Persona: Ebba Ceoderqvist

Ebba Ceoderqvist

Age: 46, Hometown: Stockholm

Background:

Ebba is 46 years old and lives in Stockholm city. She is divorced and lives with her ten-year-old daughter Emily every other week. Ebba works as an investment banker at BigBank AB and loves it. She spends most of her time there.

Personality

Ebba loves work. When Emily is staying with her father she doesn’t come home before 9 or 10 PM on weekdays and it’s not unusual for her to work during weekends as well. During the weeks Emily lives with her she tries to get home earlier, but sometimes Emily has to go to Ebba’s sister Anna, who lives just across the street, after school. Ebba loves her daughter and colleagues, but she spends so much time around people that sometimes she just wants to be alone. Get some “Ebba-time” she calls it. During those precious moments she usually goes to museums, exercises or watches a movie. She especially likes to take long walks with her camera.

Today

Ebba is going on “adventure”-day with her daughter. They are going to Gröna Lund, Skansen and Fotografiska. A whole day of activites to catch up for some lost time. Ebba has been working on a big project and can’t even remember the last “Ebba-time” she had. That’s why she has planned to visit Fotografiska at the end of the day. In that way she could kill two birds with one stone. Spending time with Emily and doing something she likes. It’s the last day for a specific exhibition she has wanted to see and thought that it would be a good thing to do with her daughter. She is a bit worried that Emily won’t like Fotogarfiska. If Emily doesn't like it Ebba is afraid she will feel selfish and as a bad parent. She has a bad conscience for not spending time with Emily as it is.

Persona 1 - Oliver the History teacher

Oliver Williams, 41

Huddinge, Sweden

Background

Oliver graduated from the University of Brighton in 1995 in Applied Social Sciences and Philosophy. He worked for two years as a consultant for a big company. After being involved in various coaching and team-building missions in northern Europe, he met Regina, a young Swedish woman. 

Oliver is now married with Regina and they have a daughter Lily, who is 7. He works as a teacher in History and social sciences at Stockholm International School since 2005. Last year, he received the 'Student's most appreciated teacher 2013' award.

Personality

Oliver is a very calm person who enjoys philosophical discussions, and politics. He wants to keep on being surprised by life, thus he likes to entertain spiritually and to observe the world around him. Trying to transmit this calmness to his daughter is quite a challenge, though. She has so much energy! Oliver is rather passive about things happening. Sometimes he and Regina argue about that.

Today

The good old friend Jimmy called Oliver this week, and together they thought it might be a good idea to meet along with their respective children, have some lunch, and spend some time in a museum. Why not Fotografiska? Oliver has an annual membership.

The sun is shining today, and Lily is excited to meet Elaine, Jimmy's 9 year-old daughter. Brace yourselves, a great day is coming.

State-of-the-art analysis: Augmented-reality app

The ideas we are discussing at the moment for our project tend to involve the concept of augmented reality. In our case, the parts of augmented reality involved would be imagery and perhaps sound.

Concerning the technical concept of visual enhancement, we can gather the process steps into two phases. Detecting the world, and restoring another. Detecting interest points, optical flow, corners or edges are image processing methods of gathering the data that allow the software algorithm to build a reality out or a certain number of criteria. The second stage restores a real world coordinate system from the obtained data. If we have some information about the scene geometry, then achieving to render a 3D environment is possible.

I thought having an idea of what current augmented-reality applications for smartphones and tablets are capable of can help us embracing a whole set of design possibilities. While researching and browsing through appstores, it appears that most top-10 used augmented-reality app (like Wikitude, Yelp) are related to helping you finding locations or events. Restaurants, pubs, ATMs, concerts, Wikipedia articles related to your surroundings and accommodation. Furthermore, most apps that detect images and build upon that provide childish entertainment like drawing ape faces with face-recognition. The last main alternative is a range of apps like Blippar that work for advertisements: the company decides to give an augmented-reality experience to customers, they contact Blippar that incorporates their advertisement in the recognition database, and build a 3D-animation upon that. Pepsi, Coca-Cola or Maybeline have used it (more about this app).

In the end, image processing and augmented-reality rendering seems underused for specific places such as museums. Some museums like the Cleveland Museum of Art have however experimented an integrated system of experience enhancement using augmented-reality, and iPads!

