The Guggenheim Museum story takes many fascinating twists and turns from it’s humble origins as a small, focused collection in a New York City apartment to it’s current iteration as a diverse global art institution that oversees one of the preeminent modern art collections of the world. In this talk we will look at decisions, characters, problems and evolution points in the museum’s history that have parallels to, and contain lessons for, the practice of modern day user experience.

1. The UX Remix of
The Guggenheim Museum
Personalities, Politics, Art & Design
Jared Caponi @jaredac
WORLD IA DAY 2016

2. The Guggenheim

3. Requisite Who Am I? Slide
• President, Owner of Exploded Map Inc.
• Information Architect
• User Experience Consultant
• I live and work in Brooklyn, NY
• @jaredac

4. How I got here
Right here

5. Storm King Mountain

6. Storm King Arts Center
www.stormking.org

7. Storm King Arts Center
www.stormking.org

8. Storm King Arts Center
www.stormking.org

9. Storm King Arts Center
www.stormking.org

10. Storm King Arts Center

11. College

12. Museology

13. The Louvre

15. Experience Design
Experience/
Interaction
Users
Devices with
Interfaces
Interaction Design
“Design in-between”

16. Experience/
Interaction
Users Devices with
Interfaces
Interaction Design
“Design in-between”
ContentInformation
Experience Design

17. Museum Experience Design
Experience/
Interaction
Visitors Museums
Interaction Design
“Design in-between”

18. Actually It’s More like this…
WORLD
Experience/
Interaction
Content
Devices with
Interfaces
Humans
Information

19. Experience/
Interaction
Visitors
Museums
WORLD
Actually It’s More like this…

20. Information Context

21. Start-up Story

22. Hilla Rebay:
Founder/Visionary

23. Hilla Rebay:
Networker

24. Hilla Rebay:
Artist

25. Hilla Rebay:
Artist

26. The Garage

27. The Temporary Space

28. The Temporary Space

29. A wing at the Met isn’t cool.
You know what’s cool?

30. Your Own Frickin’ Museum

31. The Foundation

32. Frank LLoyd Wright

33. Simpatico

34. Wright Gets this:
Experience/
Interaction
Visitors
Museums

35. Prevailing Conventional Wisdom

36. Angled Walls

37. The Dome

38. The Rotunda

39. Color

40. Color

41. Project gets hit by a bus

43. Board Takes over

44. James Sweeney

45. Johnson & Johnson Sweeney

46. FLW Dies

47. Opening day October 1959

48. Whitewashed Interior

49. Propped paintings on angled walls

50. Propped paintings on angled walls
“[The experience] is a battle
between Art and Museum in
which neither wins but both
are badly maimed”
– John Cannaday
NY Times Art Critic

51. Content Problems

52. Abby Covert
“Ambiguity costs
clarity; exactitude
costs flexibility”
@abbytheia

53. Ambiguous, Unclear … Flexible
(But not sympathetic)

54. Exact, Clear … Inflexible
Sympathetic

55. Barnett Newman

56. Jackson Pollock

57. Mark Rothko
“The people who weep before my pictures
are having the same religious experience I
had when I painted them. And if you, as
you say, are moved only by their color
relationships,
then you miss the point!”

58. Constraints Create
Opportunities

59. Alexander Calder

60. Jenny Holzer

61. James Turrell

62. Evolution

63. Acquisitions

64. Repairs

65. Addition

66. FLW Sketch 1943

67. Thomas Krens

68. Expansion

69. Too Far?

70. Definitely Too Far

71. Expansion

72. Expansion

73. Expansion

74. What have we
learned?

75. Build Alliances

76. Don’t be too precious

77. Structure is more important than particulars

78. Context Matters

79. Be wary of mission creep

80. Re-Use What Works

81. Challenge Patterns

82. EmbraceYour Constraints

83. Have a relationship
with your
information space

84. ThankYouVery Much
jared@explodedmap.com @jaredac