museumsandtheweb.com - mobile

Beyond Cool: Making Mobile Augmented Reality Work for Museum Education

smannion — Sun, 14 Oct 2012 02:43:30 +0000

MW2012

Shelley Mannion, Samsung Digital Discovery Centre at The British Museum, United Kingdom

http://www.britishmuseum.org/samsungcentre

Abstract

In fall 2010, the British Museum’s education team embarked on a multi-year plan to explore the potential of Augmented Reality (AR) in our galleries. We have since run four AR projects for young people, each of which focused on a different aspect of the technology. Our first project focused on revealing content on markers; the second on creating alternative views on the collection; the third on location-based AR for navigation; and the fourth on exhibiting virtual art in the galleries. These projects have both challenged and surprised us. Technical problems like the instability of compasses for positioning and poor 3G reception have challenged us to find workable solutions. Working with different age groups in formal and informal education settings led to discoveries about AR’s ability to delight and engage young learners and to teach fine motor skills. Shoestring budgets forced us to be creative and resourceful in our approach to mobile app development. Here, we share our experiences and lessons learned in integrating AR into museum and gallery learning programs.

Program Item Reference:

Beyond Cool: Making Mobile Augmented Reality Work for Museum Education

If mobile is the answer, what was the question?

hughw — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 17:07:17 +0000

MW2012

Hugh Wallace, National Museums Scotland; Loic Tallon, Pocket-Proof; and Dafydd James, Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales, United Kingdom

Abstract

Despite an ever-increasing urgency within institutions to deliver a mobile project, in the experience of National Museums Scotland and National Museum Wales, significant challenges exist in securing cross-departmental teams for these projects, managing internal expectations, and ensuring that the project is aligned with the institution’s core mission. To overcome these challenges, these two institutions each adopted an approach based on design briefs, cross-departmental collaboration, internal creative workshops, and downplaying the emphasis on technology. The following paper explores the resulting challenges, decisions and outcomes with a view to identifying a framework for planning digital projects more generally.

Program Item Reference:

Delivering mobile from the ground-up: exploring the approach

Multi-channel communication

Rich Cherry — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 04:27:15 +0000

Type:

Session

Conference:

MW2012

Date & Time:

April 14, 2012 - 9:00am - 10:00am

Location:

Nautilus 1

mobile

app

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Archives & Museum Informatics EIN: 77-0708617; GST / BN 887978914

Description

Delightfully Lost: A New Kind of Wayfinding at Kew

Natasha Waterson — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 22:04:12 +0000

MW2012

Natasha Waterson and Mike Saunders, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, United Kingdom

www.kew.org

Abstract

In October 2010, Kew Gardens commissioned an in-depth study of visitors’ motivations and information needs around its 300-acre site, with the express aim that it should guide the development of new mobile apps. The work involved over 1,500 visitor-tracking observations, 350 mini-interviews, 200 detailed exit interviews, and 85 fulfilment maps; and gave Kew an incredibly useful insight into its visitors’ wants, needs, and resulting behaviours.

It turns out that most Kew visitors have social, emotional, and spiritual, rather than intellectual, motivations during their time here. They do not come hoping to find out more, and they don’t want or need to know precisely where they are all the time. In fact, they love the sense of unguided exploration and the serendipitous discoveries they make at Kew—they want to become “delightfully lost.”

Program Item Reference:

Delightfully lost: a new kind of wayfinding at Kew

Augmented Reality—What Reality Can We Learn From It?

cherry_thian — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 21:22:20 +0000

MW2012

Cherry Thian, Asian Civilisations Museum, Singapore

www.acm.org.sg

Abstract

In June 2011, the Asian Civilisations Museum launched an integrated iPhone app—the world’s first museum app to combine augmented reality (AR), location-based gaming, and interactive features—in its special exhibition Terracotta Warriors: The First Emperor and His Legacy. Specially designed to tell a story that complements the content and flow of the exhibition in seven interactive chapters, each chapter highlights at least one object in the exhibition and attempts to engage visitors on a more personal level. As the story progresses, visitors respond to image markers that launch augmented reality and gaming experiences that breathe life into the objects.

Program Item Reference:

Augmented Reality – What reality can we learn from it?

What's new about the Museum of Old and New Art (MONA)?

NancyProctor — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 18:35:37 +0000

MW2012

Keywords:

MONA

Keywords:

The O

Keywords:

Australia

Keywords:

mobile

Keywords:

business models

Keywords:

Museum of Old and New Art

Keywords:

Tasmania

Keywords:

private museum

Keywords:

David Walsh

Keywords:

for-profit

Abstract:

From their beginning, museums have adopted a wide range of approaches and business models for collecting and exhibiting, from non-profit to for-profit, from public to private, and from community to individual visions. With its arguably unique and often controversial format, the Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) has reopened intense discussions and debates among museum professionals, the press and the public at large about some of the key issues underlying the business of museums: audience engagement, experience design, ethics, branding and marketing, interpretation and sustainability. Join this roundtable discussion with representatives from MONA, its mobile interpretation solutions developers, and leading museum professionals from around the world to ask what museums of all kinds can learn from new approaches to these important topics.

