting article on the e-newsletters from the 3 major parties in the UK election campaign, from a usability perspective. My summary:

Sign-up:

Remove distractions from the sign-up page.

While consistency is usually good, it's actually bad to include a 'Sign up' link on the sign-up page, even if it shows on every other page on the site.

Privacy policy: Users need to see (or get to) the privacy policy where you ask for their info.

Confirmation page: Say exactly what you're confirming right up top.

Send confirmation email ASAP, with a readable 'from' field and an unambiguous 'subject field'.

Good example:
From: Liberal Democrats
Subject: Thank you for signing up for Liberal Democrat email news

Bad example:
From: labourparty@email-new.labour.org.uk
Subject: Thank you for signing up

Emails:

'From' field: either a recognised institutional name or a celebrity in his/her own name.

Subject line: add some actual content to summarise, and enhance the "open-me" attractiveness of the email.

Publication frequency: Be consistent, and consistent with what you promised. And not too often.

Feature prominent links to Facebook pages and Twitter feeds.

Write at a year 8 reading level (suitable for a well-schooled 15-year-old.)
More info on catering for visitors with low literacy >

How to engage the high school museum visitor

2009-12-21T18:20:00.005+11:00

Recently, there was some interesting discussion on the museum-ed list about how to get through to high school students in a museum, in particular an art museum. Here are the messages, in order:

1.

While this art museum successfully attracts thousands of school children for its various “art looking” tours, and teachers report high degrees of satisfaction with their experiences, we find the docents are increasingly uncomfortable touring high school students. The biggest issue – the students won’t say anything! Can anyone recommend strategies for successful experiences for teenagers? Is it realistic to expect overt engagement and discussion? What advice can I give these docents who love the art, know so much, and have had such wonderful success engaging younger visitors?
Thanks for any help you can give us.

Carol S. Yost
Assistant Curator of Education
Memorial Art Gallery
Rochester, New York

We have also found that high school students are very quiet. Over the years I have learned that quiet does not always mean disengaged. At this age level peer pressure is heavy and the fear of giving a wrong answer is intense. They also dislike being controlled by adults. Even some of our college students are reluctant to speak in a crowd on tours.

Our solution has been to offer a very different type of tour for high school students. After a minimal amount of time touring – an introduction of exhibitions or concepts, depending on the need of the teacher – we give the students time to look on their own. Often we include reflective projects/guidance – again depending on the needs of the teacher.

For example, a high school art class might be introduced to aesthetics/DBAE and then given a fun assignment that could be used as part of their writing portfolio. See below for some examples.

Disaster at the Beach
You are the curator of the Beach Museum of Art. The tornado siren goes off, you are in the galleries, and you have time to save one piece of art. Which one is it?

After the tornado is over the Director wants to know why you saved the piece – your job depends on your answer!

Some things to consider: The artist’s technical ability, the importance of the artist or the work, the message of the work, the historical value of the work, and the collections mission of the Museum.

Or

Creating an Ambiance with Art
You are a young artists who has just moved to New York City and are living in a one-room loft apartment. You have sold your first painting and have enough money to buy one work from the Kansas Artist Craftsmen Association exhibition.
Choose a piece and design your loft apartment around it.
Name the piece you will buy.
What other furniture will you have in the room – what style, what colors? What colors are the walls and carpet? What other artwork would go with your piece?
What book(s) would you have on the coffee table to go with your artwork?
What music would you have on the stereo to go with your artwork?
You are having friends over for dinner – plan a menu that would go well with your new artwork.

For an English Class:

Every Picture Tells a Story
You are an author; you are writing a book (it can be fiction or non-fiction) about American history between 1920 and 1950. You will need to title your book first and briefly explain what it is about. Then you need to choose a cover illustration for your book from the works on display in America Seen: People and Place. Inside the book jacket you credit the artist and artwork and write a brief essay about why you chose the illustration you did. Your essay should explain to the reader how the artwork relates to your book. You can include factual information about the artwork or you can discuss how the artist creates a mood or feeling that matches your book.
Book title and brief explanation:
Artwork and artist:
Book jacket essay relating the artwork to the book:
Kathrine Schlageck
Beach Musem of Art, Kansas State University

We have found major success touring high school students when we let them talk about themselves and what they know. They have to form a bridge between their experience in the world and what they see in the museum. For example, let’s say we’re going to tour an exhibition about portraits. Before they even see one work of art, we might all sit down in a circle and have a conversation about portraits from their perspective (taking photos of friends, their Facebook profile pictures) and how those images communicate messages about the sitter and the portraitist. The docent should really be a facilitator for conversation, not a lecturer. We also establish at this time the expectations for the tour. We tell them that it’s not fun for us to just feed them facts, and unless they offer ideas and opinions the experience won’t be as interesting. There are no right or wrong ideas.

From here, it’s much easier for them to connect to works in the exhibition because they can draw from the initial conversation. We also incorporate strategies such as letting them choose the works we talk about, breaking up into small groups and reporting back, looking on their own, and other activities that put them in charge of their own museum experience. This age group requires a different approach than one used for younger students, but touring high schools students can be extremely rewarding if done right.

Lauren Fretz
Student Programs Coordinator
MFAH: The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

Below is an internal training document I and several education staff members at The Museum of Contemporary Art developed a few years ago. It's called Survival Strategies for Touring Teens (9 Do's and a Don't). Hope it’s helpful.

DO
1. Mentally prepare yourself for a lack of eye contact. Teens will generally not make eye contact with you, so don’t panic if you don’t see it. As you converse with them, let your eyes move around the group so no one feels singled out or stared at.

2. Prepare teens for what they will experience. Make sure you go over museum rules so teens know how to be successful visitors. Orient them to your general plan – that you will spend time concentrating on a few works you think will be interesting to them rather than describing each piece; that you will be asking them questions because you are really interested in their ideas, opinions, and questions.

3. Ask easy questions at the beginning just to get the conversation going. “What did you do before you came to the museum?” establishes your interest in the teens’ experience. “When I say the word fashion, what comes into your mind?” gets teens thinking about how to connect their own experiences to the exhibition.

4. Ask follow-up questions in a non-threatening way. I watched an educator smile and enthusiastically ask teens who giggled and called a video in the exhibition crazy and trippy, “What’s crazy about it?” “What’s trippy about this video?” The educator showed appreciation for their initial tentative comments and gently pushed them to explain further.

5. Mentally prepare yourself for silence. If no one answers a question you have just asked, spend a few moments looking at the work of art you are discussing. This models careful looking, and takes the pressure off the teens who might feel put on the spot.

