Museum Techmuse

Wild Music Exhibit: Science Museum of Minnesota

The Science Museum of Minnesota's richly textured and evocative "Wild Music" exhibit is traveling now, focusing on the "sounds and songs of life", exploring biological origins of music.  I was pleased to develop a StoryKiosk for the exhibit focusing on visitors' strong memories of music in their own lives. We ask visitors: "Listen to a song and describe the memories it evokes for you" and "Describe an intense musical experience you've had."

I was especially interested to see if we could encourage visitors to sing a song in the exhibit, because the act of singing itself I think evokes memories, and provides a nice fit with Howard Gardner's multiple intelligences approach to exhibit development.

 

Make Magazine, Maker Faire: Austin Children's Museum

Now and then a project pops into place that crystallizes years of thinking about development of technologies that encourage long-term learning among families. I'm delighted to be working with Austin Children's Museum on a StoryKiosk to record visitors' creations related to Make Magazine's Maker Faire to be held in Austin in October. The Maker Faire is billed as "family friendly" event -- (great to see the emergence of what Seymour Papert termed "The Connected Family" years ago)...families engaging in enjoyable, creative activities integrating both technologies and traditional craft materials. Stay tuned as we work through the interface, grappling with issues such as: how do we make the interface more family friendly, appealing to girls as well as boys and parents. More later...

Local History and Storytelling: Oklahoma Heritage Center

Stories are an essential part of the fabric of content for local history museums. Not just well-documented stories from renowned residents -- also stories and snippets of "this is what life was like" from everyday visitors. This was our goal at the Oklahoma Heritage Center, to help draw out from visitors these quick portraits of life in Oklahoma. We ask visitors questions such as "How has Oklahoma changed in your lifetime?" and "Tell us about a place in Oklahoma that is especially important to you." Visitors record their stories, and play back those from other visitors, developing an evolving base of stories connected to the community. The StoryKiosk is part of a building-wide exhibit development led by Northern Light Productions.

Visitors record and browse other visitors' stories and can email their story home. (Click to enlarge)

iPhone impressions

I made the trek to the Apple Store in Braintree Friday night to buy an iPhone on it's first day.  I've been playing with it a few days now.  My impressions: I love it, with the caveat that so many other people have about the limits of the AT&T service. As expected from an Apple product, the design is extraordinary. Smooth and sleek, it has a solid feel that makes me happy, the way I feel when I hold a polished stone.

Above all, the interface is pleasing. It is fun to scroll a web page or flip through photos or album covers by dragging the screen and letting it continue with it's own momentum. (This is a lesson for museum applications, which will either succeed or not based on how "enjoyable" it is for visitors to work through the interface, something we focused a lot on in Design a Panda Habitat.)

On the downside: it takes a loooong time to open a Web page using AT&T's data service. (At the Apple Store, they wisely chose to have the iPhones access the Web through a wifi connection, which is a better option but not always available).

Some interesting potential applications for Museums using the tightknit connection to YouTube. More on this later...