Type:

Professional Forum - discuss an issue

Professional Forum about the Museum of Old and New Art (MONA)?

Site:

http://mona.net.au/

Authors:

Susan Chun

Mary Lijnzaad

Sebastian Chan

DAM_SCOUT: A mobile experience platform at the Denver Art Museum

Koven Smith — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 17:53:11 +0000

MW2012

Keywords:

mobile

Keywords:

content management

Keywords:

publication platform

Keywords:

iPhone app

Keywords:

android

Keywords:

digital mobile museum tour

Abstract:

This presentation will be a demonstration of the capabilities of the DAM_SCOUT mobile application platform, developed in 2011 at the Denver Art Museum. Visitors to the demonstration will be taken through a number of the possible scenarios enabled by the platform, including traditional tours, sharing, long-term narratives, person-based content triggering, and others. Attendees will be able to download and use the mobile app as well as see a demonstration of the Content Management System being used to provide content to the app. Because DAM_SCOUT is a different type of mobile platform from the traditional tour-based experiences, the demonstration will be used as a jumping-off point to engage with attendees in discussions about how to expand, extend, and re-imagine the kinds of experiences visitors to museums can have.

Type:

Demonstration - show your project

MW2012 Demonstrations I

Site:

http://collective.denverartmuseum.org/

Authors:

Koven Smith

Quick and dirty AR for mobile devices: A workshop

smannion — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 07:36:28 +0000

MW2012

Keywords:

augmented reality

Keywords:

mobile

Keywords:

android

Keywords:

iphone

Keywords:

application

Keywords:

device

Abstract:

The British Museum, Exploratorium and several other cultural institutions have built AR applications on Juanio, a free, cross-platform Augmented Reality browser. Juanio has an open API for developers which makes the creation of new apps (or “channels”) a quick and simple process for any competent programmer. By April 2012, Junaio will have released a WYSIWIG Content Creator to make this process even easier. The goal of this mini-workshop is to demonstrate how easily an Augmented Reality application can be built and to build a working app by the end of the hour that can be viewed throughout the conference.

Jointly-led between museum staff who have implemented Junaio channels and developers from Metaio, which produces Junaio, the session is intended for technical staff, programmers or project managers who want to quickly get up to speed with AR. It will be of particular benefit for small museums which have limited resources to devote to cutting edge technologies like AR, but want to understand how to put together a compelling, working app on a shoestring budget.

The AR app produced in the workshop can demonstrate some of the newest and most interesting features of Junaio including 2D image recognition and 3D tracking. It will include pre-prepared rich media content and content that participants download from their institution’s own website. It will be accessible through the Junaio browser, which can be downloaded free from the Apple AppMarket and Andriod Store. It will run on any smartphone or tablet with Juanio installed. If it is a location-based channel, virtual content can be viewed by anyone (not just workshop participants) in and around the MW conference venue for the duration of the event.

To be clear, the workshop is not intended to promote use of Juanio to the exclusion of other tools, but to show the steps in creating any successful AR application and how museum content should be designed and produced for mobile AR. Wherever possible alternative tools and techniques will be mentioned and parallels drawn between what is being shown in Junaio and how to accomplish the same task on other platforms. The format of the mini-workshop is based on a successful model developed at The British Museum in which children age 9-15 produced Junaio AR channels in less than a day.

Type:

Workshop - full or half day

Quick and dirty AR for mobile devices

Authors:

Shelley Mannion

You’ve Gone Mobile, Now What?

ABurnette — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 06:43:15 +0000

MW2012

Keywords:

mobile

Keywords:

MoMA

Keywords:

audience

Keywords:

apps

Keywords:

SFMOMA

Keywords:

revenue

Abstract:

This paper and presentation uses the experiences and research underway at both an art museum and a science museum to build on last year’s presentation, Getting On (Not Under) the Mobile 2.0 Bus. Following the launches of several mobile initiatives at The Museum of Modern Art, including an iPhone/Android app, an exhibition-specific iPad app, a mobile version of their website, MoMA.org, and a pending activity app, the museum has begun to ask themselves a series of questions about the use and future expansion of their overall mobile program. In the meantime, the Museum of Science, Boston, has been exploring various mobile experiences and related business models, including treks for visitors on the SCVNGR game platform, a mobile interpretive application for the permanent Museum Then & Now exhibit, collaborations with local companies to produce near location-based mobile applications, and research and development in experience-enhancing mobile applications, such as augmented reality implementations. As the applications of mobile technologies are broad, the Museum of Science is likewise beginning to assess the success of recent mobile endeavors and assess the best strategy for future mobile development and implementations.

