Urban Curators: Exhibit Your World

This week, I heard about a neat renegade art/museum awakening project in Providence, RI: Urban Curators. From their mission statement:
The goal of the Urban Curators project is to engage the public in the celebration of the decaying urban environment, recognizing its inherent aesthetic qualities as well as the important role that it plays within our cultural habitat. The project achieves its goal by elevating common, overlooked objects and spaces within the city of Providence, Rhode Island to the level of high art.

The project achieves this elevation by literally hanging gold, gallery-style frames in derelict spaces within the city, framing objects and views that are of aesthetic or cultural value. By utilizing frames that one might expect to find in an art museum or gallery, viewers are forced to make connections between the urban landscape and the museum environment. Viewers are likewise encouraged to reconsider their prior conceptions of beauty and worth, understanding that the spontaneity of decay offers an alternative aesthetic to excessive design.

Who hasn't seen a beautifully decaying barn door, a rainbowed oil slick, or abandoned shopping cart and thought, "Hey, that belongs in a museum!" Kudos to Urban Curators for eschewing the concept that museums are fixed locations and drawing attention to content in the public space. Hooray for the use of google maps mashups to locate their "exhibits." Hats off for including white foamcore "labels" on the "pieces." Seems like a great way to advertise and spread the mission of a museum to your surroundings as well, to demonstrate the ways that art, science, history are a part of the world around us. As long as it doesn't involve any illegal or perceived terrorist acts. Maybe it's a good thing they aren't in Boston.

Game Friday: Sneaky Role Play

This week, a fairly simple puzzle game called Thief, by Phillip Reagan. Thief is outstanding not for its graphics or gameplay but for its unusual and delightful way of drawing you into the story.

In most games--and exhibits--your role as a user/visitor is clearly defined in the beginning. You're an observer. You're a god-like controller. You're a pawn with particular characteristics. In environments that do make you "part" of the story, common practice is to spell out your role so that you can get into the perspectives and situation of your character. Maybe you get a backstory on your role from a passport or a briefing, or maybe it's more oblique; you are thrown into an active environment and your personal reactions and behaviors form the character you assume.

Thief takes another tack. Instead of contextualizing the experience you are about to have, the opening of the game is decontextualized. No backstory. No introductions. Instead, you are presented with puzzles that slowly unlock the story. As the story unfolds, you realize what your role is--not one you may have guessed.

In this way, Thief accomplishes something extremely challenging--it provides a plot twist that happens to YOU, not to other characters. Sure, some games may throw a stumbling block in your path or reveal an ally to be an enemy, but it's rare for an experience to trick you into an Aha about yourself. And this is accomplished without an obtuse or terribly complex story at its root. Enjoy.

There’s Something Sticky Here…

There’s a new word in the experience design lexicon: sticky. It’s the child of the killer app, a slightly more palatable sister to “viral.” It hangs out at the Exploratorium with the APE (active prolonged engagement) folks. It was christened in a shadow box. And it keeps. Coming back.

I first became acquainted with sticky through the Electric Sheep Company folks. They’re building in a big and barely searchable virtual worlds like Second Life and they want to create content that hooks people in and draws them to come back again and again. They don’t talk about building the most beautiful or robust content (though that’s important); they talk about stickiness—where to find it, how to make it.

What differentiates sticky from viral? When viral marketing became popular, the goal was to create something that viewers/users would be compelled, zombie-like, to spread. Viral content depends on carriers to make it valuable. Viral content is short-lived in the memory of the user, long-lived in the distribution chain. Sticky is different. Instead of one-shot content that will hopefully spread like cannon fire around eardrums of the world, the goal is to generate something that will compel individual users to return.

Museums can’t be viral. They don’t travel well, and their content is more complex (hopefully) than a 30 second video of a dog peeing off a bridge. But they should be sticky.

Sticky is not synonymous with good. Good content is compelling on its own merits. It keeps people engaged, and motivates them to return—if returning will give the user another positive experience. Sticky seeks to turn that “if” into a certainty. That’s why it’s frequently applied to web 2.0 applications, where users generate and manipulate content, as opposed to more standard content providers. A great book is good content. A great diary is sticky. An informative site is good. An active chat room, a useful tool—sticky.

So where should sticky live in the museum? An obvious place to start is wow phenomena, APE-style interactive exhibits—the shadow wall, the hatching chicks. These are explorations that react to your input, something you can participate in, something wondrous enough to dissipate all “ifs” about the value of a return visit. But exhibits are mostly about content, and it’s hard to create content that is malleable enough to be sticky.