6. Remember you are not a teen. You do not have to know about high school students’ popular culture or current slang to earn teens’ trust or respect. In fact, most attempts by adults to use slang or refer to pop icons ring pretty hollow with teens. However, even though you’re an adult, you don’t have to be seen as a classroom teacher or a parent either. Instead, draw on your own personal strengths. Your status as an artist and/or representative of the museum gives you a unique role with respect to teens – they may be looking at you as someone they might like to emulate. Let your enthusiasm, playfulness, and genuine interest in the teens come across.

7. Follow their interest. If teens show sudden interest in a work that is not in your plan, acknowledge their curiosity and interest by spending a bit of time there. Find out what drew their attention to the work of art and show enthusiasm for their observations.

8. Give them puzzles to solve. Teens like to be challenged to come up with solutions, not just answer questions that don’t seem to go anywhere. You can build higher-level questions into your tour (“What do architecture and fashion have in common?”), but cooperative learning can also be a great way to give students an idea to puzzle out. You might consider designing a worksheet for them to jot down their ideas and responses to one or two provocative questions. You can limit your cooperative learning exercise to one room, or to one question, but it can break the one-teacher-vs.-group-of-students dynamic of your tour into a bunch of mini-discussions where even quiet teens get a chance to participate.

9. Praise their involvement. At some point during the tour and at the end, tell the teens you appreciate something about what they’ve done – been very careful not to touch the works of art, observing the exhibition carefully, giving thoughtful opinions. Teens need rewards and respect.

DON’T
1. Lecture. No piece of information you can give is more important than the overall quality of the teens’ experience. Any sense that you are in lecture mode will result in an immediate turnoff. Their bodies will be there, but their hearts and minds will not.

Catherine Arias
Senior Manager Visitor Experience
MOCA: The Museum of Contemporary Art

No one will be surprised to hear me say this, but VTS works well with middle and high school students. They will talk. They enjoy it. They want to. But two things are key: The image has to be compelling to them. It has to be interesting enough to pull them out of the stuff that makes teens hold back in front of grown ups not to mention their peers. Rights issues, relationships, war all pretty sure bets. If all you have up are abstractions, say, you can experience silence.

But the other issue is that the docent or other has to be able to smile and exhibit comfort in their own skin. Kids smell nervousness, or chilliness, or rigidity and hold back. They respond to genuine warmth and energy. As soon as one talks, and the docent paraphrases what s/he says in a thoughtful, respectful, neutral way, it's a lot easier for the next one to contribute.

I don't recommend VTS with adolescents unless the docent is pretty practiced at it and feels very comfortable with facilitation. But if they are skilled—practice with fifth graders—they can have a magical time with teens.

Philip Yenawine

There have been some great suggestions. The alternative high school groups are my favorite.They need the freedom to choose what they respond to. Collage activities with newspapers on the day they visit are perfect to capture the day. We use a lot of sensory prompts, what does this work (that they have chosen) taste like, smell like, feel like (emotionally or if you could touch it) describe it to someone who is blind. Peer tours also work well if you have interns or volunteers that are of the same age. Looping videos of the artists themselves talking always impress. Journaling, sequencing, storyboarding based on a work (that they pick) can really get them going. We schedule these groups for as long as we can, 60–120 minutes! Repeat visits work well, every trimester so they build a deeper relationship really pays off. We work closely with the teachers who prepare and follow up based on the visit.

Nadra E. Haffar, MAAE
Education Curator
Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art
Utah State University, Logan, Utah

I agree that this has been a great discussion about the key strategies to consider with high school students in the galleries. I agree with so much of what has been said. Keep the thoughts, hints, and strategies coming!

My best experiences with high school students are the ones in which I have very high expectations for the students and allow them some elements of freedom in choosing the works and issues we explore (or, more frequently, that they will explore in their own peer groups and then come back to share their discoveries and ideas with the larger group).

From my own teaching experiences, I have to disagree about the use of abstract artworks – I have had much more success having high school students engage with abstract works in the galleries. Once we create the comfortable, non-threatening environment for them to share their thoughts about these works, they really open up and make personal connections with the art. I've used different types of writing and creative response activities that utilize multiple modes of looking and thinking to open up the works, and the students run with it. I just recently brought a group of high school students through our special exhibition of Japanese Screens, and we ended with a short waka poetry activity with the contemporary, abstract screens – which was their favorite part of the visit (the process was great, and their poems were phenomenal!). Time after time, students leave telling us they now enjoy some of the modern or contemporary works that they previously would dismissed. I've had a bit less success with narrative and/or representational works.

Michael Murawski, PhD
School Services Director
Saint Louis Art Museum

I know exactly what you mean when you say that high school students won’t say anything. I remember when I first started many years ago as a museum educator taking “discussion tours”, I would assume that the best approach to, say the topic “Australian art” was to start at the beginning (chronologically) and move through the galleries until we reached the most recent artworks. It often wasn't until we reached the more recent art, in particular abstract expressionism, that the students would "wake up" and start to respond. Of course, many of the responses were along the lines of “What's that meant to be?”, “What's so good about that?”, “How much did you pay for that?” and “My 6-year-old brother could do better than that!” :-) I found it a bit threatening at first, because I had assumed that it was my job to stand up for the artworks, the artists who created them and the curators who chose them. But when I relaxed a little, and acknowledged the students’ concerns and questions, I realised that the controversy was at least generating some “energy” in the tour and that, if I could somehow harness it, I could get the students engaged. So, as an experiment, I decided to start with one of these artworks (eg: Peter Upward, New reality 1960), let the students ask their questions and make their comments, then say something like, “OK, so how did art get to this point?”, and then we would go backwards in time until we reached the early stuff. It proved to be a successful strategy.

Another thing that helps is not to assume that the students will initially be interested in the same kinds of things as we are (as art museum people): art history, aesthetics, artists’ biographies, social history, painting techniques etc. Instead, I try to find ‘hooks’ to the things that most likely concern them, in particular emotional hooks. Eg: (food)... “If you could eat this painting, what would it taste like?” I think of this as like accessing their emotional reactions to the work of art via the “back door”. (Asking someone the plain question “How does this painting make you feel?” is unlikely to elicit a very useful response.)

For what it's worth, here are a couple of articles I originally wrote for (and presented to) IT/web audiences, but heavily based on my museum education experience:

“Engaging the museum visitor: relevance, participation and motivation in hypermedia design”
“I don't know much about the web but I know what I like: art and web information architecture”

By the way, I have really enjoyed all the other responses to your original email. :-)

Jonathan Cooper
Manager of information / website
Art Gallery of New South Wales
Sydney AUSTRALIA

I also applaud the great insights and hints given here.

