Advice from me
So you want to put a computer exhibit
in your museum? - a beginner’s guide.
If you want to install a computer exhibit, but haven't done it before then
read this. This short non-technical guide will get you started.
Writing a creative brief for a computer exhibit
If you're appointing external contractors to make your exhibit then one of the most important things is the brief you send them to say what you want. Here's a guide to what to put in it and what to leave out.
How to buy a computer for a museum exhibit
This document tells what equipment you'll need for a computer exhibit and
where to buy it from. It assumes no technical knowledge.
Requirements for museum exhibit software
Based on a document used by the Science Museum, London, this document gives
a set of basic requirements for the development of exhibit software.
KISS chase – How to keep your exhibit simple
During the development process its very easy to make your exhibit more complicated than it needs to be. This is a more discursive document which looks at why this happens and how to avoid the pitfalls.
How to set up a computer for a museum exhibit
Once you've got your computer you need to set it up. This fairly technical
document tells you how to set up a Windows computer.
From others: Gallery exhibits
Tate multimedia tour
Home page of the Tate Modern handheld computer tour. Explains the system, gives you a taster and some of the evaluation and research done during its development. A great resource and an example other institutions should follow.
Gallery multimedia access guidelines from the
Natural History Museum, London
John Benfield is New Media Manager at the Natural History Museum in London.
He's written a set of guidelines for making museum kiosks accessible.
CRUMB
- The Nitty Gritty- practical resources for curation: technical, evaluative,
and contractual.
CRUMB is a resource for New Media art based at the University of Sunderland,
UK. It includes "22 Things That Curators Should Know about Installing New
Media Art." by Tom Cullen.
Exhibit research
Kevin Walker has had many years experience in designing museum computer exhibits.
He has worked at the American Museum of Natural History and many other places.
His extensive website contains many articles about the theory and practice
of museum exhibits plus the technology used in them.
Interactive
learning in museums of art and design by Gail Durbin (pdf)
Gail Durbin
describes the how the V & A museum in London used computer exhibits to facilitate
learning. This paper goes through the whole process from analysis of visitors'
needs, different types of exhibit and surveys on their effectiveness.
The British Interactive Group
The British Interactive group brings together many people in the UK who develop
interactive exhibits. Although their website is mainly concerned with mechanical
exhibits there's a lot of good general advice.
From others: Visitor studies
How
do visitors use computer exhibits? Findings from 5 grueling years of watching
visitors getting it wrong
Ben Gammon spent many years as Head of Visitor Studies at the Science Museum.
Here's the benefit of his experience working with technologies from light
beams to fingerprint scanners.
Design for museum visitors (pdf)
More from Ben Gammon. This presentation
includes pictures of museum exhibits and galleries and tells you what visitors thought of them. Includes the best ever summary of why you need visitor studies - "visitors are weird".
South west museums
information pages - Learning in museums and evaluation
The South West Museums Libraries and Archives Council (UK) maintains a
large website of information about learning in museums. Lots of good stuff,
one of the highlights being Ben Gammon's document on successful questionnaires.
("....questions that are just frankly insulting to visitors. These questions
are great fun but do seem to have a detrimental effect...".)
Gallery-based
technology and the museum visitor by Scott Sayre
This published
paper considers the use of computer exhibits in four different art museums.
Although it doesn't go into much depth its a useful discussion of what's
out there and how well it works.
Are art museums serving our targeted audiences?
A Museums and the Web paper by Holly Witchey. She discusses what children like about museum web sites and tests some out. The kids don't mince any words - "It's not even close to exciting...".
From others: Case studies
Trouble at Prada
A great article which tells the real story behind the hi-tech Prada shop in New York. As you might expect things didn't go quite as smoothly as their PR made out. Don't let this put you off - lots of projects go very well indeed but they're not so much fun to read about.
Creating
the Secret Life of the Home gallery
Tim Hunkin created the Secret Life of the Home gallery in the Science Museum.
Here he gives a wonderfully honest account of how he did it - what went well
and what didn't. The gallery has almost no computer exhibits but this is a
great account and well worth a read.
From others: Web sites
Museums, Galleries and Digitisation - Current best practice and recommendations on measuring impact
Information from the Scottish Museums Council. Well written and useful. If you don't do anything else then read the recommendations on page 7 of the summary report. Although designed for web projects the advice is spookily similar to my documents about gallery exhibits - which is nice.
Good practice
guide for developers of cultural heritage web services
This is a huge
resource aimed at those developing on line "collections style" web sites.
There's lots of good stuff here but I found it all a bit unfocused - it
doesn't really address why you would want to develop a site like this and
why visitors would want to use it.
Research based web design
and usability guidelines from the US government
Once you've got past the pdf file format these are surprisingly well written
guidelines on making web sites usable and accessible.