Sticky is best in the packaging of experiences—the way you interact with the content. Google Maps is a great example. The content they are providing is not unique—and arguably, it’s not even the best of its kind. But the way the software allows you to drag your viewing window around the map is so fun, so excellent, that the program becomes captivating. It’s not just a map. It’s an experience.

I sat here for awhile trying to think of museum experiences I’ve seen that are sticky, not gimmicky. The exhibit ones are easy—lots of installation art bits, sound floors to dance on—but the packaging isn’t coming to me. I’m still a skeptic on the use of handhelds in museums, but the basic concept of having a way to interact back with the content—static or not—is the right direction.

I’m learning from the Sheep that if you want to create a place for users—not just visitors—you have to prioritize sticky over almost everything else. When content is framed by a sticky experience, the user feels like you created something fun and wonderful for them to experiment with—which leads to more engagement with the content, brand love. And then they buy memberships. And they come back.

2.0 at Work: Why You Should Use Flickr

I love Flickr
Originally uploaded by jodi_tripp.

Okay, pop quiz. You're developing a heavily themed exhibition. The scenic contractors need to know what a "degraded plaster" wall finish means to you. Your boss is in California picking out antique fountains. The framers need a reference for the curved arch. Five stakeholders in different cities want to see the work that's been done so far. Where do you go?

For those who haven't seen it, Flickr is a photo-sharing site. You can upload photos to it, tag them, share them, comment on them, and search for them. But there are lots of sites for these activities. So what makes Flickr so useful?

1. It has the most photos from the most people and places. This isn't a set of proprietary or stock images. It's photos taken all over the world by pros and amateurs. Where else can you find Pakistani bathroom signage or Mexican biker teens while researching a project?

2. Tagging makes photo search flexible and powerful. I used to use Google Images to look for quick visual sources. Now I always use Flickr. On Google, images are only searchable by the titles given to them. On Flickr, they are searchable both by title and by tag. Even better, people have created specialized sets (i.e. "Urban Decay") that encompass a wide variety of content. Great for references for wall finishes and graphic detail.

3. Sharing is really easy. We've done FTP (too complicated for some). We've emailed photos (heavy, annoying, easy to misplace). We save to network drives (no one knows where anything is). On Flickr, we can upload our own photos, tag favorites from the entire site, and get dedicated web addresses for each flickr account member (a person or a project--your choice). And you can make it private or public, flexibly.

4. Commenting and review functionality. You can upload four new photos of options to your site, tag them "Giant Squid Layout," and get people's comments and preferences. You can set up automatic emails to go out when things change on the site. You can move things from "For Review" sets to "Done" sets. You can have blog style discussions in the comment body and all of that text is recorded for posterity.

5. It's (mostly) free. You can do a lot with your free account, or get a pro one for $25. I'm not there yet, but...

2.0 web applications have been a tough sell in my department. We tried hosting a wiki for an exhibit--too much effort. Heck, we're not even that great at using our network drive. But we've adopted Flickr easily and it actually increases our efficiency, productivity, and teamwork. Three generations of folks are using it.

Beyond the workplace uses, some museums are taking advantage of Flickr's 2.0ness to do neat projects--check out Jim Spadaccini's reflections on using Flickr for an exhibition website with the Maxwell Museum of Anthropology.

And finally, on a related note, Kathy Sierra's recent post on "user evangelists," which may have subconsciously triggered this Flickr lovefest. Then again, I did find 42,822 photos matching "I love flickr." I'm not the only one.

QUESTION Part 2 (And a Query on Professional Learning)

The morning after I wrote the post on questions as a basis for exhibit design, I bolted up in embarrasment. I HAD heard about an exhibition that tried to do this!

At ASTC 2006, Darcie Fohrman talked about an exhibition called QUESTION at the Cantor Arts Center in Stanford in 2004. The staff brought in Darcie and artist Michael Brown to help them create "An experiment that provokes questions about art and its presentation in museums." The curators identified all kinds of questions: "Is there such a thing as bad art?" "Why should I look at something that is disturbing?" "Have I looked at this object long enough?" and "This looks like something my child could do. Why is it in an art museum?" and tried to create an exhibition in which those questions would be--if not addressed--wrestled with, batted around, and played with.

As Darcie put it: "In the museum field, we know that learning happens when there is discussion and conversation. We want people to ask strange questions and say, 'I don't get this.'"

You can read more about QUESTION here and here. I wish I had seen it. Darcie's presentation was exciting--to advertise QUESTION, posters with blank spaces and question marks were put out like political picket signs. Throughout the exhibit, people were encouraged to talk back.