My one key strategy for touring teens has already been mentioned, that is to allow the teens to select works that interest them and focus on those for the tour. I almost always create some kind of a task for them to search the galleries on their own and select an art work that meets the criteria I have set and that attracts them. For example, I hand out a list of big ideas that artists explore in their work (such as beauty, story, identity, politics, fantasy, nature, conflict, justice, etc. – look at the Art21 episodes themes for lots of great big thematic ideas). I invite the kids to circle one big idea that they are interested in themselves and then look for a work that they think somehow relates to that idea. Then we go around to the works the kids selected for the rest of the tour.

And finally, I must say that like everyone else, teens are all different and, depending on their background (urban, rural, or suburban…), experience in visiting a museum, the dynamic of their school community, or whatever, they never react the same way twice. Be careful assuming that you know all teens after one – or one hundred – tour experiences. They surprise me every time!
My best advice is the same for any tour group. Be yourself, ask open–ended questions, and pay attention to the cues that you get from the group.

Susan Rotilie
Program Manager, School Programs
Walker Art Center
Minneapolis, MN
artsconnected.org

10.

I want to thank everyone who sent me ideas about working with high school visitors to museums. It seems we all do have the same difficulties, but it is clear how hard each of you is working to create appropriate experiences that are both engaging and educational. And you have had real successes! Thank you for sharing your experiences and programs.

Our short-term plan is to devote a docent meeting to Q&A with a local dynamic and well-respected Social Studies teacher. We have asked him to share his expertise in working with teens in the classroom.
Again, thank you for your suggestions and have a most happy holiday time.

Carol S. Yost
Assistant Curator of Education
Memorial Art Gallery
Rochester, New York

A Twitterable Twitter policy

2009-12-03T11:39:00.002+11:00

Here’s a corporate Twitter policy that has the extra added benefit of being itself twitterable:

Our Twitter policy: Be professional, kind, discreet, authentic. Represent us well. Remember that you can’t control it once you hit “update.”

From Gruntled Employees Blog

Trying to sell a bad interface

2009-10-10T23:05:00.007+11:00

In our local newspaper the other day I saw an advertisement for a new website created to support the NSW Central Coast’s waste collection and recycling system. (Click the image to see it.) The main thrust of the ad was that the “fastest way to book your bulk kerbside collection is online”. And to show how “fast” it is, the ad listed an eight-step “Bulk Kerbside Checklist”:

Visit www.1coast.com.au - 24 hours a day, 7 days a week
Select the ‘Click here to book a bulk kerbside collection button’
Review the collection guidelines & proceed to the booking page
First time visitors will be asked to register their email address to receive a password to access the booking page
Login using your email address and password
Search for your property and follow the on-screen prompts
A confirmation email will mean your booking was successful, and provide you a booking reference number.

But here’s the killer, eighth step:

Alternatively, you can call our Customer Service Centre on 13001COAST for help

Surely, seeing all the steps required to complete one transaction (namely booking a junk pick-up for your home, online) spelt out like that would make the website owners realise that the process is far too complicated.

I don't know much about the web but I know what I like

2009-10-08T18:46:00.003+11:00

The Web is a bit like an art museum: an amazingly rich resource which is too easily squandered. I have just posted an article on my website (originally presented as a paper at the Ark Group Information Architecture Forum, and at Oz-IA 2009), which introduces principles and techniques used in art museum education and shows how they can be applied in web construction, writing and design. It offers insights into:

transforming information chaos into information order
eliminating inessentials
making personal connections with visitors (or users) through relevance and participation, while minimising cognitive load
structuring content in terms of what visitors want to know and do, rather than “internal, organisational imperatives”
the need for unity and consistency, to allow visitors to build up a mental model of the site
showing a human face, where appropriate.

Challenging some myths about art

2009-08-13T17:12:00.004+10:00

I thought, for a change, instead of writing about museums and multimedia, I’d write about art – specifically, art appreciation. (This is actually how I came into the museum-web world.)

Art is a contradiction for many people. On the one hand it surrounds us all the time: most houses have at least one painting hanging on the wall, even if it’s just a reproduction; and one art form in particular – photography – seems to be everywhere around us. On the other hand, art is regarded by many as mysterious and rarefied, something for that special group of people: the “artistic”. Ask someone to say something about art and the most likely response you will get will be, “I like it”, “I don’t like it”, or an indifferent shrug. Why is this? Well, maybe many feel ill-equipped to say something intelligent and don’t want to appear foolish. So, it’s easier to build up a barrier, in the form of myths, between themselves and “Art” (with a capital A). Here are some of my favourite myths:

“I don’t know much about art but I know what I like.”
Actually, I don’t know what I like and I don’t want to. I want to be surprised. “Liking” means judging, and judging – too easily – gets in the way of enjoying. In fact it’s possible to enjoy a work of art without liking it.
“Art should be beautiful.”
Some people (e.g. art historians and critics) disagree – citing, for example, much of Goya’s work or Picasso’s Guernica – but I say “All great art is beautiful; it’s just that my concept of ‘beauty’ is broader than most people’s.” Sometimes the best way to appreciate “difficult” art is to keep exposing yourself to it. If it’s got something going for it, some lasting quality, it will probably grow on you.
“To properly appreciate art you need to know the historical background.”
Actually, background information can sometimes take you away from appreciating an art work. There are two types of information about an artwork: intrinsic and extrinsic. My advice is: get as much of the intrinsic information first. For example, you might read, or hear a tour guide say, “Rembrandt was a miller’s son.” So what? Does that really help you to understand Rembrandt’s art?
“I’m not artistic.”
This usually means, “I can’t draw; therefore I have no right to understand art.” Sure, if you’re not a painter you probably wouldn’t know whether the artist used rose madder or vermilion, but that’s just the mechanics of painting. I can’t play the violin but I can enjoy and appreciate a violin concerto.
Do artists make art for other artists? No (well, mostly not).
“Modern art is rubbish; a child could do it.”
There are two responses to this one:
a. You’d be surprised how hard “easy” art is to make.
b. One of the breakthroughs of modern art (basically from the 20th century on) was “unlearning” the sophistication of adulthood.
“Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.” – Picasso

100 Best Curator and Museum Blogs

2009-07-22T10:22:00.003+10:00

This blog has been listed in the “100 Best Curator and Museum Blogs” page on the Online Universities site (#16 under “Resources & Advice”). It’s in good company, although I wonder why Seb Chan’s Fresh+New(er) is missing?

New Australian Museum website

2009-06-09T11:16:00.005+10:00

Have you seen the new Australian Museum website?

australianmuseum.net.au

(New URL, too; www.austmus.gov.au and www.amonline.net.au now redirect to it.)

It has an interesting What's on functionality: Tabs for different audience types: "General", "Kids", "Under 5s", "Teachers", "Members", "Tourists", with exhibitions, (permanent) displays, events and tours listed together.