Rather than being a case study of what’s already been done, however, this paper and subsequent presentation will focus more on the present and future. How are the existing mobile applications and sites being used? What are the considerations for building an app that serves both in-house and off-site audiences? How do we assess ROI for both mission and margin? How do we create sustainable solutions for mobile experiences? How do we build mobile experiences specific to different museum environments and modes of visitor participation? And finally, what does looking beyond museums reveal about where the industry is going in terms of features, audience, and revenue?

Type:

Paper - in formal session

Mobile strategy

Authors:

Allegra Burnette

Marc Check

Perils and Opportunity: Going Virtual, Mobile, and Toying with Reality.

hannerl — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 03:53:11 +0000

MW2012

Keywords:

mobile

Keywords:

technology

Keywords:

Augmented Reality (AR)

Keywords:

organizational change

Keywords:

collaboration

Abstract:

Creating strategies and opportunities for storytelling and sharing in an increasingly networked, mobile, and interactive social and built environment, is a complex challenge facing museums of all sizes. At the same time, finding new tools and collaborative modes of creating and sharing content has become a central challenge for many. In particular, museums face myriad technological, organizational, and collaborative challenges, for adopting and developing the connections, knowledge, and resources to find the best fit and form for their changing needs and audiences. This forum will consider the centrality of both organizational as well as technological practices and strategies for navigating this important shift in an increasingly web-made and mobile world.

Brief case study reflections from the Museum of Vancouver (MOV) and the Royal BC Museum (RBCM) will share insights from mobile-enhanced Virtual Museum of Canada projects, "The Visible City" (MOV), and "Invasive Species" (RBCM). Additional examples from the MOV's Bhangra.me storymap, and RBCM's wayfinding navigational applications, will be provided.

Key areas for discussion will be:
-Common areas of misconception about mobile/web applications/tools, and how do we overcome them?
-is collaborative content development and decision-making a necessary evil, or just another characteristic of the new networked reality of interactive web?
-Is "forgetting" exhibition best practices from the offline realm, when designing for the online/mobile realm, something we should encourage or counteract?
-Are small budgets and big projects like Augmented Reality apps really such strange bedfellows?

Type:

Demonstration - show your project

MW2012 Demonstrations III

Authors:

Hanna Cho

Eric Espig

Creating a mobile app ecosystem - the Genera project for iOS

thesherrin — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 02:26:06 +0000

MW2012

Published Paper:

Creating a Mobile App Ecosystem—The Genera Project for iOS

Keywords:

iOS

Keywords:

mobile

Keywords:

app

Keywords:

development

Keywords:

open source

Keywords:

collaboration

Keywords:

apps

Keywords:

Field Guide

Keywords:

natural science

Keywords:

code

Abstract:

At the start of 2011, Australia’s Museum Victoria (MV), published a Field Guide for Victorian Animals for iOS devices: iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. The app currently contains information for approximately 650 Victorian animal species, including birds, mammals, snakes, lizards and frogs, as well as butterflies, snails, spiders and other invertebrates. Released for free, the app was downloaded over 20,000 times in its first 7 months.
In August 2011, Museum Victoria (MV) released the source code for the app under an open source license. Organisations and individuals have used the code to produce field guides for something specific as the frogs within a river catchment area, to the fauna of Papua New Guinea.
The field guide data structure and code is built for displaying information about fauna, however the presentation structure of the app is suitable for displaying information about a wide range of fields. This lead to the development of the Genera project for iOS, which, rather than requiring the data about an object to be supplied in a specific structure to fit the database, adjusts the the database based on the structure of the data supplied. This project can be used to create guides for flora, fauna, minerals or any type of object. The subject of the guide does not have to be a homogenous class of objects, but through the use of templates and identifiers can accommodate heterogenous classes (e.g. fauna and flora).
This paper discusses how the work done by other organisations and the experience of developing the field guide has lead to the development of the Genera project for iOS. Key to the project is the separation of the data, platform and presentation layers. A description of how other organisations can use the Genera platform for their own apps, and suggestions on issues to consider when developing natives app for reuse by other institutions are presented.

