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The Museum as "Information Architecture" (2001)
Notes on creating interactive, immersive exhibitions
Published in Spectra: Journal of the Museum Computer Network, 2001
There is no doubt that architecture and information are merging. This has long been the case with museums; indeed, a museum is primarily a container of information. Like a computer, it is a link between information and matter. And like a computer, data is put into it (traditionally in the form of objects but increasingly as pure information), the data is processed in some way (by curators and exhibition designers), and it is output (in the form of exhibitions and public programs).
The addition of technology to museum exhibitions blurs the distinction further. It enables the computer to spread its tasks about the gallery (or building), and it enables the architecture to become, in effect, a walk-in computer -- a virtual world created and augmented by data. It could be argued that the museum was the original "virtual reality," an immersive, artificial world which bears some resemblance to places past and present, but which has been consciously designed for the consumption and enjoyment of others.
But technology allows for real-time information processing to take place outside of human brains. A computer is, in essence, just a calculating machine, converting spectral data (including light, sound, etc.) into numbers, performing calculations, and spitting out information in another form. It is a medium, but one which processes as well as delivers. And if the parts of the computer -- input, processing, output -- are distributed throughout a museum gallery, then the objects, information, and visitors are the data.
"Information architecture" is a term used in software design to describe the structure and organization of data. In this case, however, it refers to a real space that is augmented by computer-enabled interaction.
This is not to say that an exhibition is the same as computer data or a web site, nor should it be. Physical space has deeper effects; it's beautiful, for one. People go to museums to see the real, in context. They go to see what they don't normally see, or take for granted. Real objects are containers for information, attitudes, and ideas, as are people. The technology should not compete with this, but augment it.
Overt technology used to be popular in architecture. But increasingly, most people regard it as representing homogenization, as a cheap substitute for the real world. In a world where most of us stare into a computer monitor for much of the work day, why go to a museum just to hunch over a small screen? A museum exhibition should be an experience not easily replicated on a web site.
The present moment might be regarded as the second phase in integrating technology into public places. In the first phase, there was the personal computer, revolutionary child of the 1980s. We dutifully integrated it into our homes and businesses, and into museums in the form of the information kiosk -- a freestanding or wall-mounted box with a smallish touchscreen. Its general purpose was obvious to most -- it was a place to get more information than could fit into the physical space.
But even today, the specific use of a computer kiosk is often lost on visitors, due mainly to poor design and a failure to recognize the assumptions and needs of visitors. Many a museum visitor can be seen walking up to any screen expecting to play games, freely browse the web, or check personal email (sometimes they're even successful), regardless of the intended purpose of the kiosk. The first phase seemed to be characterized by the axiom "Spend more so that fewer people can understand less."
In the second phase, the kiosk may have its place, but will for the most part disappear. Small screens are giving way to interactive spaces, living walls and objects, dynamic exhibits that change with each visit (and perhaps each visitor). This is driven by the pervasive computing and artificial life movements; by the continued acceleration and miniaturization of computing technology; by innovative input and output technologies; and by forward-thinking exhibition designers and design-savvy technologists. In the second phase, computers are not mere dispensers of information, but are engines that enable immersion and interaction in exhibitions. Exhibition design plus media design equals experience design.
When moving forward, it helps to look back. Consider Ice Age information design. Artists painted stories onto the walls of caves, sometimes integrating the natural volumetric and textural subtleties of the surface into their art; in superimposing the world of ideas over the real, they transformed existing structures into something else -- a raised section of rock into the body of an animal, for example. It was graffiti, but it was, at least, well situated in its environment. And it has lasted far longer than anything electronic will.
Consider deeper aspects of our evolutionary history. Our language ability developed concurrently with our ability to manipulate objects, and our visual abilities developed around foraging for food objects (see Calvin, 1983). The cerebral is inextricably tied to the physical. In other words, we didn't evolve to sit at a computer screen, mouse in hand.