[...] An iPad 3 app (ArtLens) provides image-recognition access to information and rich media about collection objects, both in Gallery 1 and for highlight objects in the permanent-collection galleries. "ArtLens" serves as both guide and interior locator, via Cisco wireless triangulation, for both predefined tours and a proximity-based recommender service. The app integrates Facebook check-ins and favorites posting. A lobby beacon provides potential visitors with current dashboard-style statistics on most popular objects and tours. [extract from full text @ http://www.mcn.edu/transforming-art-museum-experience-gallery-one-mcn2012gal1]

The app is available on stores, and with full functionalities on iPad. Read more about the ArtLens app and the Gallery One of the museum. If we have access to a tablet we could probably download the app and try it on images of current exhibitions available on the website.

Our feeling that we could improve the children's experience with material they already own seems to closely link to the experimentations led at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Also, the idea of downloading a specific app for an activity or an event is spreading (here a virtual gallery for the yearly Canadian Luminato Festival). The app itself becomes a key element in the experience that enters the familiarity sphere embodied by the smartphone or tablet. Fotografiska could also lend tablets to visitors with no adapted device (the CMA does it for $5).

State-of-the-art analysis: Tekniska Museet's Virtual Autopsy Table

The Virtual Autopsy Table at The National Museum of Science and Technology

There is an interactive installment at Tekniska Museet which allows a user through a multi-touch screen to see and interact with the inside of a body in different layers. A cool thing to notice is that the visible body is not a 3D model since the datasets shown is imported straight from a real scanned human being and it has not been edited or modified.

Anyways, the user can choose which layer to operate on. This makes it possible to look inside the volume and focus on details, such as: the brain, skeleton, heart, skin, muscles and bloodflow. The user can also cut through the body using a virtual knife, making it possible to see even more specific details.

I think that there are several targeted utsers for this activity. First of all for kids and students, to make them explore something fun, interesting and educational at the same time, so that they’ll learn something and might grow an interest in the field. Secondly, it targets anyone related to any field of the human body structure. This is a brilliant invention and it is actually used as a compliment to the conventional autopsy by medical experts and also used in other countries where autopsies are not allowed because of cultural reasons.

One problem that I think might occur while having this installment available in the Museum is that it will build a long queue of kids or people wanting to use it, since only one user at a time can play with it. This is of course assuming that they only have one installment at the entire facility. This will bore people who’ve been waiting too long and at the same time destroy other peoples experience by giving up their hope of using it because of the line. It’s like going to the eiffel tower only to realize that the queue going up to the tower will take at least 3 hours to complete.

Another problem is that the multi-touch surface will possibly be covered with bacteria due to the amount of fingertips and hands that has touched it. Wise would it be to have some disinfectant available beside the installment.

Summary of our state-of-the-art analyses

We have researched and analysed a number of tools that museums use today. They vary a lot since the different museums have different target groups. The most surprising discoveries are that none of the museums we researched were very successful in creating a unique experience that would not otherwise be possible, and few offered solutions that were aimed at kids.

The Swedish Museum of Natural History (SMNH) writes on the website that they aim to be a knowledge center and a natural meeting point for both the public and experts. However, the interactive touch screens they use seem to focus on their experience for kids. At Moderna Museet (MM) they offer a guide tour app to complement the exhibition but keep the activities with a focus on children scheduled on "family sundays".

We saw some good effects the different tools offered during our observations. For example the MM app has a nice simple design that is easy to navigate intuitively. The karaoke stage at the ABBA museum (AM) really draws the visitors in to the exhibition and makes them want to experience more. The touch screens at SMNH create natural stopping points in the tour and helps kids stay interested.

To summarize, there is a variety of different interactive solutions in use in museums today but none of them seem to get the experience just right. The stage at AM immerses one in the experience but also shares the experience with all surrounding people, both willing and unwilling. MM's application can be used without affecting others, but isolates the users from their surroundings to a large extent by occupying the sense of hearing. We believe that there must be a sweet-spot between disturbance and isolation.

Furthermore, not all solutions use the possibilities of digital tools to their limit. The interactive screens at SMNH could be replaced by regular printed text without much of a change in the user experience and the MM application is mostly digital version of a traditional guided tour. We imagine that there is way to use the possibilities only available in digital technology to offer a more innovative experience.

Looking at our analyses the biggest problem we need to address when we work on our project appears to be "How do we create something truly engaging for kids without disturbing the other visitors"?

State of the art analysis: Interactive karaoke at the ABBA museum

At the ABBA museum they offer their visitors to experience how it is to be a part of ABBA. Not just by letting you sing along in a classic karaoke but actually lets you get up on stage as the ABBA members are being 3D-projected on stage with you. I think this is a great example where technology is used to create something more than a museum. It draws the visitors in to the exhibition.

