We're Building a Website: Users

I want to begin with a confession. For some time I've felt guilty, perhaps even a little ashamed, about my internet use. I have access to thousands of well-written scholarly articles and interviews at the touch of a button but can't bother committing to read more than a single paragraph. Instead, I feel compelled to click everything feverishly like a five year old with a new toy, onwards and upwards through a labyrinth of pages and hyperlinks and rich media.

What's happening to me? Do I have ADD? Am I lazy? Is the internet making me even more stupid?

As it turns out, I'm just a typical user.

The typical user
When it comes to reading content on the web, we've all got ADD, all a bit lazy. Or rather, we're all task-orientated, enjoy interacting with a range of content, and wish to do everything in the shortest amount of time possible without expending effort thinking about things. Steve Krug wrote a book in 2000 on exactly this topic called Don't Make me Think in which he clearly explains that fundamentally the best user experience is one where everything on a website is self-explanatory and self-evident. 

Where am I? The current M&G Website Experience  
Along with audience research, M&G NSW has spent the last few months reorientating its priorities to learn more about what users want. This has been extremely eye opening for our organisation, revealing the perils of densely written copy, confusing navigation headings, and an unintuitive search function. 

Let's take a look at our current website from a user perspective:

The columned website design with a main menu and second tier sub menu is an effective and simple way of articulating navigation but problems quickly arise. Look what happens if you're in Exhibitions and you click on the Exhibitions Register. All of a sudden you're in Publications. 

Not a big problem but, as Steve Krug writes, confusing people's sense of place on a website is a big no no. Our interpretation of virtual space is analogous to physical space; we look for signposts and directions. This is why "breadcrumbs", the trail that you see at the top of website pages, is so important. Like in the story of Hanzel and Gretel, breadcrumbs provide a path from where you started to where you are. 

Above: An example of "breadcrumbs" on Trip Advisor.

And let's not even get into the label "Publications." What value does this present to you? We're not in the business of publishing so its strange this takes up the ultra premium place in the first tier of our menu. Why wouldn't publications be under "resources"? 

What about the search function? I'll type "Museum" in the search field and see what I get:

Excellent. 

The point I'm making is that every website is made to be USED and when a website like ours has a range of little anomylies that cause momentary confusion or undermine the user's trust, it does not fulfill its fundamental goal. 

So how do we make a usable website?

Designing a website for users
Working with Adrian Wiggins from Pure and Applied we began describing the user experience (UX) visually with simple page layouts called wireframes. These are page schematics depicting the website’s content, interface elements and navigational systems, with a focus on functionality, user behaviour and information architecture. 

Early wireframe of the public homepage. Click to enlarge.

Wireframes
Wireframes represent the interface without getting swamped in design detail, concisely articulating the user experience but allowing for rapid iterations. Adrian made prototypes of pages that offered layout suggestions and also potential types of content. After feedback he would remove, improve and rearrange items. 

In the wireframe above you can see the homepage displays event information, social media updates and quirky items like Object of the Day and Little Known Fact. It also clearly displays access to a map and database of museums, galleries and Aboriginal cultural centres in NSW. 

Our discussions with Adrian ranged from broad conceptual discussions and strategic goals to the nitty gritty details like button placement and menu labels. At every point we needed to meet a simple criteria: Could a user come to our Homepage and know exactly what to do without thinking?

By the end of January, Adrian had compiled an 90+ page document that provided a blueprint for Toben (the designers) and Interaction Consortium (the engineers) to begin building the new website. 

A Typical User?

At the beginning of this post I described the "typical user". Apart from the broad generalizations about UX, most users are an idiosyncratic, contradictory bunch who will respond to webpages in ways that designers and developers never imagined. M&G can hypothesize about user needs till the cows come home but its meaningless until we actually test the website. 

Further information on website user experience:

Steve Krug's website: Advanced Common Sense

Information Architecture for the World Wide Web

Nielsen Norman Group

This blog was updated on March 28 2013.

Opportunity Knocks

Last Tuesday on 26 February M&G NSW hosted a special presentation of the 2012 Fellowship & Mentorship recipients.

In 2012, eight people from museums and galleries across NSW participated in two-week professional development placements with cultural organisations relevant to their field of work.

Each speaker talked about the benefits of undertaking a mentorship or fellowship and how they plan to implement the things that they have learned into their own work practices.

Are you interested in a mentorship, fellowship or professional placement?