Type:

Paper - in formal session

Mobile strategy

Authors:

Simon Sherrin

Elycia Wallis

Interface content: it's not the size, but how you use it

athibodeau — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 00:18:08 +0000

MW2012

Keywords:

content strategy

Keywords:

content

Keywords:

apps

Keywords:

mobile

Keywords:

Interface

Abstract:

Museums are increasingly looking for ways to connect to people on their own devices inside and outside of the museum space. Smartphones and tablets have helped drive the popular use of apps, traditional websites often don’t translate well to mobile devices, and increasingly, people are looking for a more immersive and creative online experience. Partly in response to this, in the past few years a new range of museum apps have cropped up.

This means that interface content should be more important to museums than ever. The problem? People often overlook it or don't know how to apply content strategy practices to constrained copy. This workshop will introduce techniques specifically aimed at addressing button text, links, labels, menus, interactive components and other pieces of interface content.

We’ll look at ways that people concerned with content can ensure that their interface copy is clear, user friendly, predictable and consistent with their organizational voice. Although this will be most applicable to those who are thinking about developing their own app, it will also be useful for anyone who is interested in improving the smaller, interface elements of their website.

Through practical examples and hands-on exercises, we’ll cover:

What is content strategy and how can it be applied to micro content
What to include in a micro-content style guide
How to audit and track interface content
Creating strong and clear calls to action on buttons and links

This workshop will be designed with the under resourced museum professional in mind. This means people who often act in multiple roles including wordsmith, educator, technical expert and possibly even user experience designer. No prior experience necessary. Bring your questions.

Type:

Mini-Workshop - teaches something or explores approaches

Site:

https://facebook.com/amy.thibodeau

Authors:

Amy Thibodeau

Mini-workshop:Drop-In Clinic for Building Better Mobile Projects, From Processes toOutcomes

SandyGoldberg — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 17:13:51 +0000

MW2012

Keywords:

mobile

Keywords:

technology

Keywords:

project management

Keywords:

content

Keywords:

organisational change

Keywords:

discussion

Abstract:

The leaders of this workshop have worked across museums of every kind in theUS and the UK, helping client museums develop frameworks for technology,experience design, and content in mobile projects. This mini-workshop will runas a drop-in clinic; bring your mobile “aches and pains,” whether you’re part ofa mobile project team, or looking for insights into the process. The leaders willhelp diagnose problems and propose prescriptions for healthier processes andoutcomes.

In this clinic, you’ll learn how to build healthy habits for mobile projectmanagement, technological decisions, and for stretching creative muscles.The mini-workshop leaders will share their experiences, tips and tricks forgetting to “YES” from various stakeholders, collaborators and different museumdepartments, and steering them towards more creative outcomes than they mighthave envisioned at the project’s inception.

Type:

Mini-Workshop - teaches something or explores approaches

Mini-workshop: Drop-In Clinic for Building Better Mobile Projects, From Processes to Outcomes

Authors:

Sandy Goldberg

Lindsey Green

Alyson Webb

Delivering mobile from the ground-up: exploring the approach

hughw — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 15:29:16 +0000

MW2012

Published Paper:

If mobile is the answer, what was the question?

Keywords:

mobile

Keywords:

digital

Keywords:

framework

Keywords:

evaluation

Keywords:

interpretation

Keywords:

access

Abstract:

The challenges of delivering a meaningful ‘mobile’ experience for an institution are not always technology-related. Securing cross-departmental stakeholder investment and ensuring alignment with the institution’s core mission have been key for National Museums Scotland and National Museum Wales in developing a framework for their mobile programme. This paper will explain how these organisations sought to overcome organisational challenges from the outset; pushing forward ideas and taking a common approach to planning mobile projects that can be adopted by other institutions.

National Museums Scotland and National Museum Wales have many similarities in their structure and set-up. Both operate a main base out of their respective capital cities (Edinburgh and Cardiff) and have a mix of specialist rural and urban-based museums. Since 2009 the proportion of online visitors from mobile devices has increased significantly for both organisations; taking this on board alongside in-gallery research and predicted market trends, both have begun developing a programme of mobile interpretation using the same user-focused approach.

For the National Museum Wales this is about making information accessible, as well as creating a link between historic buildings and collections in a rural setting at the National History Museum at St Fagans. For National Museums Scotland it’s about bringing new interpretation and innovation to the recently-reopened National Museum of Scotland. Importantly, neither approach has focused on technology in the first instance - workshop sessions have concentrated on getting the right people to take a balanced view of audience needs and create design briefs that tie closely to each organisation’s strategic objectives.

Both projects have their specific challenges and the session will explore what led them to take certain decisions, what the outcomes have been to date, the broader implications for developing mobile products in terms of cost and impact on the museum technical infrastructure, and the lessons they feel will benefit other museums looking to develop their own plans.