All 'end-pages' (that is, pages with content, as opposed to links to content) have 2 buttons: "Add comment" and "Add tags" right after the page heading (you have to be registered with "My museum" to use them) and many of them have the name of the person who wrote them (eg: http://australianmuseum.net.au/Australian-Museum-Palaeontology-Collection), linked to a brief staff profile and a form to contact that person.

That last URL reveals an interesting fact about the site: despite the fact that I got to the page by clicking 'Minerals & fossils' > 'More about Fossils' (reveal) > 'Fossils' > 'More about Fossils in the Australian Museum Collections' (reveal) > 'Australian Museum Palaeontology Collection' (yes, 5 clicks!), the URL shows no hierarchy. The CMS apparently serves every page as though it is in the root directory. The advantage is that URLs are shorter than they otherwise would be but still very readable (a boon for search engines), but a disadvantage is that it obscures the context of the page.

But I have a problem with the "expandable links". Eg: About us:
Try to find out "More about Our Organisation"... It's not a link! You have to click the tiny , to reveal the sub-topics.

Still, overall, it's a very engaging site, full of opportunities to explore, contribute and be involved.

MySource mini

2009-05-01T09:31:00.003+10:00

Yesterday (Thursday 30 April 2009), I saw the future of Web content management systems: MySource mini. Squiz.net, the company that created MySource Matrix, have essentially released a working subset of what will become the successor to Matrix (or MySource 4). For now, it is designed for "brochure-ware" sites (basically standard pages + forms). The first thing that makes this unique (as far as I'm aware) is that it is a hardware + software bundle. You buy the server, with the CMS (and 11 page designs) pre-installed and then, for a modest annual fee, the server will automatically receive upgrades and patches as they become available. Squiz say the ideal website for this setup is one with up to 1 GB of content receiving up to 100 000 page-views per day.

The second thing that makes this CMS so revolutionary is that it looks so simple. It actually feels like you're editing the site (ie: the 'front-end') directly. This is very different to the usual conceptual split between 'front-end' and 'back-end'. But the simplicity is an illusion – in a good sense. The technology is incredibly sophisticated.

Noteworthy features include:

An inline WYSIWYG editor that, unlike others, doesn't rely on the browser's own code libraries. This means that it is truly cross-platform and cross-browser compatible.
Auto-save (and manual save, of course), with 'revert'
Image library with generous thumbnails
A feature that tells the website manager who's logged in and what they're doing (and have been doing)
All designs have thumbnail screenshots
System tells you what designs are being used and by what pages
System tells you what files attached to a design aren't actually being used by that design (also what files are missing)
Complete server cache control, with a day-by-day report on cache performance (and traffic)
Alias URLs (useful for marketing campaigns) that are not handled as redirects and are never indexed by Google
Workflow that can work serially (approver 1, then approver 2, then approver 3, etc.) or in parallel (approvers can approve in any order, or simultaneously)
The ability to choose a workflow (assuming you have sufficient permissions)
Versioning, with a timeline (you can't roll back, like in Matrix, but you can view, and export, any previous version of a page as a PDF – much less resource-hungry than full rollback)
Context-sensitive help

There are a number of interface features that are so appropriate and so beautifully realised that they raise the bar for interface design. Such as:

Timelines with draggable 'viewports' and changeable scales (day, month, year)
Task panes (eg: for finding an image) that are part of their parent windows, but appear to be floating in front
Asset browsers with a (Mac-like) column interface
A liberal, and appropriate, use of thumbnail snapshots
A yes/no slider control
The 'help-pointer': a small, bouncing graphic that shows you exactly where a particular interface widget is, so you can follow steps in the contextual help system

Some of these are so innovative and useful that I expect other software companies will try to copy them.

Criticisms? Very few, and most (if not all) of these are features that Squiz.net just haven't built into mini yet, but are planning to. Such as:

No safe-editing, meaning that you can't use the approval process workflow on live pages – instead, changes happen immediately
Only 3 kinds of form inputs: text, pop-up selectors and radio buttons
No centralised list of current alias URLs
No calendar, e-commerce or bulk email

Matrix is an undeniably powerful system; however its back-end interface feels complex and crowded, because almost every feature is available at all times. As a result, the controls (especially in the sitemap area) are small and finnicky. In contrast, mini feels clean and spacious, because the interface is focused on what you need to do at that time, but it also makes the context clear (so you always know where you are)

This is indeed the future of CMS.

More information about MySource mini

30 min. video demo (29 Oct 2008)

SmARThistory

2009-04-17T10:53:00.007+10:00

Smarthistory.org is one of those rare things on the web: an innovative site that actually works, and is very useful.

Here’s an excerpt from their “About” page:

Smarthistory.org is a free multimedia web-book designed as a dynamic enhancement (or even substitute) for the traditional art history textbook. Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker began smARThistory in 2005 by creating a blog featuring free audio guides in the form of podcasts for use in The Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Soon after, we embedded the audio files in our online survey courses. The response from our students was so positive that we decided to create a multimedia survey of art history web-book. We created audios and videos about works of art found in standard art history survey texts, organized the files stylistically and chronologically, and added text and still images.

Of course it’s not “comprehensive”, but it’s pretty vast nevertheless. It’s all western art and, as far as I can see, mostly from New York collections (which is hardly surprising, considering its origins). But I’m intrigued by the use of video to concentrate on individual works of art. Eg: have a look at the page on Diane Arbus’ Boy with a Toy Hand Grenade - For the first 2 minutes, all you see is the artwork. Then, the photographer’s contact sheet. Then the photograph again but, as the two discuss it, you see their mouse pointer moving around the image. Very simple, basic technology (which produces a slightly annoying trail of tiny, vertical lines) but it does the job.

I also like the way you can explore by time, style, artist and theme.

Also worthy of note is how they have allowed public participation by integrating photos from their own Flickr group.

Is there such a thing as too much navigation?

2009-04-16T14:44:00.004+10:00

In Steve Krug's excellent book, Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, he talks about the street signs in LA compared to those in Boston, his home city*. When my wife and I were in the USA last year, I was able to confirm his observations. One street corner in downtown Boston particularly caught my attention:

[* Actually, I believe he lives in Brookline.]

Google Earth meets The Prado

2009-01-15T22:36:00.001+11:00

The Sydney Morning Herald published an article today about Google's experiment with The Prado, in Madrid, using the Google Earth application to zoom into 14 of the museum's old master paintings to an amazing degree. Visitors can "crawl across" the surface of the painting and fill their screen with a single brushstroke or fissure. The writer, Richard Jinman talked to me on the phone yesterday to ask for my reaction and some of my responses were quoted (or paraphrased) in the article:

It would be unfeasible for museums to put their entire collections online at such high resolution... zooming in that closely gives you information, but doesn't give you the experience the artist intended... [the artist] wouldn't expect you to look deep inside a brushstroke - it's an almost forensic view of an artwork which would primarily interest scientists and restorers.

