Methodological Aspects

In its construction, the project is a partnership between museum curators, computer scientists, designers and users (or potential users). The project was initiated by Museum Midtjylland based on the idea that an interdisciplinary approach, respecting the different competences, is important in the implementation of new technologies in a museum context. The interdisciplinary approach has been of great value to ensure that all aspects of developing an app were taken into account. In the following, we will elaborate on the process of working together as partners in a development project and in addition, describe how the thread metaphor, as a methodological perspective, has influenced the process and transformed the mode of communication.

3.1. Aim

As previously mentioned, Museum Midtjylland wanted to break free of the four walls of the museum, to experiment with new ways of communicating and to meet the citizens where they are instead of

3 Museum Midtjylland is a conglomerate of five different museums – Herning Museum, Tekstilforum, Herningholm, Klosterlund Naturcenter og Museum and Palsgård Skovmuseum.

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always expecting them to come to the museum. An important aspect was therefore to involve non‐ professionals to explore what would make them use an application for smartphones on the cultural history of their local area. We define the non professionals as user and non user instead of, for‐ ‐ example, visitor and audience emphasising that the experience is a “multidirectional content

experience” instead of a one way communication where visitors consume the content provided by the‐ museum (Simon, 2010). A tendency, which is closely connected to the experience economy and which has influenced the vocabulary used in museum contexts⁴.

3.2. Embracing different groups of age

The non professionals were chosen to be representative for users as well as non users of the‐ ‐ museum. The users were a group of five seniors from 60 75 years old, some of them volunteers‐ spending a great deal of their time in the museum already. The non users were a group of six young‐ people in the age of 18 22 years from the local upper secondary school – Herning Gymnasium, and‐ the University College TEKO‐ ⁵, who had never before set their foot in the museum. We also define them as potential users while the development of the app also has as its aim to attract new groups to the museum.

An aim was therefore to spin threads between the two groups and work with a method to reach them as one target group. This is inspired by John Falk (2009), who argues that the museum experience cannot be understood alone by quantitative categories as age, education and sex. The output of a museum experience is much more about prejudiced expectations and the social context of the visit.

One is that the group of young people is much more familiarised with smartphones and applications.

Another is that the group of seniors, who has a great interest in history, has more patience reading text than the group of young people. But both groups, for example, appreciated the opportunity to make plans at home using the app before going to the actual locations. Those considerations have influenced the structure of the app. In general, the user of the app will encounter little text, however, also the possibility to explore more about the finds and sites. The structure of the app is unfolded in section 4.

Figure 1: The group of seniors explores the app.

4 See e.g. publications from the Cultural Heritage Agency of Denmark concerning museums and the digital http://www.kulturarv.dk/publikationer/efter emne/museer/browse/1/ (only in Danish).‐

5 In the report ”Young people and media: connections/contexts and perspectives” (Kobbernagel et al., 2011) it is shown that especially the area of central Denmark south has the lowest rate of young people frequenting museums.

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3.3. Co developers ‐

A purpose of bringing the two groups as partners in the development of the app has also been to learn from their perspective. In their book, Rehearsing the future, Brandt and Eriksen (2010) differentiate between users as evaluators and users as co developers: ‐

”They [users] can be involved in two very different ways. They can be invited to test or comment on proposals made by the core design team, or they can be brought in as co‐

designers taking active parts in developing and exploring possible futures”⁶.

We have worked with them as co developers throughout the whole process, from pre analysis to‐ ‐ production and preliminary evaluations. The two groups will in the following be refereed to as co‐ developers. They have participated in five workshops developing ideas on content, form of the app, storylines for an animation film and they have tried out previous versions of the app both in paper mock ups and in beta editions on the smartphone (both at the museum and at the locations in‐ Hammerum and at Lake Bølling).

The workshops have been arranged by the museum, and in two of the workshops, the developers and designers also participated. After each workshop, the output has been analysed and discussed with the designers and computer scientists. The museum experts on the archaeological field have been present in all the workshops.

This process has time and again shown us in which ways the concept, the navigation and the content as a whole in the app works and in which it did not. It has forced us to re evaluate our choices and‐ rethink some of the principles of the application. To sum up, it has transformed the mode of communication in the process, opening and bringing back discussions and choices we thought we already had ended.

Figure 2: In one of the workshops, the two groups requested to be brought together. Here, they developed storylines for an animation film about the Hammerum Girl and discussed the content of the app up till that date.

6 Brandt and Eriksen, 2010, p. 71.

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3.4. An iterative process – changing modes of communication

In the research field of Information and Communication Technology (ICT), there is a tradition for letting the people who are to use a system, have a critical role in its design (Schuler and Namioka, 1993).

This tradition is called Participatory Design (Bansler, 1987) because the users participate at different stages in an iterative design process. This means that the stakeholders can have an aim of what they want to achieve, but not what kind of product is best suited to achieve that aim. Already before writing the application for the grant, we collaborated on coming up with ideas to make the invisible history visible. Our mission was to develop an application for smartphones based on GPS and AR. The aim of the product was therefore fixed from the beginning. However, we favoured the iterative approach letting the process determine which directions the concept should take. Every step of the development process was analysed and evaluated by all partners of the project.

From a democratic point of view it has also meant that the input from all partners in the project has been valued equally, respecting the competencies each party have brought into the project. This realisation has been the fundament of the process and has both changed the modes of working and the modes of communicating. We have, for example, not worked with a specification of requirements and the milestones have been changed regularly realising that some parts of the process, working with an iterative approach, took longer than expected and others less.

To sum up, using the thread as a metaphor and in some ways also as a structure of the application has been a good tool and a reminder of the connection between the different groups of users. As a development project is has been almost a precondition to work from an iterative approach bringing all competencies into play. But it has also demanded a trust in that all work toward common objectives.