HOLLY WILLIAMS
PROGRAM COORDINATOR AND ASSISTANT CURATOR
UTS GALLERY

Recognising a need to expand her critical and conceptual understanding of contemporary curation in practice, Holly sought a mentorship at the Museum of Old and New Art. Working closely with the Museum’s curators provided Holly with a range of new methodologies, knowledge and inspiration as well as confidence to be ambitious in her own curatorial practice.

BEN MESSIH
ADMINISTRATION COORDINATOR
HAZELHURST REGIONAL GALLERY & ARTS CENTRE

In selecting a mentorship with the Education and Public Programs area of the National Gallery of Australia (NGA), Ben sought to develop skills and understanding across volunteer engagement, access and youth programming. Involvement in NGA programs such as the Big Draw, Art and Alzheimer’s and Touch and Draw, provided Ben with a wealth of skills, knowledge and experience to take back to Hazelhurst Regional Gallery & Arts Centre.

This is an Arts NSW devolved funding program, administered by Museums & Galleries NSW on behalf of the NSW Government.

How Yesterday Remembers Tomorrow opens at the new Blue Mountains City Gallery

How Yesterday Remembers Tomorrow exhibition opening night at Blue Mountains Cultural Centre, including Ms&Mr’s installation, Frame Drag 1988/2009/2024 (front) and Tony Schwensen’s Attempting to approach fanaticism-Red Sox (back).

How Yesterday Remembers Tomorrow opened last Friday night to much success at the Blue Mountains City Art Gallery, part of the new Blue Mountains Cultural Centre. The Centre, which opened on 17 November 2012, joins the growing network of regional art galleries in NSW and will feature quality curated, local, regional and national touring exhibitions in addition to educational programs for the community.

Officially opened by Dr Blair French, Executive Director, Artspace with Paul Brinkman, Director of the Blue Mountains Cultural Centre, How Yesterday Remembers Tomorrow was well received by the diverse audience in attendance on the night - from toddlers to seniors and all in between. In positioning the exhibition within this new space, Artspace and How Yesterday Remembers Tomorrow curator, Mark Feary makes a poignant reflection upon how an art practice shifts and changes over time.

Featuring work by six contemporary Australian artists and artist partnerships who are past recipients of the Helen Lempriere Travelling Art Scholarship for emerging artists, the exhibition presents early works alongside more recent projects and includes work by Lauren Brincat, Claire Healy & Sean Cordeiro, Todd McMillan, Ms&Mr, Tony Schwensen and Sam Smith.

The exhibition highlights how artists’ practices develop over time through sustained research, experimentation and refinement - a theme particularly relevant to the large population of emerging and established artists the Mountains boasts.

Accompanying the exhibition is Close to Home, curated by the Centre’s Rilka Oakley, which showcases the work of contemporary artists residing in the Blue Mountains region, working in a variety of media including digital animation and embroidery.

How Yesterday Remembers Tomorrow is on at the Blue Mountains City Gallery until 17 March from where it will tour to its final venue, Redland Art Gallery in Cleveland, QLD from 10 April.

There’s A War On! tour comes to an end

Image: Victory Vanities theatrical troupe image courtesy of AlburyCity Collections.

After travelling widely across regional New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland the There’s A War On! World War II at Home exhibition has finally come to an end. Concluding at Orange City Library last week, the touring exhibition was first shown in August 2009 at the Museum of the Riverina in Wagga Wagga. 

Featuring stories, images and objects held in individual and community collections from all over New South Wales, the exhibition traveled from the Albury LibraryMuseum to the Cowra Regional Art Gallery. Items of intrigue included early ephemera such as ration and identity cards as well as scrapbooks and a pocket journal offering personal accounts of daily life on the home front. Other items included specific tools used and made for the time including the ominous black out covers for vehicle headlights, a tatting shuttle used for weaving camouflage nets, helmet head wear of the National Emergency Services Wardens, and the much admired 1940s wedding dress and wedding dress book.

On March 1 2011 the tour continued its momentum with the official launch of the There’s A War On! wiki website at Chifley Home Education Centre in Bathurst, showcasing the sites and collections across regional New South Wales, which tell us stories about life during World War I and World War II.

Later in 2011, the exhibition continued its journey on a smaller scale tour from the Lady Denman Heritage Complex in Huskisson to Orange City Library. In total, the There’s a War On! tour covered a total of 16 venues across 3 states, and received over 78,000 visitors during its journey.