Type:

Paper - in formal session

Optimizing engagement

Authors:

Hugh Wallace

Dafydd James

Loic Tallon

Delightfully lost: a new kind of wayfinding at Kew

Natasha Waterson — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 14:36:26 +0000

MW2012

Published Paper:

Delightfully Lost: A New Kind of Wayfinding at Kew

Keywords:

mobile

Keywords:

audience research

Keywords:

apps

Keywords:

evaluation

Keywords:

science

Keywords:

wayfinding

Keywords:

botanic garden

Abstract:

In October 2010, Kew Gardens commissioned an in-depth study of visitors’ motivations and information needs around its 300 acre site, with the express aim that it should guide the development of new mobile apps. The work involved over 1500 visitor tracking observations, 350 mini interviews, 200 detailed exit interviews and 85 fulfilment maps and gave Kew an incredibly useful insight into its visitors’ wants, needs and resulting behaviours.

It turns out that most Kew visitors have social, emotional and spiritual, rather than intellectual, motivations during their time here. They do not come hoping to find out more and they don’t want or need to know precisely where they are all the time. In fact, they love the sense of unguided exploration and the serendipitous discoveries they make at Kew – they want to become ‘delightfully lost’.

This paper will explore how this perhaps counter-intuitive idea – to help visitors become ‘delightfully lost’ – has influenced mobile thinking at Kew. What impact has it had on mobile concept development, design, and marketing? It will then ask whether this principle might reasonably apply in other outdoor visitor attractions, museums and galleries – using existing case studies to draw out parallels and differences.

Finally this paper will look at the results of Kew’s summative evaluation of its garden app – does quantitative and qualitative data suggest we achieved our aims? And what does this mean for future mobile developments across the Gardens?

Type:

Paper - in formal session

Pervasive Fun

Site:

http://www.kew.org/mobileapp

Authors:

Natasha Waterson

Mike Saunders

Supporting the in-gallery experience on mobile devices

RachaelRainbow — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 13:50:46 +0000

MW2012

Keywords:

mobile

Keywords:

visitor engagement

Keywords:

user-centred design

Keywords:

user testing

Keywords:

content management

Abstract:

The mobile-optimised website launched by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in September, was specifically designed to support the physical visitor to the Museum and to enhance their in-gallery experience. To achieve this we undertook a user-centered design process that included a number of iterations moving from low-fi paper prototyping, through to testing a fully working version of the site with visitors in the Museum.

In this paper we look at the vision that inspired the mobile version of metmuseum.org; how we implemented the iterative user testing approach; the findings from our testing that were incorporated into the mobile version and the technical implementation that enables a mobile optimised site to be built using the content generated for the main site.

Type:

Demonstration - show your project

MW2012 Demonstrations III

Site:

http://www.metmuseum.org/?sc_device=mobile

Authors:

Rachael Rainbow

Using QR codes, mobile apps and wifi tracking data to understand visitor behaviour in exhibitions

sebchan — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 05:12:29 +0000

MW2012

Keywords:

QR codes

Keywords:

mobile

Keywords:

evaluation

Keywords:

r&d

Abstract:

In the last twelve months QR codes have reached a new level of hype within the museum community - increasing as their proliferation in street advertising in the USA and Europe has increased. Even with more deployments of QR codes into gallery spaces there has been little quantitative or qualitative research thus far on how visitors actually use these codes, whether they deliver real value, and, importantly, whether their presence changes the 'gallery experience' for users and non-users alike.

In early 2009 the Powerhouse Museum experimented unsuccessfully with QR codes but again tried implementing them in a new temporary exhibition in 2011. Coming from the failures of 2009 and the need to understand more about how visitors used the codes, a three tiered approach was designed to understand the behaviour of smartphone carrying visitors in an exhibition. The approach used a combination of technology implementations - free public wifi, QR codes on every object label, a free Android and iOS mobile app containing rich exhibition catalogue content and, crucially, a built-in QR scanner, as well as wifi user tracking, and automated threshold counting.

This paper discussed the technical implementation of the project and how the design of the project evolved as the exhibition launched and then attracted visitors. The paper reveals the results of the different tracking technologies - what proportion of exhibition visitors scanned the QR codes; which objects were scanned; which objects were most viewed on the App; dwell times by wifi enabled smartphone; and, what proportion of visitors carried wifi enabled smartphones into the exhibition during the sampling period.

By collecting this data together and visualising it, the paper makes recommendations for new ways of (re)designing exhibitions with a better understanding of how smartphone users navigate them - as well as how to more successfully implement QR codes and other visitor-driven technologies in galleries.