So now, a quick secondary question which has more to do with professional development. If I hadn't been at that ASTC talk, tossed through the night, taken decent notes I was able to find--how would I know about QUESTION? In fact, even now, if I want to know more about it, what are my options? Above, I linked to a press release and a news article. I could contact Darcie or the folks at the Cantor Arts Center. Maybe it would be covered in Exhibitionist. But I probably wouldn't hear about it from a friend, like a movie or a book. I wouldn't hear it on the radio. I can't go to a virtual version of it, and there's no substantive web content to speak of.

So, as Kathy McLean has often asked, how do we get the experiments, the exhibits, the history of museums into the hands of professionals and interested folks? Give me the surf movie of exhibits. Give me the compilation CD. Give me something so I don't forget about QUESTION and all the other amazing things I've never seen.

Game Friday: I Feel... Connected?

Okay, not quite a game, but a lovely visualization: We Feel Fine. This application pulls "I feel..." statements from thousands of English-language blogs all over the world and maps them in several beautiful ways. According to the creators' mission statement:

At its core, We Feel Fine is an artwork authored by everyone. It will grow and change as we grow and change, reflecting what's on our blogs, what's in our hearts, what's in our minds. We hope it makes the world seem a little smaller, and we hope it helps people see beauty in the everyday ups and downs of life.

You can sort by feeling, age range, gender, even the weather. You can compare the most frequently cited feelings in the last few hours across different metrics. You can follow the swirling dots of feeling or just let the words scroll by. I'd love to see this in a museum with Jeff Han's touch technology--the thoughts and feelings of all kinds of visitors, grouped in all kinds of ways.

As a work of art, We Feel Fine is delightful. As a symbol of what kind of personal information can be gleaned automatically from the web, it's both dazzling and frightening. Each quote is pulled from a blog, and with one click you can move from the application to the blog of origin. Talk about primary sources...

But how useful is it? This is another example of an application (like the Hope Garden) that DOES make the world seem a little smaller, but beyond that, there's not a lot of depth to the experience. Huh. That 82 year old woman in London had a lousy day. The college student in Maryland feels ambivalent. The various movements on We Feel Fine give me different ways to see the data, but there's no window into deeper connections and meanings. The Findings page is just numbers. To me, this is low on the emotional/social learning/touching/feeling totem pole.

Or maybe it's just the first step. Making all this data accessible--and growable--can enable the next group of people to take it to the next level. Social connections? Meaning with a capital M? Where would you take it?

Issues Exhibitions: Questions as a Basis for Design

It's good to have some time to write amidst hectic traveling. You know you've spent too much time in airports when you stick your hands under your bathroom faucet at home and expect it to magically turn on.

I've been thinking recently about ways to represent issues (social, political, scientific) in museum settings. Museums often pursue the dual goals of presenting accurate, objective information while encouraging visitors to think for themselves, take a stand, engage with the issue at hand. These goals are often contradictory, if not opposing, in nature. How does the visitor perceive there is an issue with which to engage if the content is presented in a dry, authoritative style? Even when the content itself is incendiary, the tone of the presentation style can wash it out. I was required to read Howard Zinn's People's History of the United States in high school. Zinn once said in an interview that his goal with the book was "quiet revolution." Did I find it revolutionary? No. The simple act of placing it on a curriculum as a required text made me categorize its content in the world of the textbook--dry, factual, straight. Why question? Why care?

So there's a second path, one that museums like the US Holocaust Memorial Museum follow. In this alternative, the museum takes a stand on an issue (in USHMM's case, genocide), and breathes life into that side of the issue, helping visitors engage with and experience that side of the story. With something like genocide, the "side taking" is fairly soft--but museums like the soon-to-open Creation Museum may be a different story.

These kinds of museums, which put aside neutrality in favor of espousing an opinion, do a better job on the "Why care?" side of things, because instead of presenting an objective tableau, they present a narrative, which, while potentially complex, is not weighed down by the "this side says this, and that side says that" objective balancing act. Stories are compelling. They help you connect. They help you care.

But is stand-taking always right for museums? Of course not. While I think the Museum of Freedom in Chicago is too objective/vanilla, I wouldn't prefer a hall of exhibits (sponsored by the appropriate PACs and corporations) on the freedom to drill for oil, the freedom to redistrict, etc.

There's a third path I'd prefer to see museums head down: pursuing design that attacks "Why question?" problem. This is the path in which the exhibition is designed not to make the visitor react with statements (I agree; I care) but with questions (Is that really true?). Many objective exhibitions are overpresumptuous that the fair and balanced outline of facts will lead people to draw their own conclusions and question their preconceptions. Instead, I'd argue that such presentations just add more data to the pot--more facts to be ignored. On the other side of the fence, stand-taking exhibitions presuppose the conclusion and present a story--to endorse or reject. On both of these paths, the museum is providing answers--either varied or singular. I want questions.

