Presented at UX Australia's Service Design 2016, Melbourne, March 2016 and covering work previously done for Powerhouse Museum (Sydney), Cooper Hewitt (NYC), and at ACMI (Melbourne).

1. from interaction & exhibition
design to service design
@sebchan
cxo/chief experience officer
acmi.net.au | freshandnew.org

3. david bowie is exhibition 2015

4. game masters exhibition 2012

5. 1999-2011

6. powerhouse museum sydney

8. many web properties

9. apps, games, interactives

10. dense exhibitions

11. immersive av

12. web projects and digital projects
existed in their own domains

13. although they were used by the
same people who visited
exhibitions

14. 1. Analogue in-house
2. Digital in-house
3. Online
4. Online, in the network
Figure 3
Distribution rings
showing the
various forms of
access to cultural
heritage.
source: business model innovation, cultural heritage, knowledgeland, the netherlands, 2009

15. early digitisation

16. early collection online 2005

17. early social success

19. data informed practice

21. data informed, highly content
driven, not context aware

22. about nsw 2008-2010

25. early augmented reality

26. curator built mobile apps

27. early geospatial storytelling

28. these projects never reached their full
potential because they never effectively
addressed the contexts in which they
might be used outside the museum

30. exhibit design & wifi tracking data at Powerhouse Museum 2010

31. parent-focussed school holiday planner
designed with the ixc

33. waterworx iPad interactive 2010
designed with digital eskimo

35. 2011-2015

36. cooper hewitt smithsonian design museum

37. “two blocks north of the guggenheim”

38. andrew carnegie
steel magnate, philanthropist

41. just a minor
renovation

42. just a minor
restoration

43. 1600square metres. its quite small.

44. the renovation was to make the
building fit for people to use it as
a public space

45. Birdcage In The Form Of A Church, mid-19th century

46. Button Showing West Indian Scene, late 18th century.

47. Sidewall, “Meatballs on Green Weave", 1990. Sidewall, “Play Ball", 1949.Sidewall, 1955

48. Figure, Duvelo Porcelain Factory, 1989 Figure of a pony, 1930

49. Figure, "Cat and kitten", late 19th–early 20th century.

50. “The tchotchkes and baubles on which
the museum's reputation was built,
though, are not what attract today's
forward-thinking corporate sponsors
and cutting-edge designers”
Fast Company 2011

51. Poster, "El Dominio del Fuego (The Domain of Fire)", Luis Vega .1972 Poster, "Otis Rush", 1967. Wes Wilson

52. Planter, ""Hyvalysti" Garden Tool Set", 1988. Kai International Co., Ltd. Radio, "Tykho", 1997

53. Software and Source Code, "Planetary", Bloom Studio, 2011.
inanimate to animate objects

54. Urn, "Tall Green Bloom", Michael Eden, 2012.
Rhinoceros source code "Tall Green Bloom", Michael Eden, 2012.
objects with source code

55. 210,000objects

56. even though every
object would be online
we needed to assert the
importance of
physically visiting

57. 2011 - 10K online (4.7%)
2015 - 197K online (93.8%)
rapid mass digitisation begun 12/2014

58. a ‘design museum’ sits between the art
museum and the science museum. it
can draw attention to the processes,
choices, human decisions in the
making, not just the finished object

60. “threshold fear”
(Elaine Gurian, museum consultant)

61. “There are so many kids in this country who look
at places like museums and concert halls and
other cultural centers, and they think to
themselves, ‘Well, that’s not a place for me —
for someone who looks like me, for someone
who comes from my neighborhood”
Michelle Obama, Whitney opening, 2015

62. technology changes
behaviour. we need
an opinion on that.

63. the design & technology challenge:
give visitors explicit permission to play
make interactive experiences social
help visitors remember their visit
ensure a ‘look up’ experience
make it ubiquitous, a ‘default’ operating mode

64. 26
GETTING YOU AWAY FROM YOUR PHONE
AND BRINGING YOU CLOSER TO DESIGN
THIS IS
LOCAL PROJECTS
ENTRY TECH:
PEN
TICKETING
TABLE
ETC
PUBLIC - ENTRY TECHFIRST FLOOR- ENTRY TECH
initial concept art for pen by Local Projects

65. the pen was to be both
functional and symbolic

66. “design is for doing,
not just for looking”

67. the pen also marks a return to the
original purpose of the collection

69. international co-design
collaboration between the
museum and spain, usa, taiwan

70. funding and in-kind support from
foundations & board contacts

71. early cooper hewitt UX video storyboarding

72. Cooper-Hewitt Pen | June 2014 9
INITIAL SKETCHES
product design sprint with GE

73. SVA Products of Design UX sprint

74. 3d printed shell protypes

75. battery charging time shared design language multiple
colors create desirability what to do with the stuff on pen
how durable is it didn't receive data on phone cleanable
& sanitization don’t want to work hard trouble with
account when home ease of manufacture children losing
pen better than a smartphone can't see the NFC icons
create desire to use screen & pen calibration am I doing
it right is this distracting from the objects on display what
kind of feedback pen won't sync pen is too subtle where
to store all the pens how intuitive is it
DESIGN FOCUS
product design sprint with GE

76. NFC reader capacitive stylus

78. the pen in operation

79. playful and generous interfaces
browse not search

80. haptic memory
“did i mention it vibrates?”

