museumsandtheweb.com - science

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

SDNHM Tour and Digitization Discussion

Rich Cherry — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 05:03:07 +0000

MW2012

Keywords:

tour

Keywords:

museum

Keywords:

science

Keywords:

natural history

Abstract:

San Diego Natural History Museum

Take a special behind-the-scenes look at the Museum’s Research Library with the Library’s curator. Learn about the digitization project underway to put selections from the Rare Book Room collection, fine art collection, and archives online in order to share some of the Museum's most unique treasures with the public. Also take a tour of the Museum’s permanent exhibition, Fossil Mysteries, guided by one of our paleontologists. The exhibition travels through a 75-million-year timeline, from the age of dinosaurs to the Ice Ages, to explore the prehistory of southern California and Baja California, Mexico.

Type:

Other Interaction - describe in notes

Tour 1: Balboa Park Museums

Site:

http://www.sdnhm.org

Authors:

Cary Canning

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

Hot Button Issues: Science, Technology, Topicality & Uncertainty in Museum Exhibits

mimi roberts — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 17:02:36 +0000

MW2012

Published Paper:

Hot-Button Issues: Using Technology to Address Topicality, Uncertainty, and Controversy in Science Exhibits

Keywords:

complexity

Keywords:

science

Keywords:

students

Keywords:

topicality

Keywords:

controversy

Keywords:

emergence

Abstract:

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.

This is especially exciting for topics where information is contested. Controversies and uncertainties are an essential and fascinating part of the scientific process, and developing means to incorporate them into exhibits is a great advance over the present state of affairs, where too often new discoveries and ongoing research are ignored.

The exhibit Emergence: A New View of Life’s Origin at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History & Science is a case study that prototypes ten (or so) strategies for engaging visitors--onsite and online--in one such cutting-edge topic that is relevant to every person on the planet: How did life on Earth begin? The museum is using the exhibit to help plan a renovation of their permanent Hall of Origins, which has not been updated since the museum opened in 1987. Of particular interest is how technology and social media can be used to connect a physical museum exhibit to audiences beyond museum walls.

The Emergence exhibit and exhibit website (nmnaturalhistory.org/emergence) incorporate (or will soon incorporate) a complexity science iPad app and e-book, three interactive components (a new geologic timeline, a new tree of life, and making a cell), 3D and 2D video, and more. The project was initiated by the Santa Fe Institute, an international research center for complexity science, and funded through a National Science Foundation grant to them. The exhibit was a project of PICT: the Program in Interactive Cultural Technology at New Mexico Highlands University. This biannual full-semester immersive experience engaged twelve students in all aspects of exhibit development from start to finish. The project team also included scientists from the Santa Fe Institute, faculty and staff from the university and the New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs, two interns from our AmeriCorps Cultural Technology Program, museum staff and other professionals, and many others who volunteered time and expertise.

Type:

Demonstration - show your project

MW2012 Demonstrations II

Site:

http://cct.newmexicoculture.org

Authors:

mimi roberts

Bringing Citizen Scientists and Historians Together

foeromeo — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 21:08:39 +0000

MW2011

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

Program Item Reference:

Bringing citizen scientists and historians together

Tour 1: Science Museum New Media

dbear — Sun, 28 Nov 2010 20:06:58 +0000

Type:

Tour

Programs:

Tour and briefing on new media at the Franklin Institute Museum

Tour and briefing at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia

Mutter Museum New Media Tour and Briefing

Tech Level:

all

Date & Time:

April 5, 2011 - 8:15am - 4:00pm

Location:

offsite

tour

science

museum

behind the scenes

backstage

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

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

Description

Three important early 19^th century science museums within a few blocks of each other in Center City Philadelphia are meeting their audiences in new ways in the 21^st century.

Bringing citizen scientists and historians together

foeromeo — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 00:54:14 +0000

MW2011

Published Paper:

Bringing Citizen Scientists and Historians Together

Keywords:

citizen science

Keywords:

crowdsourcing

Keywords:

motivations

Keywords:

history

Keywords:

science

Keywords:

transcription

Abstract:

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. The project will also deliver a reusable infrastructure for distributed transcription.

The motivations of volunteers in established astronomy projects, such as Galaxy Zoo, are well understood and described in a comprehensive study (Galaxy Zoo: Exploring the Motivations of Citizen Science Volunteers). This paper will explore the – potentially – different motivations of the Naval-History.net community, paying particular attention to informal interactions between science and history enthusiasts on the forums.

It will be written in collaboration with community leaders from both Naval-History.net and the Zooniverse, and with reference to other distributed transcription projects, such as the Australian Newspapers Digitisation Program and Transcribe Bentham.

Sites to be discussed:

Type:

Paper - in formal session

User-Generated Community

Site:

http://www.oldweather.org

Authors:

Fiona Romeo

Lucinda Blaser

Science Bulletins: Cross-media Publishing of Current Science Stories

jtrant — Wed, 02 May 2007 00:57:39 +0000

Gano, S., Kinzler R., & Trakinski V. (2005). Science Bulletins: Cross-media Publishing of Current Science Stories. (Trant, Jennifer, David Bearman, Ed.).Museums and the Web 2005: Proceedings.