I'm framing this with regard to question-asking largely because of an excellent book I'm reading right now about the Rwandan genocide in 1994 by Philip Gourevitch. In the book, Gourevitch tells many stories about genocide, but he's mostly interested in the story behind questions: Why does genocide happen? How do people understand it? How do people deal with it? Focusing on these questions humanizes Gourevitch, transforming him from an all-knowing (or, alternatively, biased) journalist into a person dealing wtih a perplexing situation. Rather than adding more information to my database on Rwanda and genocide, I find myself asking alongside the author, asking myself instead of the authority. Gourevitch isn't a great journalist because he tells great stories; it's because he asks us to question those stories and provides a model for doing so.

This doesn't just apply to issues exhibitions. From the little I know about evaluation, it seems that most museum folks focus on what visitors come out saying--not what they come out asking. If we want people to come back to the museum, to "extend the visit" on the web and elsewhere, we can't do it by allowing them to close the door on museum content when they leave. Questions keep the door open.

So how would this kind of design look? Some simple thoughts:

• Present stories and situations where the characters change their minds. I frequently see exhibitions in which "both sides" tell their story. I'd rather see individuals tell their stories of how they grapple with issues, and how different things have impacted their thinking.
• Make visitors start with their opinions rather than conclude with them. Many exhibits give you the opportunity to see both sides and then weigh in with your opinion. Well, fabulous exhibit designer, you have yet to sway me from my preconceived notions with a thirty-second walk on the other side. Assume that I have a starting point. I've never seen an exhibit that forces me to pick first, and then examine the consequences of the side/story I've chosen. "What do you believe?" is too simplistic; let's try to push people for the "Why?"
  
• Instead of providing opportunities for visitors to leave comments or register their opinions, give them opportunities to articulate the questions the exhibition brings up.
• Wherever possible, directly and without artiface answer the implied visitor question, "Why should I care?" Let the curator stick his/her neck out and do a quick video clip, not on an object/story's cultural significance, but on its personal relevance. Push visitors to ask, "Do I value this thing?" instead of letting them just pass judgement and move on.

There's an improv game in which the actors are required to speak solely in questions. It often descends quickly into suspicious, "Why did you do that?" "Why do you care?" exchanges. We aren't well-versed in conversational questioning. I think I'm going to do an experiment later this week and try to visit a museum and write down my questions instead of my thoughts. And so I conclude with a question--but not "what do you think?"

Instead, let's end with this: What do you ask?

Game Friday: Real Games For Nik

I couldn't pass up the opportunity to share this hilarious spoof of Second Life with you. Folks like Nik, in particular, will appreciate its helpful advice about where to find amenities, meet friends, and have rewarding experiences "in-world."

But enough of that silliness. Today, in keeping with the above, real-life games that motivate social collaboration. I'm sharing one; please, share your favorites.

The name of this game, as I learned it, is "the best game in the world." Others have protested that "telephone pictionary" or similar is more accurate, but I disagree. This game rocks. It's best with groups of six or more, and I've used it successfully with classroomfulls. Each person starts with a full-size piece of paper and a pen/pencil.

First, you fold your paper, accordion-style, into seven equal segments. Then, you write a single sentence, of any content, in the top-most segment and pass your paper to the next person. When you receive a page from someone, you draw a picture in the second segment that conveys the sentence above as well as possible. Then, you fold over the sheet so that only your picture is visible (the initial sentence is hidden). You pass it on, and the next person has to write a sentence that perfectly conveys your picture. And so on until the last sentence is written and all the sheets are filled. At that point, unfold, read, and allow hilarity to ensue. See example.
I've used this game with many poetry classes. People may feel that they are not creative enough to generate a poem, but they always feel able to "describe" things, and many poetry (and science and observation and...) skills derive from imaginative and precise description. And it's great to have not just the fun process (which almost all games have) but also to have an output you can hang up or keep or etc.

What social games do you love?

More Home Analogies: the Potluck Model for Participation

Tim O’Reilly has an interesting post up about the ascension of short-format content—the YouTube clip over the 2 hour movie, the blog post over the journal article. While current trends in film length make me dubious of this trend’s overall power, O’Reilly observes that short-format content is more accessible, more searchable, and most importantly, well-suited to collaborative work. Whether those collaborations take the form of the set of Amazon book reviews that affect your purchasing or the development of wikipedia entries, short-format contributions can be quickly assembled into a reasonable composite.

