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

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?

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:

1. exhibitions change, so promoting them makes their websites look more dynamic, and
2. 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.

Are people drawn to faces on web pages?

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

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 >

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

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.

Read more...

SmARThistory

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.

Participation through Collaboration: Making Visitors Feel Needed

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.

The Memory Book: Museum gathers content online

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

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

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.

museums + blogging, tag clouds & folksonomies

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)