What I was getting at is that the extreme closeup that Google Earth offers would be interesting to anyone at first, for a few paintings, but the appeal would probably fade quickly. I think for most purposes and viewers, the level of detail offered by, say, Zoomify, would be more than adequate. Does anyone else have an opinion?

Shameless plug: Marriage celebrant website

2009-01-11T22:12:00.007+11:00

Wanda, my nearest and dearest, is a registered civil marriage celebrant. Although I many of her gigs come through word of mouth, having a website seemed like a smart move. So, with a talented designer, Zoë Cooper (who happens to be our daughter), we set about creating one:
www.wandacooper.com.au

It's all standards-compliant of course, so it was a good way to practise – and learn – CSS skills. But its visual elegance is all thanks to Zoë.

Let me know what you think... if you feel like it. :-)

Some future trends for the Internet and museums - the video

2008-12-17T13:05:00.006+11:00

I gave (an updated version of) my presentation, "Some future trends for the Internet and museums" - including a discussion of myVirtualGallery - at the Museum & Gallery Services Queensland seminar, Creative Uses of the Collection on 11 Sep 2008.

M&GSQ have posted video and audio of all presentations, including mine, on their site.

Here's mine:

It was based on a talk I'd given earlier at a CAN seminar.

How I got into the museum field

2008-10-03T09:13:00.002+10:00

A colleague on the museum-ed list recently asked:

I've been asked by my alma mater to participate in a panel discussion sponsored by the Art History club. The topic is "breaking into the museum field." There's the obvious: internships, making contacts, joining professional organizations, etc. I could tell them about my own crooked path into this field, but I'm not sure that would be helpful. I'd rather arm myself with an array of stories from a lot of different people. So, tell me! I'd love to hear your story. How did you get into museum education? What was your first museum job? How did you get it? And how did you move up from there?

For what it's worth, here is my response:

I trained to be a high school art teacher at Alexander Mackie College of Advanced Education (now the College of Fine Arts, University of New South Wales). In my first year (1975) I had a wonderful lecturer in drawing, Robin Norling. Robin inspired me, not just because he was the first person to ever successfully explain to me just what drawing was, but also because he showed - by example - how to connect with people in an educational context, and how to connect people with art. I was fortunate to have him again later in my course, as a lecturer in art education "method". In my final year, Robin left the College to become Head of Education Services at our state art museum, the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

After graduating, and while looking for a full-time teaching position, I became the volunteer coordinator of a local community arts organisation and taught art and craft at a number of school vacation programs, including one organised by Robin at the Art Gallery.

I eventually landed a job as a full-time art teacher at a private school and taught there for a few years. During that time, two museum educator positions at the Art Gallery became available, about nine months apart. I applied and was interviewed for both, and was successful with the second (1982).

From 1982 to 2001, I...

gave slide lectures and gallery talks on the permanent collection and visiting exhibitions
gave talks to students from Kindergarten to grade 12 (and beyond) in regional towns, with the Travelling Art Exhibition (1982-88)
planned and mounted four "Onsight" (metropolitan travelling) exhibitions, including the writing of catalogues, worksheets and news releases (1984-89)
gave talks to diverse groups (e.g. nursing homes, schools, service clubs, art societies, prisons) with the "Onsight" program
planned and mounted exhibitions in the Gallery's Education Space, each consisting of original art works, supported by diagrams, written material and interactive displays
planned and mounted "Artexpress" (outstanding works from state matriculation examination in visual arts), including coordination of catalogue, promotional material and related events
compiled and edited the Gallery's Exhibitions & Events brochures (since 1990), including gathering and compiling of information and images, editing, supervision of Graphic Designer and coordination of its distribution
selected, trained and managed a group of contract teacher-lecturers
produced various audio-visual programs, such as videos and audio-tours
designed and created the Art Gallery's first website
planned and co-ordinated programs for visitors with special needs, including in-house staff training
ran in-service and pre-service courses for teachers and teacher trainees on using the Gallery as an educational resource

In 1996, I became Coordinator of Education Programs, and second-in-charge of our department (now called "Public Programs").

In 2001, I became the Gallery's first Manager of Information, with responsibility for the Art Gallery's websites and regular publications. However, I still enjoy giving lectures and gallery talks from time to time. (I also regard our websites as being essentially educational.)

Recent changes at Facebook

2008-07-25T10:05:00.002+10:00

From an article on the New York Times (emphases in red are mine):

Mr. Zuckerberg [Facebook’s 24-year-old chief executive] ... reflected on the 15 months since Facebook opened up its site to outside companies and invited them to build profitable features for it.
The move was generally seen as smart and somewhat momentous inside the tech world. Facebook says 400,000 developers have worked on tools for the site...
But Facebook’s platform has also generated its share of controversy. Many trivial applications have clogged the site, and sought to spread themselves among users using a variety of tricks. Frustrated, Facebook has tried to counter that and put more emphasis on significant and trustworthy applications.
“As happy as I am with the growth of the ecosystem, there are a lot of mistakes we made,” Mr. Zuckerberg said. “I think we can all agree that we don’t want an ecosystem full of applications that are just trying to spread themselves.”
To that end, Facebook announced a series of new incentives for developers to write what it characterized as “meaningful” tools for the service. It said it would pick certain applications that meet a set of Facebook principles to be part of a new “Great Apps” program.
Those applications will get higher visibility on the service and will be able to work more closely with Facebook. Causes, a charitable giving tool, and iLike, a music sharing service, were the first two applications to receive this designation...
Facebook said it was also setting up another level of certification, called the Facebook Verification program, for applications that meet the basic criteria of being secure and trustworthy. These applications will get added visibility and a graphical “badge.”

A participatory audio-tour experiment

2008-06-11T13:06:00.003+10:00

I was just directed to an interesting article on NYTimes.com: A Museum That Lets Its Visitors Become Part of the Art.

Halsey Burgund's exhibition "Round", at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, offers up a museum audio tour that solicits contributions from viewers and gives them equal voice in the discussion of art.
... For [Burgund], the main point here is not so much to provide information about the artworks, but to create an experience that can enhance somebody's time in the museum. To take pleasure in this oddball installation, you have to countenance such a motivation and get past all expectation that you will learn something from the audio guide.

