MuseumMobile » radio

Evaluation-led Mobile Experience Design

nancyproctor — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 02:20:06 +0000

At the MCN conference in Portland in November, I presented some of the research I’ve been doing on new approaches to mobile experience design. Sheila Carey from the Canadian Heritage Information Network kindly put together a panel for the conference on “Making the Call: Evaluating Mobile Projects in Museums” that pulled my work together with that of Sherry Hsi, who analyzed with keen hindsight the Exploratorium’s seminal Electronic Guidebook project, and Koven Smith’s latest call to action: don’t pilot – develop! More on that later…

My slides are here; the podcast of the talk is here. If you have comments or ideas to build on this work, there are pages on the Museum Mobile wiki dedicated to the topic:

Audio Tours 101b: Technology and Theatricality

nancyproctor — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 02:31:05 +0000

In the second of the ‘Audio Tours 101′ podcast mini-series, Chris Hardman and David Torgersen discuss the pros and cons of linear and ‘random access’ tours, and how different technologies condition both content and user experience design.

‘Random access’ to tour content, allowing visitors to chart their own route through the museum or gallery, became possible as digital audio technologies replaced cassette tapes. But even as digital audio players increased museums’ ability to offer a wide range of tours and languages on a single device, ‘information on demand’ audio design obviated certain kinds of theatrical and narrative engagement. With the visitor moving between two minute ‘stops’ in no predictable order, the tour could not develop a complex story over time, nor immerse the visitor in a continuous soundtrack to accompany the museum’s visuals. “There are always trade-offs as technology advances,” comments Torgersen. As new 21st century technologies continue to shape the nature of what you can do with content, “you have to decide what story you want to tell first, and then choose the best tools to tell it,” counsels Hardman.

From short-range radio systems and IR triggers to iPhones and GPS – with a short stop to hear how the first movie projector was put on tour – follow two of the pioneers of performative sound as they trace the development of their understanding that “all these technologies are tools; it’s the content that makes them valid.”

Audio Tours 101: Writing the Rules

nancyproctor — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 22:18:12 +0000

This week kicks off a mini-series of podcasts on the basics of audio tours: their history and fundamental principles; the role of technology and theatricality in their evolution; the primacy of the story and the question of who gets to tell it.

In this first podcast, Chris Hardman, founder and Artistic Director of Antenna Theater, which became the global audio tour company, Antenna Audio, talks about ‘writing the rules’ of audio tour creation with David Torgersen, the senior sound designer for Antenna Theater for 15 years and producer of more than 300 audio tours around the world.

Stay tuned to hear about the pros and cons of linear versus random access technology, the impact of new 21st century platforms on audio tour content design and use, and the emerging role of ‘citizen curators’ as the world becomes “an audio tour waiting to happen.”