Marry this with the wisdom of John Dewey, who said a century ago that all education comes from experience, that the process of inquiry involves active exploration. Interactivity means experiencing, not being told. What visitors do and how they feel in an exhibition is as important as the information they are given. The challenge is to design an environment where these experiences can take place, where visitors can extract knowledge from information. (Ansbacher, 1998)
The failure of many traditional computer kiosks stems from the fact that they are often added to an exhibition almost as an afterthought. Inevitably, a curator seeks to fill a computer with mostly text-based information that will not fit into the exhibition space proper. They are after the "more interested visitor," the one who, like them, cannot get enough of the particular topic of the exhibition.
The problem is that these kiosks often contain too many options and too much information. Computers aside, visitors naturally hit a threshold in an exhibition (typically about 20 minutes of constant information barrage), after which they suffer from information overload. One simple solution is to design benches into exhibitions, whether real or metaphorical, to allow visitors to recharge. Too often, the only seats in an exhibition are in front of computer screens packed with information.
The antidote to the curator-driven strategy is, of course, visitor-driven; in other words, a receiver-based rational, rather than delivery-based rationale. This means helping the visitor construct meaning through a tightly focused set of activities, and choosing a technology that best allows access to the information.
Regardless of the exhibition's topic, when visitors use something interactive, they are seeking to experience the technology more than the content. The challenge is to integrate the two together tightly to facilitate learning. This can be something as simple as encouraging the visitor to seek information from the exhibition at large in order to apply it to perform an activity or solve a problem. This shifts the focus from delivering information to a passive visitor, to allowing the visitor to actively learn.
Don Norman (1988) says that designers limit people. By forcing people to put a key in only one way shapes their behavior. Similarly with computer software design, our interactions with the computer change the way we see the real world. So the interaction should be meaningful. Even designing software must be viewed within a larger context; interface design always transcends the screen, and must take into account who and where the user is, why they are there, what they are doing, and how they are interacting. The quality of the interaction depends on the quality of each of the subtasks -- the input, processing, and output (Crawford, 2000).
Viewed in this context, the interface is the entire exhibit. This creates new challenges, ones that must be tackled by collaboration between designers of physical space and designers of virtual space. In practice, the biggest challenge is for architects and exhibition designers to welcome and integrate technology into the space instead of confining it to a tiny screen. Conversely, the technology must not overwhelm the space or the information.
Saying that exhibition design is experience design makes many museum folks uneasy, because there is a great fear of turning the museum into a theme park. But Disney has known for decades how to create a seamless, enjoyable and efficient visitor experience. Museums may offer nonfiction stories, but presentation is no less important, and they serve the same visitors, in increasing numbers. Museums are beginning to take on a broader and deeper view of the visitor experience, and the content need not suffer. In fact, this should be viewed as subverting technologies that were originally created for commercial purposes, to serve more noble goals.
Many exhibition designers already view their exhibitions as wholistic learning experiences. They need only break out of the computer-as-box paradigm. In the history of computing yet to be written, computers will appear as desktop boxes for only a very short time, so quickly have they shrunken from refrigerator-sized monoliths to near-microscopic creatures. What counts is computing, not computers. What is important is not their size but their pervasiveness. Not only can most any single object be given an artificial brain, but allowing a number of brains to communicate makes a space into a kind of living ecosystem. Even the tangled mass of cables is disappearing, as wireless communication becomes easy.
"Too costly" and "too complex" say exhibition designers when contemplating an exhibition full of computers. Complexity is certainly a possibility when working with technology in quantity or variety. But this is compounded by overzealous technologists using too much hardware and software that is poorly designed in the first place. For most interactive exhibits, all that is needed is an off-the-shelf, moderately powerful computer. Wireless networking protocols such as 802.11b (used in Apple's "Airport") are inexpensive and simple to set up.
The costs are often greatly inflated because of the rush to have the fastest, most precise, highest resolution, 3D, photo-realistic imagery. The latest hardware and software will be dirt-cheap and superceded in months, often before the exhibition even opens. Very few people are concentrating the original purpose of the computer, which is simply to compute. Taking in a stream of numbers, performing mathematical operations, and outputting numbers can create profoundly moving effects, especially when things like sensors and motors are at the input and output ends. Computing may have begun as rocket science, but today it is done by artists.