One of the comments listed other, non-web-based collaborative uses of short-format content, including potluck dinners. As a consummate potlucker, this comment immediately resonated with me. Potlucks are a great model for “good sharing.” Everyone (or almost everyone) understands the “rules” of potlucks: bring enough, bring something that fits the time of day. And the implied: bring something good.

Think about potlucks from the 2.0 standpoint:

1. you create and share an item that reflects you
2. you enjoy the items shared by others
3. all items are subconsciously evaluated by all users (and those evaluations thus reflect on all users)

These three steps could easily define a web 2.0 application like MySpace or Wikipedia. The difference is that the collective item in question (the meal) is very clearly defined at a potluck. What is the collective item to which all are contributing on MySpace? Social connectiveness? On Wikipedia? General knowledge? “Dinner” is about as clear as it gets.

Imagine a museum event or exhibition in which visitors can make a toy or creative object that will then go on display at the museum for the day. This is the MySpace model. Some people may participate, but the goal is unclear (why can’t I take it home?), and results will be inconsistent at best. The sharing is weak. Now imagine an event at which people make and connect pieces of a giant Rube Goldberg machine. This is the potluck model. Creators get more out of the whole experience by linking pieces up, and there’s also a great experience to be had by an audience. Give people a playing field for sharing they already understand and value, and the collective product can be truly delicious.

Users at Home

One of the core elements of moving to 2.0 is transforming folks from visitors (content receivers) to users (content participants). With this in mind, I’m starting to think about design techniques that encourage use, as opposed to visits, of museums.

As a first step, let’s try to parse out what exactly defines a user experience. Think of how you engage with your home. With the possible exception of the bathroom, different people have varying relationships with rooms. I, for example, use the kitchen and the living room, but I visit the garden. I use my closet, but I visit the bedroom. And so on. Take a moment to mentally separate the rooms in your own home between use and visitation. If you live in a studio, think about its areas and your patterns of use.

I find this exercise surprisingly easy. What differentiates a room you visit from one you use? Fundamentally, it’s not about what activities you engage in or frequency/duration of stay in any room. It’s about attitude. For me, the kitchen is a personalized space in which I can create and control varied content production. The bedroom is a place I go to lie down; only convenience and propriety keep me sleeping in the same place consistently. But when I was a kid, the situation was switched; I was a content receiver in the kitchen, but created all kinds of unlimited worlds in my bedroom.

This house analogy may lead you to say: okay, different strokes for different folks. That’s why museums offer varied content and exhibitions—so you can have your bedroom and I can have my kitchen.

But let’s take the metaphor one step further. Your own home is, after all, your own—and your level of personalization with the whole space enables you to dictate based on preference which rooms are “used” and which “visited.” But now let’s go to someone else’s house.

When you are in someone else’s house, which rooms do you use and which do you visit? Unless you know the person very well, you rarely go beyond visiting—especially the first time you’re there. (One notable exception to this rule is kids, who will occasionally co-opt a new house for play with no reservations.) It’s their stuff, their rules, and the best you can hope for is to feel comfortable. When someone says, “Make yourself at home” to me, I understand that I can’t take off my clothes or do pull-ups on the molding. I’m not at home. I’m visiting.

Now the museum outlook seems grim. How do we bridge the gap between our homes (users) and other people’s homes (visitors)? A couple of models that might inform:

1. The clubhouse. Remember the kid with the “cool” mom who stocked up on soda and cookies and left you alone in the basement to stay up as late as you wanted? When someone sets up a personal space for you in their house, it inspires use. Of course, that mom relinquished control of cleanliness and content, but in exchange, she got your participation in her (safe) space and the opportunity to build relationships with you. She thought the sacrifice was worthwhile. (If you can identify this woman as you read this, thank her. Now.)

2. The barn-raising. Have you ever helped a friend with a major home improvement (painting, deck-building, wild party cleanup)? Being invited in to help, to create and fix, gives you a sense of ownership that leads to usership. Yeah, of course I’ll put my feet up—heck, I BUILT that coffeetable.

3. The significant other. Whenever intimacy builds between two (or more) people, you get more comfortable using the other’s space—even on your first visit. Your relationship sets up a dynamic of trust and shared values that implies that the ways you want to use the other’s space are (probably) okay.

Sacrifice, exposure of imperfection, intimate relationships. Can these techniques help museums open up to more use by visitors? I don’t know if I want to make cookies, make mistakes, or make love to my visitors. But it’s not about me. How can we open the museum "home" to visitors so they become users? What other models or analogies can help us get there?