While no longer on the road the community involvement with the There’s A War On! project continues with the contribution of stories, images and objects on the There’s A War On! wiki website. In addition, significant pieces from the original exhibition have found their way to collections across NSW from Huskisson, Wellington and Cowra.

M&G would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the partners and contributors who made There's a War On! possible:

1. Australian Government Department of Veterans’ Affairs

2. Australian War Memorial

3. Sue Hodges Productions

4. Arts NSW

5. Planning NSW

6. Heritage Council of NSW

7. The Australia Council for the Arts

8. The contribution and participation by public and community collections including: AlburyLibrary Museum and AlburyCity Collection, Brunswick Valley Historical Society, Cowra City Council and Cowra Family History Group, Hurstville City Library Museum & Gallery, the Museum of the Riverina Wagga Wagga, and the Charles Sturt University Regional Archives, as well as the generous contributions by Meg Sheaffe, Jack Ellis, Mrs Maureen Taylor, Graham Apthorpe and Doug Hunter.

9. And the significant work, project planning and original research by Sarah Jane Rennie.

Remembering Mark Lipscomb

Image credit: Mark Lipscomb in 2011 taking part in an ABC Open workshop. Photo by David Mathieson.

Whenever a conversation is had about community museums in NSW, quite often Adelong Alive Museum and Mark Lipscomb in particular are mentioned. On 12 February, Adelong lost one of its most dedicated in Mark. A founding member of the Museum Committee and instrumental in it's establishment, Mark played a key role in the 12 years of the Museum as past President and in other committee roles. Through writing grants, organising workshops, getting the school kids involved or hosting guided bus tours - Mark made Adelong Alive Museum truly alive through his energising of the space. Millinery workshops, artists in residence programs, astronomy nights, sculptures, photography exhibitions are all not uncommon to visitors to the museum. 

His understanding of the role of a museum in its community was remarkable. Close friend and fellow Museum founder Tom Wiles said "He was an exceptional person. When the Museum was in its infancy it was through Mark that we were able to get the necessary grants to progress it. Without him the Museum wouldn't be where it is today."

For me, Mark was the first community museum worker I dealt with. His enthusiasm and dedication was contagious. My experiences in working with Mark and the Adelong Alive committee over ten years ago encouraged and inspired me to work with dozens more museums across NSW and Victoria. The loss of Mark Lipscomb extends far beyond the Museum. Mark also served on the committees for Adelong Men's Shed, S and C Club, Adelong Golf Club, Adelong Falls, Adelong Progress Association, The Antique Fair and Falls Walking Trail. Mark was also a member of the Tumut Shire Council's Cultural Committee. 

His ability to write a successful grant application was legendary. Always with a project in the making, I am sure he had M&G NSW's number on speed dial when the right grant program opened. 

His passing was acknowledged on the front page of the Tumut & Adelong Times and a story on the Wagga based Prime News whom he'd been interviewed by just a few weeks ago. He'd be pleased to have gotten a plug in for the Museum.

Adelong Alive will continue on. There is an equally as talented and dedicated group of volunteers ably led by Mark's sister-in-law Margaret Bentley who will continue to achieve their shared vision of preserving and telling the story of Adelong to its residents and visitors with Mark now such a treasured part of that story. 

Mark is survived by his wife Diana, sons Stephen and Gerald and extended family.

Vanessa Keenan
Museum Advisor

We're building a website: Audience, assets and content

As promised, I’ll explain the evolution of this drawing by the super-smart Adrian Wiggins from Pure and Applied:

The Digital Engagement Framework

Adrian’s deceptively simple drawing is a variation of an online engagement strategy conceived by Jasper Visser from Inspired by Coffee who ran a Digital Engagement Framework workshop as part of the ICOM Australia 2012 Conference held at the Australian Museum. 

Adrian's picture posits a clear communication strategy for M&G NSW. Connect our audience (the smiley guy on the left) with our assets (all our resources) using content.

It’s no mystery that to successfully engage your audience you need to know who they are and what they want. Except the only way to know what your audience wants is to research them and ask them. M&G's website has two audiences (both with overlapping but also contradictory needs): the public and the sector. 

So what do our audiences want?