Simply adding more screens does not make an innovative exhibition. Generally, only about one third of visitors use any traditional computer kiosk anyway. Touchscreens are no longer a novelty. Almost all visitors now are computer literate, and are suffering techno-fatigue, not techno-phobia, and they are looking for something different. It is easy to put computers into an exhibition; it is hard to get people to learn anything from them, much less use them at all.
Many museums have been as seduced as stock market investors by the word "interactivity." Merely giving more control to visitors is not the answer. Except in the rare science center exhibition, opening the gates of interactivity too wide can invite chaos. Interface design, like exhibition design, involves balancing freedom and control. To use another analogy, an interface must work like a good government, mediating between anarchy and tyranny.
Again, depending on the content of the exhibition, giving up most of the control to the visitor may be the main feature -- to make the medium the message. But generally, the bounds of interactivity are usually quite constrained, and the best interactives serve narrow goals instead of trying to do it all.
When creating an interactive exhibit, it is helpful to separate the design process into information, interaction, and interface. First, determine how the content will be organized, and when and where the information will be accessed.
Next, design the interaction to fit the information and the context. Some designers find it useful to conceptualize the interactive exhibit as a game, movie or simulation. A game favors interaction over content, and is immediately intuitive to all ages. It lets the user drive, and the reward is in the journey. The problem is that the game player often wants only to win, not to learn.
A movie uses a linear, narrative structure and is often repeated in a continuous loop. A simulation requires higher-order thinking by the visitor, and evokes different results depending on the input. It is often used to present controversial issues.
How long will the interaction take place? There is a quandary that the better the interactive exhibit is, the fewer people can experience, because each visitor will spend more time with it. Again, this stresses the need to balance freedom and control.
After information design and interaction design, the interface -- where human actually meets machine -- can be designed. Make no mistake: interface design is not easy. Even so-called "intelligent interfaces" are anything but; inevitably, the user stoops to the level of the machine, not the other way around.
Designers often talk about "transparent interfaces." By this they mean allowing the user to focus on the task, not the tool -- making the tool an extension of the body or mind. In an exhibition, this can mean not knowing the computer is there at all. This is accomplished by using sensors embedded in objects, floors or walls. There are various innovative, off-the-shelf devices that plug into a computer in place of a mouse, which can be adapted for use. Creating custom-made devices requires a bit of soldering and some basic programming, but is simpler than most people think.
Too little attention is given to multimodal interfaces -- those using more than one mode of interaction, for example, tactile as well as visual input. The same goes for multi-user interfaces -- using the combined input from several people. Too many designers never go beyond two dimensions, ignoring depth and change over time. An exhibition need no longer be static or flat.
But an interface need not be complex, either. Think of a stoplight -- just three colors convey all the information needed. Think of eyeglasses, worn all day and not noticed (until you lose them). Think of an anaolg clock or wristwatch - two lines (hour and minute hands) do all the work, and our brains decode instantly. Remember the early videogame, Pong -- two sticks and a ball mesmerized many a teen for hours on end.
In all cases, the focus is on not on how attractive the interface but on the interactivity and consequences. Use the computer for what it is best at -- not display but calculation. It merely takes information, whether color (frequency of light), light (amplitude), or simple on-off states, and performs calculations on it. It can easily output to lights, switches and motors, instead of the ubiquitous flat-screen display. Bright, low-cost projectors make walls into living surfaces, and screens can be masked so as not to be rectangular. Use the natural, dimensional beauty of the real physical space instead of creating a detached, screen-based virtual nowhere.
Whether sticking to the screen or not, there are some general interface design practices being formed, collected from experience as well as controlled studies (see Reeves and Nass, 2000). Movement tends to attract the user's attention, as do visual discontinuities. This is, incidentally, why visitors -- particularly children -- tend to be attracted to video screens in exhibition (Gammon, 1999). They expect to see something they won't see at home on television.