Type:

Paper - in formal session

Tools for tapping into visitor behavior

Site:

http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/lovelace

Authors:

Sebastian Chan

Luke Dearnley

Situating Cultural Technologies Outdoors: Designing for Mobile Interpretation of Rock Art in Rural Britain

deborahmaxwell — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 18:43:11 +0000

MW2011

Areti Galani, Deborah Maxwell, Aron Mazel, Kate Sharpe, International Centre for Cultural and Heritage Studies, Newcastle University, United Kingdom

http://rockartmobile.wordpress.com/

Abstract

Mobile development and technology is the now, the here, the cutting edge. Rock art, or 'cup and ring' marks – abstract Neolithic and Early Bronze Age carvings in stone – is the past. This paper discusses the Rock Art Mobile Project (RAMP) which addresses the challenge of designing and delivering mobile interpretation to three rock art areas in Northumberland, UK. RAMP proposes a departure from the more traditional design approaches of delivering scientific content in the form of an archaeological mobile guide. It acknowledges that rock art interpretation requires a 'design space', which facilitates empathy between users and designers, and allows the existing archaeological content, the public's fascination with the 'cryptic' meaning of the rock art sites and the technological, environmental and personal situation of the user to be explored and to inspire technological development.

Keywords: experience-centred design, mobile, digital interpretation, design methods, user experience, outdoors

http://rockartmobile.wordpress.com

Program Item Reference:

Situating Cultural Technologies Outdoors: Design Methods for Mobile Interpretation of Rock Art in Rural Britain

Explorer - Mobile Navigation and Interpretation at the American Museum of Natural History

lperrylube — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 19:08:15 +0000

MW2011

Linda Perry-Lube and Melissa Lefkowitz, American Museum of Natural History, USA

http://www.amnh.org/apps/explorer.php

Abstract

This paper advocates a visitor-centric approach to designing a solution for navigation and interpretation. The American Museum of Natural History iPhone application Explorer combines state of the art location awareness, interpretation, and social networking to deliver an enhanced visitor experience both onsite and online. AMNH had four objectives with this project: to facilitate visitor navigation, to provide an application that appeals to visitors and encourages repeat visits, to enhance exhibit information without detracting from the exhibits themselves; and to anneal visitors' onsite and online experiences. This paper examines the reasoning behind utilizing a mobile device for wayfinding; the choice of the iPhone platform; the challenge of bringing "GPS indoors" and the resultant technical solution; feature set determination and usability; the role of mobile devices in the pre- and post-Museum visit continuum; the challenges of curated mobile content creation; deploying the application on Museum-supplied devices and through the iTunes store; and marketing of the device and app. The authors present the challenges faced by the American Museum of Natural History in executing a cross-Museum enterprise and share lessons learned, in order to offer the wider museum community an opportunity to build on our experience and expertise.

Keywords: mobile, iphone app, location awareness, digital mobile museum tour, mobile exhibition, wayfinding

Program Item Reference:

Explorer - Mobile Navigation and Interpretation at the American Museum of Natural History

Collaboration, Dark Fiber and the Challenges of Deploying Mobile Infrastructure

Rich Cherry — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 14:09:26 +0000

MW2011

Rich Cherry, Balboa Park Online Collaborative, USA

http://www.bpoc.org

Abstract

The Balboa Park Online Collaborative (BPOC) was created to lead technology-focused cooperation between 21 Balboa Park institutions. One of the challenges BPOC quickly uncovered when it began was a serious limitation to supporting collaboration caused by the lack of IT infrastructure necessary to network the institutions together. As a result, BPOC has installed the infrastructure necessary for a high speed (1GB/second) connection to network the organizations, to provide a 100mb Internet connection, and also to provide a connection to CalREN, the California Research and Education Network to which the vast majority of the state's K-20 educational institutions are connected. The connection to CalREN also provides connectivity to non-California institutions and industry research organizations such as Internet2, high-speed networks in Mexico and the Association of Pacific Rim Universities Networks.

This mini workshop will explore the technology options as they relate to Wide Area Networks (WANs) and the technical, civil engineering and political challenges that the different options create; provide a planning checklist for dealing with the challenges; and describe the reasons that multiple institutions might desire to collaborate on a private WAN. All of this information will then be reviewed in the context of the Balboa Park Network Project deployment as well as other museum WAN deployments, with failures and successes highlighted.

Keywords: technology-focused collaboration, networking, collaboration, mobile

Program Item Reference:

Collaboration and Dark Fiber

Release Your Local Species into the iOS Ecosystem

thesherrin — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 15:16:35 +0000

MW2011

Simon Sherrin, Museum Victoria, Australia

Abstract

At the start of 2011, Australia's Museum Victoria (MV), published a Field Guide to Victorian Animals for iOS devices: iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. The MV field guide uses data written by MV's science curators, and images and sounds exported from MV's collection management system. Museum Victoria has released the source code for the app under an open source license. This paper shows how any institution can use that code and their own data, images and audio to customize and publish a field guide for their local area on iOS devices.