Some future trends for the Internet and museums

2008-05-29T10:29:00.004+10:00

I was part of a panel at a seminar - "Collections and the Web: Audiences, Content and Technologies" - organised by CAN (Collections Australia Network) on Tuesday, 27 May: "Future Trends". I began with a short presentation in which I attempted to plot a number of future possibilities in terms of probability and desirability:

Spam to increase (almost certain), which may lead to...
The total collapse of email, as we now know it, under the weight of spam. While this would undoubtedly be a major disaster, it may have at least one beneficial consequence:
RSS (syndication) to become mainstream.
Internet connections to become faster and/or cheaper, which should allow...
Rich content (video, audio) to increase.
Online advertising to increase (but there is evidence that returns are diminishing).
Smart commercial links (in which success depends on how useful the user perceives it to be) to also increase.
Semantic web to become more pervasive (content not just for human consumption but for also machine consumption, making mashups possible - eg: US Presidents) But, perhaps more importantly...
Semantic web to become easier for non-tech people (MIT's Simile project is a step in the right direction).
Visitor-generated content to increase. (But there needs to a move towards quality visitor- generated content.)
Copyright restrictions to decrease (at least for the museum/cultural/non-profit sector). This is more of a hope than a prediction!
Open standards to increase, allowing...
Greater separation of content and presentation, and hence...
Greater diversity of platforms and personalisation.
Will non-standard (Flash) navigation increase? Hopefully not.

Here's the actual plot (sorry if it's a bit hard to read):

(This has also been posted to Museum 3.0)

Update: See the video

The machine is us/ing us

2008-03-25T10:24:00.001+11:00

Here's a good introduction to the 'new' web, by Michael Wesch, Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology, Kansas State University:

User-generated content: useful links

2008-01-03T10:34:00.000+11:00

On the museum-ed discussion list recently, someone asked for recommendations of books or papers on the topics of producing quality user-generated content, the process of reviewing/analyzing user-generated content, and the amount of time that should be dedicated to reviewing and editing user-generated content. Here's my reply:

The annual Museums & The Web conferences are a good source of online papers:

Attraction by Interaction: Wiki Webs As A Way To Increase The Attractiveness Of Museums' Web Sites - Peter Hoffmann and Michael Herczeg, Germany

Storymaker: User-generated Content - Worthy Or Worthwhile? - Graham Howard, Jon Pratty and Mike Stapleton, United Kingdom

Visitors' Voices - Mariana Salgado and Lily Diaz-Kommonen, Finland

Steve.museum: An Ongoing Experiment in Social Tagging, Folksonomy and Museums - Susan Chun, Rich Cherry, Doug Hiwiller, Bruce Wyman, USA, and Jennifer Trant, Canada

Using Open Source Software to Facilitate Collaboration Among Artists, Exhibitors and Patrons - Michael Knapp and Ellis Neder, USA

Community Sites & Emerging Sociable Technologies - Kevin von Appen, Canada, and Bryan Kennedy and Jim Spadaccini, USA

Beyond the On-line Museum: Participatory Virtual Exhibitions - Jonathan Cooper, Australia (beating my own drum :-))

Towards Community Contribution: Empowering Community Voices On-line - Angèle Alain, Canada

My Evidence: Who's the authority here? - Lowell Robinson, David Beck, Valerie Knight-Williams & Pearl Tesler, USA

Building an On-line Community: Web 2.0 and interpretive materials at the Brooklyn Museum - Nicole Caruth & Shelley Bernstein, USA

Radical Trust: The state of the museum blogosphere - Seb Chan, Australia & Jim Spadaccini, USA

Web 2.0: How to stop thinking and start doing: Addressing organisational barriers - Mike Ellis & Brian Kelly, United Kingdom

Remixing Exhibits: Constructing participatory narratives with on-line tools to augment museum experiences - Matthew Fisher & Beth Twiss-Garrity, USA

Tapping at the window

2007-11-30T14:35:00.000+11:00

A good analysis of the privacy issue with regard to social networking sites, in particular Facebook, by Nicholas Carr.

“What we've learned from the commercialization of the Web is that people are more than happy to exchange their privacy for free stuff and greater convenience as long as you allow them to maintain the fiction that their activities are not being monitored and recorded....
“Privacy is lost not in one great flood but rather through steady erosion. Eventually, the Peeping Tom taps on your window and waves, and you don't recoil in horror and embarrassment. You wave back.”

Read the full article

Participation through Collaboration: Making Visitors Feel Needed

2007-10-10T13:34:00.000+10:00

On the Museum 2.0 blog, there is a post which makes the case for real, as opposed to "fake" online collaborations.

Here's an excerpt:

I think we have to couch participatory museum experiences in terms of collaborating with visitors. Collaboration is only meaningful when the parties involved actually have some stake in and influence over the outcome. Have you ever been part of a fake collaboration, one in which a project leader purported to want everyone’s input but really just wanted everyone to say yes to theirs? Those situations are exasperating at best, and at worst, can make you lose faith in the leader’s (and the institution’s) commitment to the team approach.

Someone (Alan M) then left a comment, which said in part:

Imagine something called Public Lecture 1.0: My wife & I pay $10 each for a ticket to hear a speaker talk for an hour about, oh, Biblical archaeology, followed by 10 minutes of Q&A. Then, audience applause... a wave from the podium... and the speaker exits, stage left. On our way home, I talk with my wife about what we'd just heard & seen....

Here's Public Lecture 2.0: We pay $10 each for a ticket to hear a speaker talk for 10 minutes, and then engage in an hour-long Q&A, a good portion of which is sucked up by people "participating" and "collaborating" with their own windy wind-ups & commentary. Their contributions may or may not be interesting, but it's not what we paid twenty bucks to hear.

Both formats have their merit, of course, but they serve entirely different purposes. In 1.0, the presenter has something to say, to transmit, to share; I attend 1.0 to enjoy what someone else has to offer -- expertise, advice, insight, a story, perhaps. Whereas 2.0 is a group exercise, a collective creation. 1.0 is a traditional dinner party that requires me to prepare an entire meal; 2.0 is a pot-luck that requires less cooking, more coordination.

Here's an edited version of my reply:

Alan gave an illustration in the form of two scenarios:
1. attending a one-hour lecture by a renowned expert in a field (e.g. Biblical archaeology), followed by a ten-minute Q&A, and...
2. attending a ten-minute lecture by the same expert, followed by an hour of questions and comments by people in the audience.

The assertion seems to be that, just as scenario 1 would be better value for the participants, visitors to museum websites are often better served by content prepared by experts than by large collections of (mediocre) community contributions.