A screen emits light, as opposed to a printed page that reflects light, so looking at bright colors (such as black text on a bright background) for long periods of time causes eyestrain. No one likes to read a lot of text on the screen. A good general rule is that anything that is planned to be on-screen at all times can be externalized. A great advantage to having a three-dimensional space is that instructions and background information can be placed on adjacent panels, reserving the screen for what it is best for. In any case, visitors tend to read text only after completing a task (Gammon, 1999). Looking and reading are two separate mental operations -- sight is instant, sound and reading exist in time. Visual learning doesn't get nearly enough attention or credit.
Visitors in an exhibition, like web surfers, tend to alternate between states of mindfulness and concentration, and interfaces can appeal to these, as well as to short-term and long-term memory (Seidler, 1999; Trumbo 1998).
Many of these suggestions will sound intuitively correct, because they appeal to innate structures in the brain and behaviors that evolved over millions of years. Things that appeal to our "base instincts" tend to have great impact. A scary story told orally or through a book or film sends a shiver down the spine. There is a "zone" of total concentration in an engrossing game or activity. And there is an unexplainable, mystical quality that the movies have mastered but digital media have not, yet.
Finally, some practical tips. Start early. There is never enough time, and things inevitably take longer than planned. An important corollary to this is to allow plenty of time for installation, testing and debugging in the gallery. Many small details cannot be predicted until the context is complete. And when hooking up various different technical systems, problems inevitably arise. Plan for this in advance.
A second corollary is to begin user testing early, and continue it throughout the design process. Make a functional mockup early on in the design process -- one that demonstrates the basic functionality but is not graphically designed or technically polished. Test it with real people and revise as needed. Usability testing can bring to light such seemingly obvious flaws such as touchscreen buttons that are too small, or important bits of information that are overlooked due to poor placement on the screen. It can also uncover more subtle points such as the importance of providing visual or aural feedback.
Usability testing, led by Norman (1988), has become a much more rigorous discipline in recent years, fueled by the boom in the design of software and technology-infused products. While not consistent across the field, its methodologies, drawn from cognitive psychology and social science research, can be applied to exhibits with great success. Beware, however, of testing too broadly, and allowing visitor feedback to simplify the interface into something boring. Begin with the proverbial ounce of inspiration, and balance the need to challenge visitors with the need to allow them to learn.
Include provisions for calibrating screens and peripherals in the gallery. For ongoing calibration and maintenance, it helps the museum to build these functions into the program, or to have a separate editor's interface, or at least a separate text file that contains key settings and is read by the program. Remember that processing is cheaper than communication; if two computers are talking to each other over a network; it is better for them to store media locally and just send numbers.
With computing power so fast and inexpensive, it is tempting to load an exhibition with screens blaring with information. But a more effective "information architecture" integrates technology seamlessly and subtly. It doesn't overwhelm, and most importantly, it retains the beauty of real, physical space. If the museum is a form of virtual reality, it is time to use technology to focus on the reality, not the virtual.
References
Ansbacher, Ted (1998) "John Dewey's Experience and Education: Lessons for Museums." Curator 41 (March 1998): 36-49.
Calvin, William (1983) The Throwing Madonna: Essays on the Brain. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Crawford, Chris (2000) Understanding Interactivity. Available at: http://www.erasmatazz.com/book.html
Gammon, Ben (1999) "How do visitors use computer exhibits? Findings from 5 grueling years of watching visitors getting it wrong." Available at http://www.big.uk.com/exhibits/computer_based_exhibits_v1.htm
Norman, Don (1988) The Psychology of Everyday Things. New York: Basic Books.
Reeves, Byron and Nass, Clifford (2000) "Perceptual Bandwidth."
Communications of the ACM, v. 43 no. 3 (March 2000), pp. 65-70
Seidler, Peter (1999) "Mindfulness and Concentration" ArtByte v. 2, no. 1 (Apr/May 1999)
Trumbo, Jean (1998) "Spatial memory and design a conceptual approach to the creation of navigable space in multimedia design." Interactions v. 5 , no. 4 (Jul. 1998)
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