Articulating Co-Design in Museums:Reflections on two participatory processes

ACM CSCW 2016, San Francisco, 27 February-02 March 2016

Luigina Ciolfi*, Gabriela Avramº, Laura Mayeº, Nick Dulake*, Mark T. Marshall*, Dick van Dijk^, Fiona McDermottº*Sheffield Hallam University (UK)ºUniversity of Limerick (Ireland)

^Waag Society (The Netherlands)

Introduction

The meSch project: creating a DIY toolkit enabling heritage professionals to design and configure tangible installations for their institutions.

The entire project adopts a co-design approach

Bottom-up design of the toolkit: populating it with “recipes” (i.e. templates) of tangible installations that other heritage professionals can replicate and customise

Complex and long-lived co-design endeavour including project partners and collaborators from many heritage institutions

Detailing Participation in Design

Existing literature reflecting on the co-design process: decision making; “degrees” of participation; power relationships; evolving participants’ roles

Many co-design projects commence with an open brief (goal of developing design concepts); others have also explored how existing prototypes/interaction concepts can be used as prompts, tools, or development environments in the design process.

Little has been said about how different collaboration approaches unfold within the same co-design frame, and about the possibilities and challenges from a more complex strategy

Co-Design Methodology

18 months-long phase (February 2013 –July 2014)

5 large-scale co-design workshops (participants from the 3 partner museums, other designers, social scientists and technologists from the project consortium).

7 further sessions organised and facilitated by various consortium partners, involving representatives from collaborating museums from their local areas.

Various techniques used to generate ideas for tangible interaction concepts/prototypes: brainstorming, scenario building, sketching, rapid prototyping, etc.

Alternating convergent and divergent design explorations

All co-design activities were documented through note taking, video observations, self-reporting by facilitators through blogs, and (in most cases) post-hoc interviews

Co-Design Methodology

Example One: Starting from an open brief

Example One: Starting from an open brief

Design partner working with a science and anthropology museum in the same country. Richard (lead designer); Henry and Francis (heritage professionals working at the museum)

Henry, Francis and their colleagues identified the need of making wayfinding in the museum easier and more fun, and providing some guidance to visitors interested in specific themes that connect various exhibits

“Augmented Compass” idea developed through brainstorming and scenario building/discussionA non-functional prototype of the compass was created for discussion and elaboration.

Example One: Starting from an open brief

Design team tackled the making of the prototype: suggested change of form in order to accommodate necessary technology and functionality

From the compass to “The Loupe”: the functioning prototype is a magnifying glass that visually augments objects or locations in the exhibition space, and provides clues to visitors for moving to the next point of a recommended trajectory.

Example Two: Starting from a working prototype

Example Two: Starting from a working prototype

Workshop with designers and 6 CHPs from 5 collaborating institutions (from archaeology to history and science).

They were presented 5 exploratory prototypes built by meSch. They could choose one and adapt it to suit their museum (form-wise and content-wise), based on their own ideas/strategies.

Julie (historic house museum) teamed up with designers Niall and Linda, and with Mary (from an art museum) to develop an interaction scenario around “The Way Detector”, a portable device providing light guidance through haptic feedback

Scenario detailing; Julie provides insights on the house; Niall, Mary and Linda give suggestions based on their experience, and on possibilities offered by the prototype. Customisation of Way Detector with appropriate content files and behaviour

Example Two: Starting from a working prototype

The Way Detector is adapted for the historic house museum to encourage visitors to explore the servants’ quarters of the 19th century house: a replica of an original kitchen utensil from the house: a pie dish

Niall and Julie, Mary and Linda work together on developing the interaction context, sketching the design, making a quick physical prototype and adding the relevant content and behaviours to the way detector

The final prototype is demoed to all other workshop participants

Themes from Analysis

Identifying the issues around which the process unfolded and that shaped the practices of participants, and how this occurred:

Skills and knowledge shared

Influence of the prototypes’ form

Openness vs. defined concept

Shaping of design decisions

Participants’ roles and involvement

Discussion: Skills and Knowledge Shared

How do participants share different skills and knowledge with collaborators when designing using low-tech representations compared to high-tech prototypes?

Discussion: Influence of the prototypes’ form

How did the form of the prototypes used during the process influence participation in the development of design ideas?

Discussion: Openness vs. Defined concept

How does a non-functioning prototype support interpretation? Is a functioning prototype less open to interpretation than a low-tech representation or idea, as a low-tech representation provides a broader picture of how the prototype may work and what technologies may be applied?

Discussion: Shaping of Design Decisions

How did the two processes support the shaping and making of design decisions? Which activities occurred in each case to underpin design development?

Discussion: Participants’ Roles and Involvement

How were the roles and the involvement of the participants affected by the two processes?

Conclusions

We presented a reflection on two different and somewhat alternative participatory processes within the same large project by a team of designers, heritage professionals, social scientists and technology developers.

As co-design becomes an increasingly widespread approach to technology design (in heritage settings and beyond), the process also becomes more complex. Co-design strategies are more diverse and variegated.

Co-design as collaborative work

The project (2013-2017) receives funding from the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme ‘ICT for access to cultural resources’ (ICT Call 9: FP7-ICT-2011-9) under the Grant Agreement 600851.

http://mesch-project.eu

Thank You!

@luiciolfil.ciolfi@shu.ac.uk

@meschproject