Team Buttercup:
Manuela Bastos
Julie Carlini
John D'Ignazio
Junius Gunaratne
Long Pan
Sean Ritzie
Natalie Whitlock
Final Report
Buttercup's final
report for the Carnegie Museum of Art (PDF)
Jump to our...
Models for interpreting interaction and influences
Preliminary affinity clustering
Museum Innovation Project
CARNEGIE MUSEUM OF ART and CMU SCHOOL OF DESIGN
ABOVE: Feb. 24, 2002. An intense six hour meeting. Buttercup
team members work together to sift through information obtained from research
at the Carnegie Museum of Art.
The Project Charter
Our job is to seek ways the Carnegie Museum of Art can employ emerging technologies to enrich the visitors' experience. This is a bit too broad, so we will focus on ways to make the stories of objects in the collection accessible to people. We suspect there is a genuine opportunity here. Teams are likely to find that they need to narrow their scope even further, given the variety of objects in the collection, the variety of relevant content, and the variety of people who visit the museum.
The technical horizon for the project is about two years-we will aim at technologies that are likely to be reliable and available off the shelf two years from now (which means we should be able to see them all now).
The client has asked us to deliver concepts, not specifications. We will explore as broadly and deeply as we can in the time we have, ground ourselves in deep understanding of the design space, generate way too many ideas, and deliver clear descriptions of the "winning" ideas. We seek ideas that are fresh (not a rehashing of what museums are already trying), appropriate to the context and content, technically feasible, and viable for business.
Our concepts will succeed to the extent that they connect with the goals of the client. By "connect," I mean they reflect an awareness of the museum's real issues, and are presented in a way that contributes to their conversations, plans, and expectations for next steps. There is a chance that one or more of our ideas could come to life in an implementation, or spread to other parts of the museum community, though neither of these things is a success measure for our project.
Process
Here is a generic strategic design process (that is, a process for "Deciding What to Make" as opposed to "Deciding the details of something"):
Background activities throughout the process:
scheduling and
hitting deadlines
managing risk
stakeholder communication
managing collaboration
managing scope
We work through this entire process, except for relaxed expectations about the deliverables of the "design" step. Since our concepts aren't going to be built right away, we aren't expected to produce detailed specifications. Instead the emphasis is on producing credible stories about possible futures, in enough detail that the client can evaluate the value of pursuing them further. The final deliverable will include planning for technical feasibility and organizational viability.
Immerse and understand
We will use ethnographic
research techniques to understand people's activities in the museum. This
will be supplemented by secondary research, to learn what others have done
to address similar problems. We will also learn all we can about the
technology landscape, forecasting two years ahead. It will be important to
map the raw capabilities of various technologies to human experience and
the needs and constraints of the museum.
Translate and innovate: grounding concepts in understanding
Research generates lots of data, which isn't the same thing
as understanding. Our key to success will be the degree to which the end
results are driven by insights that come from immersive research. One of
the key points of this course is exploration of techniques for
collaborative translation of research into innovation, in a fast-paced
project with real-world constraints.
Validate
While the diagram doesn't portray a
series of iterations, iteration is implied in the validation step. We'll
work from the assumption that "first drafts always suck," and use user
testing of mockups and prototypes to refine our ideas. Hopefully we will
have time for three iterations before the final report. This leads to
another key point in the class: the challenge of simulating or mocking up
innovative concepts with sufficient fidelity to perform a useful test.
Research methods
Design research plays a significant role in the process of design. Thorough research performed in all phases of exploration and development forms a design solution grounded in the specific goals of a project. The best concepts are created when a design team gains direct understanding of the interactions people currently have with a product or service. This information is then analyzed and synthesized by the design team to shape design concepts. Consequently, the solutions form a mutually beneficial connection between users and business goals.
Initial Research Focus
To understand the community of use, their expectations, and their current experience in the Carnegie Museum of Art
Primary Research Methods
1. Questionnaire
Question Carnegie Museum of Art visitors about their expectations and experience2. Contextual Inquiry (CI)
Interview CMA staff members in their work environment
Decorative Arts Curator (Elisabeth Agro)
Security Guard
Technology Specialist (Will Real)3. Observation
Observe visitors in the permanent collection of the CMA and record observations4. Cultural Probe
Probe into the CMA visitor's experience to gain a more intimate understanding of their visit
Secondary Research
1. Competitive Analysis
research the activity of other museums, art galleries, science centers, etc.
(exhibit design, websites, tours, etc.)2. Technology Research
investigate current technology trends (hand-held devices, virtual technology, etc.)3. Content/ Object Files
collect stories for selected pieces of art
Models for interpreting interaction and influences
The team conducted a number of contextual inquires to better understand influences on museum staff and the interaction between staff members. Cultural and flow models representing the museum curator are displayed below.
Cultural probe meeting
Above: Feb. 15, 2002. Group members prepare the cultural probe booklets for distribution to museum visitors. Some booklets were mildly mangled in the production process, but were still acceptable enough for distribution the next day.
The cultural probe booklet (Acrobat PDF).
Below: An image from a page of the cultural probe booklet.
Preliminary affinity clustering
Buttercup group used a technique known as affinity clustering to help develop research foci and goals. See it below.
A larger version of the diagram (Acrobat PDF).