I think there are at least three significant characteristics or assumptions in this illustration:
The speaker is a skilled presenter, as well as a renowned expert
The audience must experience the content (i.e. the lecture) sequentially and in real time; skipping or random access are not possible
One must choose between the two scenarios.
However, on the web:
Different scenarios can be offered simultaneously - from scholarly essays to collections of public commentaries and reflections.
Different scenarios can even be gathered together or linked.
Visitors can choose - in their own time - which scenario(s) they prefer.
Expertise can also be exercised in the selection and/or sorting of public contributions. E.g. myVirtualGallery (which I manage), in the approval process and the "Featured Exhibitions" section.

Read my full comment, in context.

HyperCard in 1990

2007-10-04T20:36:00.000+10:00

One of the precursors of hypertext and the Web was HyperCard, introduced by Apple in 1987. This video, from The Computer Chronicles in 1990, looks at the status of HyperCard applications including HyperComposer, Take One, Culture 1.0, Mission: The Moon and CAMEO. It also looks at the HyperCard clone, SuperCard. Guests include the creator of HyperCard, Bill Atkinson.

Related videos:

The Memory Book: Museum gathers content online

2007-10-02T14:20:00.000+10:00

The Smithsonian Institution's museum dedicated to black history and culture, National Museum of African American History and Culture launched last month with an interactive website, "The Memory Book" - long before its building opens.

Blogging technology allow visitors to help produce content for future exhibits at the museum, with long essays, short vignettes of memories or recorded oral histories.

According to Lonnie Bunch, the museum's founding director, museum staff monitor the site for historical accuracy, and technical filters apparently block racist or inappropriate comments. Bunch regards the site as a "virtual museum" and a new source of research for curators and scholars.

Apart from the interesting use of social-networking technologies, I was intrigued by the navigation system: the first time I have ever seen an interactive 'link-web' diagram used as a navigation device throughout a website:

It's one of those applications of web technology that I classify as "Cool, but not very practical".

More information:
Memory Book Overview
Sydney Morning Herald article

Web Content Management for Government Conference

2007-10-02T09:14:00.000+10:00

On 17 & 18 September (2007), I attended a conference in Canberra, the "4th Annual Web Content Management for Government Conference" and presented a paper on the second day. Here, for what they're worth, are some of my notes, observations and thoughts arising:

Introduction

James Robertson, Step Two Designs

According to James, the CMS Industry is still in a period of growth and is immature. There are at least 140 products available and 120 of these are locally produced. The technology is still diverging, rather than converging.
James made an interesting claim that workflow doesn't work, because it is usually too complex and ambitious.

Improving online citizen and community services by effective web content management

Jim Higgins, Chief Executive, New Zealand Local Government Online

Jim claimed that using online chat for public enquiries can service 6 times more people than the telephone, because the one staff member can theoretically communicate with a number of people in parallel.
An interesting idea was the 'warm website', where someone browsing may get a live message appear on their screen: "Can I help you?" from someone monitoring the site. Many people felt that this would be seen by many web visitors as intrusive, even creepy. Maybe a compromise would be to offer a button for visitors to click for help when someone was available.

The FaCSIA Guides IIS Project

Brendan Dalton, Department of Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs (FaCSIA)

"Australia's largest web publishing project of 2007 [was] The FaCSIA Guides IIS Project. With over 400,000 pages, this website provides... information on Social Policy and Entitlements and is used by legislators, lawyers, politicians and citizens."
Brendan showed a system that converts huge batches of structured Word documents into a series of linked web pages, with an index. The process was iterative, meaning that on the first pass, most documents would be processed successfully but some errors would be reported. The identified problem documents would be fixed and another pass would be made. The errors would get less and less each time, until eventually all documents would be converted.

Making websites accessible and functional for a diverse community

Dr. Andrew Arch, Manager Online Accessibility Consulting, Vision Australia

"Web accessibility means that people with disabilities can use the Web, more specifically it means they can:
• perceive, understand and navigate the Web
• interact with the Web
• contribute to the Web"

Andrew explained that there are a number of other beneficiaries when a website id made accessible. Eg:
• People using PDAs, web phones etc
• People with old equipment
• People working in restricted access environments
• People with temporary impairments
• People coping with environmental distractions
• People with poor literacy
• Older people
• New users

Andrew pointed out that it was important for web pages to declare themselves to be in English, for the sake of screen readers.
Screen readers may also have a problem with AJAX because the updates are sometimes not noticed by the software.
The proper treatment of links and forms (interactive elements) is important:
• Don't rely on colour
• If the link is to a large file (e.g. PDF), explain this within the link text, not outside it. Otherwise those who tab through from link to link will miss that bit of information.
• Make sure the size of the text entry box changes as well as the label.

Andrew also said that drag and drop is possible in Flash using just a keyboard. (Adobe has a section of its website devoted to accessibility but I have been unable to find anything specifically on keyboard-controlled drag and drop yet.)

Managing public sectors’ websites interface language and elements – do users and the public understand you?

Kerry Webb, InTACT, ACT Government

Kerry talked about the unique position of a government website: For many there is no effective competition. But on the other hand, a government website cannot choose its audience. This flies in the face of the usual marketing obsession with target audiences and demographics.

How to avoid getting ripped off when implementing a CMS

Tom Voirol, Reading Room Australia

Tom divided the CMS market using three dimensions:
• page-based versus component-based
• tactical [limited life] versus strategic [ongoing life]
• coupled [live server reaches back to the CMD database] versus decoupled [live server runs independently of the CMS db]
Two methods were presented to help decide on a CMS (or anything): Preference matrix + value benefit analysis.

Designing usable Web 2.0 applications to improve the citizen-centric approach

John-Paul Syriatowicz, Squiz.net

J-P introduced Web 2.0 as a semantic cloud of related technologies (including blogging, RSS, podcasts, personalisation, AJAX, folksonomies and mashups) and concepts. One of these concepts was the evolution of the Web into an 'application'. From a 'return-on-investment' point of view, employing Web 2.0 and social networking can be worthwhile, because of its "viral" nature, in which connections, and content, can theoretically increase exponentially (1 => 2 => 4 => 8 => 16 => ...).
J-P pointed out that blogging is more than just a technology. (After all, it would be possible to 'simulate' most aspects of a blog using static HTML.) The key feature of a blog – which can be both a strength and a weakness – is the set of expectations that come with it. People expect blogs to be frequently updated and to have a kind of 'personality'. Some organisations create a blog when a forum would be more appropriate. J-P also made the point that blogs have a surprising real-world impact, a "strange authority".
The essence of RSS is the distributing of content in a format-neutral way. It is anonymous (unlike an e-newsletter) because anyone can subscribe without the content-creator knowing.
Podcasting (including vodcasting) is an extension of RSS. It is usually thought of as 'cool' – a nice add-on – but J-P pointed out that it can actually be part of an accessibility solution.
J-P made two interesting warnings about personalisation. If the appearance and content of a page changes according to visitors' preferences: what should the organisation store as part of its record-keeping, and how can the page be reliably proofed (since meaning often relies on context)?