I think these kind of installations would be perfect in an environment where you want to stimulate kids. The key to the experience at the ABBA museum is for the visitor to actually interact with their whole body in the exhibition. For Fotografiska it could be interactive photos where you at certain spots throughout the museum could "enter" the photos by setting up a camera and mapping out the background. Maybe you could use some form of visual tracking to make the visitor move stuff around in the photo or changing the colours. 

The problem I can identify for a whole-body-interactive-experience at Fotografiska is that the environment around this kind of setup gets really loud. Not because of the music but by the excitement and joy of the visitors. It works at the ABBA museum but in the quiet rooms at Fotografiska, where many of the visitors want to stand still and ponder in front of a photo, this could easily become distracting. There are also some subject limitations to when it is possible to implement a similar solution at Fotografiska. The exhibitions are not always suitable for interactive experiences as some photographers focus on serious or explicit subjects.

The general idea is great though. The questions is how do you format it to suit children in a quiet environment. You want to stimulate the children but without disturbing the other visitors.

Summary of interviews at Fotografiska

We conducted a number of interviews with children and their parents at Fotografiska Museet. Children tended to say that they did not think it was hard to concentrate on the exhibitions. They did not think they would have liked or needed something to play with and told us that they did not use their phones at all during the visit. A few said that they had been tedious at times and would have liked to have a toy to play with.

Our interviews with parents revealed an other story. As an example, one couple decided after 45 minutes to take a break and have something to eat in the café because the kids started having a hard time concentrating. They argued that they as parents had to be very active and help the children with the experience, by pointing out specific images and talk about them with the children. They also said the kids frequently asked to have their iPhones but were not allowed to use them in the museum. A merely visual experience is hard for children, as well as walking for a prolonged duration. According to the parents it was a safe assumption to make that they visited Fotografiska with their kids even though it was not family friendly, but that they would really appreciate it if the museum could be developed so that it was easier to take the kids there.

The mother in one of our interviews had an interesting reflection that was that we should give the kids some sort of opportunity to play with the concept of photography as a form of art, for example by letting them take pictures and try some simple editing or adding of filters. This would be an interactive activity that is still on the same theme as the museum visit in general.

One parent we interviewed said that children have tablets more often than smartphones. It is difficult to know how statistically accurate this is, but it might be worth looking in to if we decide to develop some kind of app. It seems to be a lot easier for children to appreciate an experience where they may be involved in in different ways. Many children wanted to touch the photographs in the museum, which of course isn’t desirable from the museum's perspective. Our conclusion is therefore that there is absolutely a need for some kind of solution to make it easier for art-loving parents to bring their children to Fotografiska and similar museums.

State-of-the-art analysis: Moderna Museet's mobile application

I have chosen to write my state-of-the-art analysis about Moderna Museet’s mobile application ”Moderna Museet audioguide”. It aims to complement one’s visit to Moderna Museet with information about the works on display, primarily through pre-recorded audio tracks.

Its description text in the App Store indicates that its main use is learning about the art at one’s own pace. The audio tracks contain commentary about the paintings and sculptures and tries to put them in an art historical context.

The application differs from our own project in that the target group appears to be mainly adults. The fact that there is audio rather than text suggests that the focus is on lone visitors who are not visiting with friends or family. They are however conceptually similar in that the goal is to complement, rather than compete with, the art that is on display. The application alters the experience for the user, but does not interfere with visitors using the museum in a more traditional way.

Moderna Museet’s solution is working well technically and the application is intuitive and easy to use. On the first screen you are presented with the choice of which exhibition to show.

Once you have chosen an exhibition you are presented with a list of the different painting and scultures, complete with the numbering system used physically in the museum itself.

When you choose something from the list, you are presented with a larger picture as well as an audio track that you can listen to. This part of the interface is working fairly well but is not particularily innovative. One could imagine being able to view a map which indicates your current position and the position of different works of art, and the need to choose which exhibition you are currently at could be removed with the use of locational technology (bluetooth transmitters or similar, such as iBeacons).

There also is not much in the way of additional information. Supplementing the audio tracks with a transcription could allow the app to be used by visitors who are not alone and remove the need to wear head phones (which disconnects you from the group).

It is not stated who the application is meant for but it appears that they have lone visitors in mind. I believe that these are also the kinds of people who might be using the application. However, it seems to me that the solution disconnects the user from the physical world to too much of a an extent for it to be as widely used as it has the potential to be. While visiting museum is not seen as an activity in which you actively interact with strangers, wearing headphones makes one appear unsociable. A digital solution for museums needs to be more integrated and less of a separate thing for me to think that it could be successful.

