Hi Dan, We're definitely thinking about the same sorts of things on Engage, and I'm excited to hear that you're struggling with similar design problems. I've just come back from the first part of Engage's in-museum mobile application pilot test, so I have some fresh thoughts for you.
Let me make sure that I understand your problem properly: you're uncertain about whether or not to show the digital visual representation of an object (and if so, how best to) when it might already be physically in front of the visitor if he/she is in the museum. Your concern is that the image: a) takes up precious screen real estate, b) may detract from the experience of the physical object, and/or c) is redundant in the presence of the physical object. Moreover, you want to provide a seamless experience both between and within platforms, for both the in-museum and out-of-museum cases. Is this more or less correct? If so, here are my thoughts: Firstly, for any experience whether there's an absence of the object (online exhibition that complements a physical exhibition, for instance), regardless of the platform, it's critical that there be a digital visual representation (supplemented with a textual description of the visual, for users who prefer/require an alternate modality) whenever possible (i.e., if the representation is available, if the platform supports it, if there aren't any technical reasons why it'd be inadvisable). This is pretty easy to agree upon, I think--for many or most sighted users, the visual representation of an artifact is the most conceptually accessible surrogate to the actual object. For the in-museum case where the user is already directly in front of the physical object, I would argue that it's likewise critical to provide a digital visual representation up-front (i.e., not on a secondary screen, even if it's only a swipe away). At least two reasons why: 1. Confirmation. Early results from our pilot tests point overwhelmingly to the fact that users use the image on the device as confirmation that they're looking at the right object. It's the primary bridge between the physical object and the virtual object. We suspected this before the pilot, and our tests confirm it. A small percentage of our users did use the title of the object or other textual metadata to confirm that they were looking at the same object both on the device and in the physical space, but this occurred *only* when it was not obvious that the image was of the object (i.e., they attempted to make the link first by using the image, and when that failed, they used text-based metadata as a fallback). This is true of both the case where users already have a direct route to the object (e.g., entering an object code) and an indirect one (e.g., scanning through a list of thumbnails/title and selecting the appropriate one). 2. Pleasure. Users like seeing the image. In many cases, the image on the device provides a different perspective than the one they're looking at. The digital visual representation can: - Provide the object's historical context (and thus support interpretive activities) - Provide angles of the object that aren't visible to the user in the physical space (e.g., underneath the object, inside the object, etc.) - Provide a detailed view of the object that aren't easily visible to the user in the physical space (this is especially true of smaller sized objects, objects that are against the wall or a barrier, and objects that are separated from the user by glass, casings, rope, etc.) During the 'think aloud' component of our pilot test, we found that users either commented positively or had no comment at all on the up-front image. We also found that there was a relatively uniform distribution of users who disliked, liked, or were indifferent to the up-front textual content--some commented that they didn't like reading text or were too lazy to, while others enjoyed the extra value it offered. So, while the image may be something of a redundancy, I think it's both a necessary and desirable one. As for the possibility of detracting from the in-museum experience: I don't think this is a major concern. Most of our users appeared to spend a nominal amount of time looking at the image relative to the physical artifact itself. As for how to best display the image, and how much space should be afforded to it: we're not really sure. In our earliest designs, we gave very little space to the image, and focused primarily on the textual content. We gradually gave higher priority to the image, and at one point, we made the artifact image full-screen up front, with its text-based content one tap away. For our pilot test, the image and text were about half-and-half (like you considered), but given the consistently positive experience users had with images and somewhat inconsistent experience with text, we might be considering returning to the full-screen image up front. Lastly, in terms of providing a seamless out-of-museum and in-museum experience: this is something we've been doing some thinking around too. Our current designs actually propose that we detect if the mobile device is in the museum and provide different options and interface, just as you likewise considered. There's something attractive about having one application that could serve the pre-visit, in-museum, and post-visit experiences. For instance, in the pre-visit the device could provide information about the museum, and in the in-museum case the device could provide ways for entering object codes. We're still doing a lot of thinking around how to do best do this, but I'm not entirely convinced that having a 'Swiss Army knife' application is the best approach (I think it adds conceptual complexity, and might be trying to fit too many use cases into a single application. We'd be asking the users to understand why the UI offers an wholly different experience depending on where they are.). Anyways, these are just some thoughts off the top of my head. I'd love to hear some more of your thoughts, ideas, and questions. Also, we'll make an list announcement once we've processed and posted the data from our pilot test--there might be some relevant findings in there for you. Hope this helps some. Cheers, James
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