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Delightfully Lost: A New Kind of Wayfinding at Kew
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.”
SDNHM Tour and Digitization Discussion
San Diego Natural History Museum
Delightfully lost: a new kind of wayfinding at Kew
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.
Hot Button Issues: Science, Technology, Topicality & Uncertainty in Museum Exhibits
How can museum technologists and multimedia designers partner with researchers and content specialists to communicate cutting-edge science to public audiences? Advances in communication and multimedia technologies offer new possibilities for developing exhibits that are not only more engaging to audiences but that are also updateable and that layer information.
Bringing Citizen Scientists and Historians Together
Fiona Romeo and Lucinda Blaser, National Maritime Museum, United Kingdom
http://www.oldweather.org | http://www.solarstormwatch.com
Abstract
This paper outlines how citizen science projects Solar Stormwatch and Old Weather play to the potentially different motivations of science and history enthusiasts. It draws on informal feedback from the forums and other social channels but also references well-documented crowdsourcing projects Galaxy Zoo and the Australian Newspapers Digitisation Program. It concludes with recommendations for attracting both lightweight contributions and sustained collaboration in online volunteering projects.
Keywords: citizen science, crowdsourcing, digitisation, communities, science, history
Tour 1: Science Museum New Media
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Archives & Museum Informatics EIN: 77-0708617; GST / BN 887978914
Description
Three important early 19th century science museums within a few blocks of each other in Center City Philadelphia are meeting their audiences in new ways in the 21st century.
Bringing citizen scientists and historians together
The National Maritime Museum invited the Naval-History.net community to join the Zooniverse citizen science platform to help extract meteorological data from historic ship logs. The data generated via the Old Weather website will be used by scientists at the Met Office to build better climate models.