Keywords: field guide, natural history, mobile, iOS, open source

Program Item Reference:

Release your local species into the iOS ecosystem.

Launching the MFA Multimedia Guide: Lessons Learned

jenabah — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 16:45:39 +0000

MW2011

Jenna Fleming, Phil Getchell and Jesse Kochis, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, USA

http://www.mfa.org

Abstract

In this paper, we share lessons learned from the MFA's transition from audio guide to multimedia guide in the fall of 2010. Learnings include prototyping and evaluation; device and equipment selection; content production and content management; and operational considerations.

Keywords: mobile, iPod, audio guide, content, multimedia

Program Item Reference:

Launching the MFA Multimedia Guide: Lessons Learned

Mobile Phones and Visitor Tracking

JulianBickersteth — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 19:18:01 +0000

MW2011

Julian Bickersteth, Smarttrack and International Conservation Services, Sydney, Australia; and Christopher Ainsley, Shoppertrak, USA

Abstract

Google Analytics provides museums with extensive data around visits to their virtual sites. Physical visits and directional paths which visitors take around museums are currently much harder to monitor. This paper discusses the opportunity that mobile phone Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and TMSI signals provide to allow visitor tracking. The resulting data has potentially great value to museums in understanding how exhibitions and museum spaces are used, in forming exhibition design, assessing the return on investment of interactives, and even profiling visitors. A pilot study undertaken in the retail sector is discussed.

Keywords: visitor tracking, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, TMSI signals

Program Item Reference:

Mobile Phones and Visitor Tracking

Omnidirectional visitor interaction

dbear — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 16:00:11 +0000

Type:

Session

Theme:

Exhibitor Briefing

Programs:

Multimedia guide, visitor interaction omnidirectional

Date & Time:

April 9, 2011 - 10:00am - 11:00am

Location:

Washington

mobile

visitor interaction

bi-directional communication

Required fields are marked with a red asterisk (*).

A confirmation of your registration will be sent to your email address. Please print it out and bring it to the conference.

You will not receive registration confirmation by regular mail.

If you do not receive your confirmation today, please contact us.

Archives & Museum Informatics EIN: 77-0708617; GST / BN 887978914

Description

A briefing on one of Nous Guide's recent projects ....

Flexible Mobile Guides

dbear — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 15:57:06 +0000

Type:

Session

Theme:

Exhibitor Briefing

Programs:

Creating a Long-term Mobile Strategy: Is it possible?

Date & Time:

April 9, 2011 - 9:00am - 10:00am

Location:

Commonwealth A/B

mobile

tour guides

smart phones

Required fields are marked with a red asterisk (*).

A confirmation of your registration will be sent to your email address. Please print it out and bring it to the conference.

You will not receive registration confirmation by regular mail.

If you do not receive your confirmation today, please contact us.

Archives & Museum Informatics EIN: 77-0708617; GST / BN 887978914

Description

A briefing on TourSphere's recent projects ....

Creating a Long-term Mobile Strategy: Is it possible?

juliet — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 19:21:24 +0000

MW2011

Keywords:

mobile

Keywords:

smartphone

Keywords:

iPhone apps

Abstract:

Sure. You can create a one-off iPhone app. But what do you need to think about to create a long-term mobile strategy that works for your museum?
THE MOBILE LANDSCAPE
Since 2009, the sales of smartphone devices have increased nearly
100 percent, according to a Gartner study. The mobile market has more than 4 billion subscribers and access to the internet has never been less dependent on location than it is today. Gartner predicts that by 2013, mobile phones could surpass PCs as the way people access the web, with the number of smartphones and web-enabled phones worldwide reaching 1.82 billion and continuing to climb. With growth, the smartphone market is becoming increasingly diverse. Several platforms exist for mobile phone apps, including Apple, Android, Symbian and Windows.
THE COST
With no single platform dominating the market, it’s difficult to make a decision about which type of app to develop, and expensive to develop applications for more than one. In addition, native apps are cost-prohibitive for many organizations, especially smaller ones. Forrester estimates that a basic, no-frills app can cost $20,000, with a sophisticated app running as much as $150,000. The cost is for a single platform—say, the iPhone or the Android—and is repeated if apps are being developed for multiple platforms to allow the full spectrum of visitors to access them. Any changes to the app and regular maintenance require a programmer, with an estimated cost of $5,000 to $8,000 per year. Developing a native app also requires the developer to go through the app store submission process on each platform, which can be time-consuming and frustrating. Each update made by a programmer requires another submission through the app stores. This particular step of the process is difficult to control and often riddled with delays.
Native versus Web App?
Streaming versus bundled?
iPhone versus Android?
In-house versus 3rd party developers?
Connectivity?
The questions go on and on.