Discussion: Centralised versus decentralised content publishing

As an exercise, the room was initially divided into two, with one side instructed to argue the case that all web content should be managed by one central web unit and the other side instructed to argue that all web content should be managed in a decentralised way. Not surprisingly, when we were allowed to discuss freely, the consensus was that both make sense in different contexts. Basically, it depends on how often content is updated: if infrequently, centralised management is more effective; if frequently, decentralised management is probably more effective. Many organisations could benefit from some sort of hybrid arrangement.

Making the most of your digital assets and virtual tour online - a museum case study

(my presentation)

With the rise of Web 2.0 many websites are moving beyond simple information presentation and evolving into spaces for online collaboration. I asked what special implications this has for a government agency, particularly a cultural, scientific or educational organisation, such as a museum. Would allowing the public to contribute website content erode its reputation of authority? I used the Art Gallery's myVirtualGallery project as a case study, to examine these issues.
My full paper is available online.

New art education web resource - Simon Schama's Power of Art

2007-09-21T10:10:00.000+10:00

Have only had a quick look at it but it looks pretty interesting so far:
www.pbs.org/wnet/powerofart

It's based on a PBS TV series. But all the episodes are viewable online.

Art and mathematics

2007-09-15T09:26:00.000+10:00

What do mathematics and art have in common? Some people see these two disciplines as incompatible by definition. Others see mathematics within art, at least in areas such as geometry and perspective. I have just published an essay on my personal/professional website in which I try to dig a little deeper, to examine the principles and philosophies of these two disciplines and how they might relate.

View essay

500 years of women in art

2007-09-10T21:10:00.000+10:00

Here's an interesting Flash animation: 500 years of female portraits in Western art (condensed in a three minute morphing video). It's interesting: this technology has been around for years, so it's amazing no-one's done this sort of thing before (well, as far as I'm aware, anyway).

200 Points of Light

2007-08-19T22:02:00.000+10:00

Have a look at this. It's a HyperCard stack, created in 1990, demonstrating a 3D interface for finding documents:

It was developed at MAYA Design Inc.

museums + blogging, tag clouds & folksonomies

2007-07-27T17:17:00.000+10:00

On 18 July 2007, I attended an interesting seminar at the Australian Museum, on museums + blogging, tags, tag clouds & folksonomies.

Here are some of my notes:

1. Museum Blogs
Mel Broe, Master of Design Science, Digital Media, University of Sydney

Museum 2.0 blog
(By the way, check out the YouTube video: a 3D -- or 4D, really -- recreation of Van Gogh's "Starry Night" - also here.)

Museum Journal, Mel's own Blog, contains some helpful definitions.

Fresh+new (Powerhouse Museum's blog):
"Discussion of issues in digital media and museums"
Check out their disclaimer: "This site is for discussion purposes only and does not represent the official views of the Powerhouse Museum. Any views expressed on this website are those of the individual post author only. The Powerhouse Museum accepts no liability for the content of this site." I raised the issue of whether or not this would actually have legal validity. No-one there was a lawyer, as far as I know :-). Probably the answer to this question would only be determined if the issue were tested in court.

Mel made the point that blogs are more effective, in that they encourage more involvement from others, the more "straightforward" they are (i.e. in their interface). This is one place where "plain", text-based interaction is better than attractive and "clever" design.

2. Tag Clouds
Roger Hudson, Web Usability

18th C: Carl (or Carolus) Linnaeus: often called the Father of Taxonomy = hierarchical classification systems
(e.g., for living things:
- Domain
- - Kingdom
- - - Branch
- - - - Phylum
- - - - - Order
- - - - - - Family
- - - - - - - Genus
- - - - - - - - Species)

1876: Melvil Dewey: created Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) System (also hierarchical)
Very conservative, Protestant, white, American (So, e.g. 200-299 = Religion & mythology, but 200-289: Christianity; 290-299: All other religions!)

1930s: S. R. Ranganathan: developed his faceted classification scheme to overcome limitations of DDC. A faceted system recognises that any given subject has many aspects, and tries to synthesise these aspects in a way that best describes the subject. (See the Mystic Seaport website for an article on "Ranganathan and Facet Analysis")
>> Precursor to tags (& metatags)
E.g.
Epicurious:
Individual recipes can be discovered by "cuisine", "course", "occasion", "preparation method" or "main ingredients"
Etsy:
Individual items can be discovered by colour, type, location of seller, or "connection" with other items
(By the way, check out the amazing find-by-colour page.)

"Folksonomy" (portmanteau word: folk+taxonomy): See vanderwal.net for a discussion of folksonomy.
Assumption: If enough people tag an object, interesting and useful patterns will appear.
On the other hand, there may be a danger of "tag swamp"
May be necessary sometimes to cull tags?

Tag clouds (e.g. del.icio.us/tag): a list of linked tags where text-size reflects popularity
However, this is still not commonly understood: approx. 1/2 of people assume that relative sizes reflect the site owner's priorities.

Australian Museum Seminar Series (audio + transcripts)

Why Doctor Dada?

2007-07-25T16:44:00.000+10:00

In the mid-1990s, I created two interactive performances at the Art Gallery of New South Wales: Doctor Dada's Time Machine and Just Jack the Garbage Man. In Doctor Dada's Time Machine, I became a 'mad' scientist who invited visitors to travel back in time imaginatively to the studios of famous artists. In one part of the performance, one member of the audience, acting as a nineteenth century academic painter, and another, acting as an Impressionist, would argue about what makes 'good art'. In Just Jack, I assumed the character of a garbage collector whose calling in life is to arrange junk on the floor of the Art Gallery so that the 'authorities' (i.e. director, curators and cleaners!) would treat it as a work of art rather than junk. To achieve this, the styles of various paintings and sculptures nearby were studied and copied. The audience was invited to help and by so doing, learnt first-hand some of the principles of composition.

Since that time, when I was asked to do a presentation for fellow museum educators or trainee guides, I was often asked to do a "Doctor Dada", meaning something that involves the audience in a fun, imaginative way, including the junk-on-the-floor routine. Then, before long, Doctor Dada became a kind of alter ego for me.

Welcome

2007-07-20T13:30:00.000+10:00

Well, this was even easier to set up that I expected. Topics that I plan to discuss here include:

Museums
The Web
Education
Computer programming (in Revolution and its precursor, HyperCard)
Philosophy (as it relates to the above topics; for more general philosophical musings, see my other blog, “Some thoughts about...”.)

Plus their interactions (e.g. Museums and the Web)
Watch this space.