Transcribed interview from Fotografiska - 2

 Nedan följer transkriberingen av den intervju jag gjorde på Fotografiska. Jag intervjuade en nio (och ett halvt) år gammal flicka. Jag märkte snabbt att barn blir väldigt påverkade av hur frågorna ställs. Frågar man "Tyckte du om det?" är sannolikheten för att man får svaret jag betydligt större än den att man får ett positivt svar på frågan "Vad tyckte du?". Jag gjorde mitt bästa för att tänka på detta under intervjun.

Vi läser en kurs där man ska uppfinna en sak, kan man säga. Det kan vara lite vad som helst, kanske ett spel som dom du har på din telefon eller något annat. Vi ska göra någonting för ett museum för att göra upplevelsen för de som går på museet bättre, så att man har roligare medan man är här. Så jag tänkte fråga dig lite om hur dagen har varit och om ni har haft roligt och så. Är du redo?

Ja!

När sa era föräldrar till er att ni skulle gå hit?

Det var på morgonen.

Hur kände ni då?

Jag tyckte att det skulle bli kul.

Har ni varit här innan?

Aa.

Hur många gång då?

(Min anm: här tänkte hon länge innan hon svarade) Några gånger.

Vad brukar ni annars göra när ni ska göra något på helgerna och så?

Vi brukar typ cykla till museum. Eller göra utflykter.

Brukar ni gå på museum ofta?

Sådär.

När ni har varit här idag, vad är det som har varit roligast eller mest spännande?

Att se på dom där djuren. Och människorna. Vi har tittat på två utställningar och en var hur människor levde och det vi var och tittade hur människor levde och sen var vi och kollade på en massa bilder med berg och så.

Vilken var den bästa bilden? Har du någon favorit?

En med ett molntäcke som gick som en rak linje som såg ut som två bilder fast det var bara en. Den var väldigt cool. Och en som såg utsom att den var målad fast det var ett foto.

Finns det något som har varit tråkigt eller dålig?

Nej. Ingenting. Eller vi hade tänkt att gå på en utställning från början men den var inte så rolig för oss(Min anm: här syftade hon på sig och sin bror), den var mer för pappa.

Okej, vad var det för en utställning? Var den också här på fotografiska?

Ja, den var längst ner, precis när man kom in. Den var inte så rolig, i alla fall inte för oss.

(Min anm: Utställningen längst ner var en serie ganska så hemska bilder föreställande socialt utsatta människor)

Har du mobiltelefon?

Ja

Vilken modell?

iPhone 4s

Vad brukar du använda dem till?

Jag brukar ibland spela och sen så när vi går hem själv så ringer vi våra föräldrar så de vet att vi är på väg. När jag går på aktiviteter själv efter skolan så ringer jag när jag är på väg.

Brukar du ta några bilder eller videos?

Nej. Alltså, jag gör det ibland, men inte så jätteofta.

Har ni instagram, facebook eller nåt liknande?

Nej.

Har ni använt era telefoner nu när ni har varit här på museet?

Nej. När jag satt och väntade på att dom (min anm: föräldrarna) skulle komma med maten så satt jag lite med mobilen och tittade lite på den, men annars så har jag tittat på utställningarna.

Så du tyckte inte det var svårt att hålla koncentrationen?

Nej. För vi spelade hela morgonen så vi är trötta på det.

Vill du komma hit igen någon gång?

Ja gärna.

Har ni några idéer om hur man skulle kunna göra museet till ett roligare ställe för barn?

Dom flesta bilderna är såhär svartvita. Ibland är dom svartvitgråa och ibland är det färg men nu är det typ bara svartvita bilder fast det är roligare om det är lite färg också i dom.

Skulle du tycka det var roligt om du fick använda någon sorts leksak under tiden?

Nej, det behövs inte. Eller kanske om den var rolig. Men man vill kunna titta på utställningarna också.

Har du kompisar som brukar gå hit?

Det vet jag inte.

Hur kul har du haft här idag? (Vid dessa frågor lät vi henne peka ut en smiley av dessa fyra:

)

Den där och den där (Min anm: hon pekade först på den här och sedan den här)

Nu tänkte jag ställa några frågor till er om hur du tror att era föräldrar har haft det här.

Varför tror du att de ville att ni skulle följa med hit idag?

För att det var en utställning som asså det var sista helgen för en utställning som pappa ville se. Och då åkte vi hit.

Tror du att dom tyckte att det var roligt att ni följde med?

Ja.

Tror du att era föräldrar hade velat stanna längre här egentligen?

Ja kanske.

Hur tror du att era föräldrar har haft det idag?

(Min anm: hon pekade ut )