Type:

Exhibitor Briefing - discuss your product. Confirmed Exhibitors only

Flexible Mobile Guides

Site:

http://www.toursphere.com

Authors:

Andreas Randow

The J. Paul Getty Museum's iPod touch® tour

gemmel — Sat, 01 Jan 2011 00:18:45 +0000

MW2011

Keywords:

mobile

Keywords:

app

Keywords:

multimedia

Keywords:

Multimedia

Keywords:

tour

Keywords:

audio

Keywords:

ipod touch

Abstract:

In June 2010, the J. Paul Getty Museum launched a multimedia tour at the Getty Villa, available on the iPod touch® onsite for visitors to check out.

The tour features videos and insightful commentary from curators and conservators on over 150 works of art in the collection of the J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Villa and in special exhibitions.

Over the summer of 2010, we evaluated the Getty Villa iPod touch® tour -- here are excerpts from the evaluation:

Users selected the words ‘interesting’ (74%), ‘informative’ (73%), ‘accessible’ (71%), ‘educational’ (69%) and ‘engaging’ (66%) most frequently to describe their tour experience out of a list of 22 words including an ‘other’ specified option where visitors could provide their own word or words.

Overall, users rated the tour highly. At least 3 in 4 users were very satisfied, rated the amount of content just right, will strongly recommend and thought the tour made the experience much more enjoyable.

Overwhelmingly, users prefer a multimedia format to traditional audio-only format.

Villa visitor comments about tour (from evalulation):

I knew I could get a guide of some kind. It’s hard for me to read the wall cards. As I get older it’s harder to see.

You learn, which is part of the joy. You see the beauty that you wouldn’t see otherwise. The iPod provided me with more information!

The demonstration will cover a demo of the tour, as well as how we developed, and manage content for updating the tour in-house.

Type:

Demonstration - show your project

Demonstrations II

Site:

http://bit.ly/iPodDemo

Authors:

Steven Gemmel

Multi-Channel

dbear — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 16:41:38 +0000

Type:

Session

Chair:

Peter Samis

Programs:

On air, online and onsite: The British Museum and BBC’s A History of the World

Mobile Means Multi-Platform: Producing Content for the Fast-Changing Mobile Space

The Mystery of the “1940s Time Traveller”: The Changing Face of Online Brand Monitoring

A “Smart” Authoring and Delivery Tool for Multichannel Communication

Date & Time:

April 9, 2011 - 1:30pm - 3:30pm

Location:

Commonwealth C/D

multi-channel

mobile

viral

multi-platform

Required fields are marked with a red asterisk (*).

A confirmation of your registration will be sent to your email address. Please print it out and bring it to the conference.

You will not receive registration confirmation by regular mail.

If you do not receive your confirmation today, please contact us.

Archives & Museum Informatics EIN: 77-0708617; GST / BN 887978914

Description

The website is no longer the only venue and computers are no longer the only interface. How can we ensure that our communications go out through multiple channels and how can we best listen to those channels to respond to our impact?

Mini-Workshop on TourML

dbear — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 23:01:36 +0000

Type:

Session

Programs:

TourML: An Emerging Standard for Museum Mobile Experiences

Date & Time:

April 8, 2011 - 11:00am - 12:00pm

Location:

Commonwealth A/B

mobile

tour

standard

Mini-Workshop

Required fields are marked with a red asterisk (*).

A confirmation of your registration will be sent to your email address. Please print it out and bring it to the conference.

You will not receive registration confirmation by regular mail.

If you do not receive your confirmation today, please contact us.

Archives & Museum Informatics EIN: 77-0708617; GST / BN 887978914

Description

The TourML (tûrmoil) specification offers a working – but preliminary – example of how a standard for museum mobile tours might work. In this Mini-Workshop, the facilitators will review the current state of the TourML draft standard and host a discussion regarding outstanding issues for data modeling and implementation.

Mobile Crit Room

dbear — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 22:44:37 +0000

Type:

Session

Theme:

evaluation

Chair:

Sebastian Chan

Date & Time:

April 8, 2011 - 2:30pm - 4:30pm

Location:

Commonwealth A/B

mobile

crit room

evaluation

Required fields are marked with a red asterisk (*).

A confirmation of your registration will be sent to your email address. Please print it out and bring it to the conference.

You will not receive registration confirmation by regular mail.

If you do not receive your confirmation today, please contact us.

Archives & Museum Informatics EIN: 77-0708617; GST / BN 887978914

Description

For fifteen years we've had a 'Crit Room' to create dialogue with web site designers and explore their visions and implementations. Now that there are mobile applications with different design demands, it's time to give designers of these experiences a place to expose what they have done to the same critical review. Come to see examples of the best, and learn what other designers think about them.