Comments on: Kiosks in Museums: Win, Lose or Draw?

By: Lyn

Lyn — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 04:39:25 +0000

As a visitor I only appreciate technology screens that provide an extra layer of information that is helpful beyond text panels and the visual data of the exhibit. It’s distracting and annoying when there are info stations that are too much in the space of the exhibit where people linger and stare rather than engage with the material subject matter. I appreciate when they are easily accessible but not too much a part of the space. I guess that’s where the debate comes in though.
In regards to the open storage exhibit, have you considered having a laminate card with the numbers printed on it and providing dry erase markers or wax pencils? Assuming there is nothing nearby that the writing could end up on. Visitors could pick up a card and mark off the items they wished to look up and return the cards when they’re done. Maybe have some sort of option on the kiosk so that information being looked up could be emailed to the visitor if they chose.
Problem solving was not the point of the article, I realize, but it got me thinking about how I like to interact with an exhibit. I do like lots of accessible information.

By: Jason Simmons

Jason Simmons — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 19:00:47 +0000

In the work we did with the Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, we focused on presenting a complementary experience to the gallery content and in developing a form factor for an interactive experience more suitable for a gallery. What we arrived at (a prototype, really) is more of a standing desk. Some pics are here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/gradientlabs/sets/72157622036232897/

A large format touch screen monitor is held at a drafting table-like angle, and people stand at it. The interactive lets people explore a temporal network of Warhol-related content, some of which is physically in the gallery, most of which is not. There’s an online version you can use here:

http://warhol.gradientlabs.com

It’s been quite interesting to see how people respond to interactive content vs. static content on the walls. There is quite a bit of text content on the walls in the gallery (which we also designed), and people regularly spend 20+ minutes in this one room reading and looking at the analog timeline that circles the gallery at eye level and the larger text surrounding it.

The interactive was originally designed to be an online experience, and there unfortunately wasn’t a sufficient budget to develop a gallery-tuned experience. We simplified the UI and tuned it for touch interaction, but it has far too much text content for a gallery. People don’t want to read on screen, but they’re happy to move around and read text.

Overall, I’d say the form factor itself has been quite successful, but the interactive we put on it isn’t ideally suited to a gallery. The interactive content needs to be more distributed through the gallery in smaller, more directed chunks.

I’ve been advocating for a mobile app and perhaps a physical token system. It would be far more useful if we could let people capture a record of the things that interest them and empower them to go to an in-gallery interactive and corresponding website to dig deeper. These sorts of things are under discussion as we plan the next iteration of the project.

By: Brooklyn Museum: Community: bloggers@brooklynmuseum » BklynMuse: Going Mobile with a Gallery Guide Powered by People

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 14:44:36 +0000

[…] been on a bit of a failure kick lately—cautious observations of visitors glued to screens and kiosks that drive me slightly bonkers—you may be wondering how this could possibly be different. We designed this interface as more […]

By: From Reality to the Kiosk | newcurator

From Reality to the Kiosk | newcurator — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 22:32:45 +0000

[…] capabilities. Is comes down to a question of design intent or, more specifically, platform. Brooklyn Museum’s Shelley Berstein has written a blog post about kiosks, so I want to share some […]

By: Paul Orselli

Paul Orselli — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 11:43:30 +0000

Hi Shelley,

The more I use technology (of any sort) in museums, the more I think about why the technology is there in the first place.

If the technology doesn’t help me do something better than I could do at home instead (like your website in a kiosk example) or do something that I couldn’t do otherwise (like see a magnified view or IR view of an artwork) why is it there at all?

Unfortunately, many art museums seem to de facto use the near-infinite storage capacity of technology as an excuse to effectively make longer labels, even if in the form of multiple screens, or artist interview videos.

I look forward to seeing your continued explorations of gallery tech.

By: Hui

Hui — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 19:51:03 +0000

I think the kiosks at the visible storage are ok. True, it is hard to remember, but people who are interested will try to remember the number anyway.

However, there are cases when a group of objects hung on the wall and all the labels are placed at the bottom. (See Egyptian galleries) I wish there are some technology devices (even a simple pin with a tiny number) to link the object with the label on the bottom.

By: Shelley Bernstein

Shelley Bernstein — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 18:43:04 +0000

I will say, in this new mobile app launching next week, we are solving it but in creating this app we needed to consider a) how to make it accessible for as many phones as possible and b) how to make it easy. While I’m not sure about the EZcodes specifically, my colleagues have described their experiences with QRcodes as problematic and confusing for visitors – they can be pretty difficult to use. In general, we are trying to stay away from QR codes or similar in this mobile app for simpler accession number look up that can be used on a variety of mobile devices.

By: JB

JB — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 18:35:54 +0000

re: the Visible Storage and Axim problem, maybe Scanlife EZcodes would work for that application:
http://mashable.com/2008/08/13/scanlife-iphone-app-2/