Pure and Applied looked at existing data about our audiences and conducted interviews with members of the public and sector. Based on the collected statements and data, we picked out key patterns in their cultural needs, demographics and online engagement and we built 'personas'. Like this one:

As you can see above, Fiona is 35, single, not very wealthy, engaged on Facebook but not Twitter. It's important to realise these personas are not supposed to represent accurate personalities with all their potential for contradiction, idiosyncrasies and subtleties of taste. Instead, they’re a summation of data that allow us to personalise broad generalisations about audience interest and meet those interests online (what would Fiona be looking for online: Opening hours? Educational tools? Collection information?)

Assets

Which brings us to the other side of Adrian's picture: the assets. Your assets could be your café, your educational programs, unique items in for collection, or the volunteers who tell stories. M&G NSW's assets are the aggregation of everything you are doing on a regional and state-wide scale. Our job is to describe the relationships between your organizations, their context, the nearby amenities and overall destination.

Connecting audience with assets: content

As you can see our assets are "wrapped" in content and its the multiple opportunities to display and aggregate this content on the M&G website that has driven the development of the user experience. Our original conception of the new website was a homepage displaying a massive google map of NSW. Instead, when users come to our front door they will be greeted by a selection of stories (interviews, onsite travelogues about regions, exhibitions, festivals, opinion pieces and videos highlighting programs). This content invites users to visit individual museums or galleries or highlights the connections between organisations. Simply put, the front door is like a "magazine" with articles rather than a  searchable directory.

But don't worry . . . 

Visitors will still be able to search for every museum, gallery and keeping place in NSW (by region) with a click of a button. And in the next blog, I'll be showing you exactly how we'll achieve both these aspects when we look closely at designing the user experience. 

Further information on the Digital Engagement Framework 

Digital Engagement Framework 

Audience research:

Arts Council of England's Arts audiences:insight 2011 

CONNECTING:// ARTS AUDIENCES ONLINE

Guess Who's Going to the Gallery? NSW State Report 2011

Culture segments New Zealand

Revealed!

Hurstville Museum & Gallery on Friday evening

The nature of collecting itself comes under scrutiny in Hurstville Library, Museum & Gallery's new exhibition Revealed! that opened last Friday evening.

What do we collect? Why do we collect? The sheer range of collections (anything from sci fi toys to doilies) is testimony to the strange, guilty passion that turns sane people into obsessives, and back rooms into Aladin's Caves.

Luckily, Hurstville secured guest speaker Claudia Chan Shaw to navigate the variety of collections and collection psychology. Claudia has a perfect background to discuss collecting: she presented the ABC TV Show Collectors; has an extensive collection of tin space toys and robots (among many other things); and has written a book called Collectomania: From Objects of Desire to Magnificent Obsession.  

Claudia Chan Shaw explains the ins and outs of Collectomania. Image courtesy of Hurstville City Library, Museum & Gallery.

Claudia explained the difference between hoarding and collecting (the former is an obsessive-compulsive disorder) but noted the downright weirdness of some collections. One man collects his belly button lint, coloured depending on the towel he uses to dry himself. Even weirder, the collection has been valued at a few thousand dollars. 

Visitors at the opening of Revealed!. Image courtesy of Hurstville City Library, Museum & Gallery.

In Revealed there was (thankfully) no lint on display but plenty of oddities to be found still. Hurstville Historical Society first began collecting objects related to the St George Region in the 1970s and, since then, the collections have grown predominantly through object donations. Curator Birgit Heilmann  has put together an exhibition that celebrates randomness, eclecticism and stories of unique objects and individuals. 

Here are a couple of my favourites:

This is actually a cake.

So is this.

The Library, Museum and Gallery actually has over 50 sugar art pieces like the above, inherited from the former Australian Cake & Sugar Art Museum and Gallery in Strathfield. The oldest cake in the collection dates back to 1989. 

The interpretation anticipated my one question: how do you preserve cakes like this for years? Well, sugar artists use a sugar substitute called Isomalt that is resistant to humidity and crystallisation. Also, Isomalt doesn't lead to tooth decay like sugar. 
 
The exhibition also featured a mystery object:

This is not a cake.

What is it? I have no idea. if you want to see the answer keep your eye on Hurstville's blog at http://hurstvillelmg.blogspot.com.au/

PS: Just as a side note about the ubiquity of collections. After the event, my companions and I ate at the Ritz down the street. In a glass cabinet right next to us was a boot worn by Muhammad Ali. Just awesome. 

Revealed! Treasures from the Hurstville Library, Museum & Gallery Collections is on until 14 April 2013. 

Contact: 9330 6444
Admission: Free
Website: http://lmg.hurstville.nsw.gov.au/