81. the simplicity makes it
attractive to non-tech users

82. 4 millionobjects collected in first 12 months
live public stats at collection.cooperhewitt.org/stats
dataset released under CC-BY-NC

83. technology was designed to make
the exhibitions and collections fit
for people to use it as an ongoing
public resource

84. immersion room

85. 123,000visitor-made designs saved
live public stats at collection.cooperhewitt.org/stats
dataset released under CC-BY-NC

86. via instagram

87. 110 minutesaverage time spent in the museum
live public stats at collection.cooperhewitt.org/stats
dataset released under CC-BY-NC

88. a complex system
diagram by aaron cope

89. built on the architecture and
philosophy of the web

90. diagram by katie shelly

91. “the API as public infrastructure”

93. diagram by katie shelly

95. anonymous
respectful of visitor privacy with opt-in accounts

96. “my objects and my creations”

97. downloadable as vector shapes & 3d models

98. download and/or delete your data

100. stable URLs for everything

101. stable URLs for media

102. porous collection connected to others

103. interfaces that privilege browsing

105. 28% returnvisitors coming back to see their objects
live public stats at collection.cooperhewitt.org/stats
dataset released under CC-BY-NC

106. people not ‘technology’
is what makes it
successful.

107. ‘consent not consensus’
(Mike Arauz & Clay Parker Jones, formerly Undercurrent NYC)

108. both the challenge and the
opportunity is that the work is
never finished

109. week one UX problem sketch

110. improving pen & ticket pairing UX
ux research by katie shelly

111. initial customer service UX

112. initial printed card prototypes
ux research by katie shelly

113. iterating messaging
ux research by katie shelly

114. 2nd version of card design
ux research by katie shelly

115. continuous iteration of the
system continues today
more at labs.cooperhewitt.org

116. “Museum of the future” The Atlantic
Transformed visitor profile and
visitor numbers
Global reputation and new
partnerships
A bunch of awards

118. Rostering App
Deputy is a simple, mobile first
rostering system. It can notify
staff of their shifts via the
mobile app or SMS. Printed ‘Day at a
Glance’ sheets
Devices for
communica
Confirmation email
to event goers
Print at home tickets
WelcomETicketsherE
VSO
DirectIon TO..
TICKETS
V
DAYAT
AGLANCE VSO
SUP
VSO
OL
VSO
SUP
V
bow
ie
flinders st entrance
Welcome
FOYER
SIGNPDF
POWER
POINT
DOC
WEB
do
wnstairs ticketing
Bowie bar
Ticket
VSO
VSOcasuAl
Visitors record their visit to
ACMI by taking selfies with
signs outside the museum
Although many visitors photograph
their visit, few tag it as #ACMI on
social media (only 29,000 tags on
Instagram). A missing opportunity
here over 1.5 million visitors per year.
Event attendees
can get lost on arrival
Despite providing attendees with
arrivals information and addresses,
they can still get lost. At times staff
are on hand to direct, but events
staff would like to be able to put up
temporary signs for their events.
TESSITURA
ICT
E V e N T
VSO
Let’s make
awesome stuff
together!
TESSITURA
11AM5 TICKETS LEFT
12PM2 TICKETS LEFT
1PM15 TICKETS LEFT
E
WHAT’S ON
TODAY
How can
I help?
V
V
berm
uda triangle
BEN
meMbEr
Where are you?
I’m in the foyer
Seats are very popular
but hard to find
After entry, visitors like to sit down
and pack their bag, rest and readjust,
or just catch their breath. If there
aren’t any chairs available they will
use whatever they can find, including
garbage bins to rest their bags upon.
Visitors kill time by
looking at their phones
Visitors who are waiting for their
exhibit entry time or their friends
will pass the time by browsing the
internet on their mobile phones.
They are not engaging with ACMI
content, however.
Members’welcome
A few times a year the head of
membership will sit at the ticket
desk to meet members (they are
notified by email) and to attend
to any questions they might have
about their membership.
Ticketing confusion
ACMI has both ticketed and non-
ticketed offerings which appears
can confuse some visitors who can’t
easily tell which parts are free and
which are not.
Ticketing VSOs provide
multiple services
As well as selling of tickets,VSOs
give tourist information, exhibit
downloads, welcoming services, and
take phone calls to help customers
with online booking problems.
Visitors can become
confused when entering
It’ s not just the heavy doors on
Flinders Street or the fact the
chevrons point away from the entry.
Visitors get lost in the ‘Bermuda
Triangle’ or mistake the Bowie Bar
for a reception desk.Those who are
confused may leave unassisted.
Visitors can easily find the
printed brochures,but not
always the ones they need
Visitors look for a map of the
museum and a weekly ‘what’s on’
guide. Brochures are particularly
popular with seniors.
Express entry
Visitors who have their printed
tickets in their hand are easily
spotted by volunteers and directed
downstairs to the galleries.
Visitors look for more
information on arrival
Visitors will stop and watch
the digital sign and then
turn to a VSO or volunteer for
more information. If no one is
available they will consult the
printed brochures.
Digital signage requires
multiple steps to create
Content is extracted from the
web, put into a PowerPoint
document, before a PDF is
saved and sent to the digital
sign.The content cannot
therefore be changed quickly.
VSOs don’t let a poor
arrival affect the remaining
experience for visitors
Arrivals are important to get right.
The main role of a VSO is to make
visitors happy so they go out of their
way to greet and direct. For example,
VSOs will help visitors with heavy
Flinders Street doors and use that
as an opportunity to start a positive
interaction with them.
The unofficial‘pathway’
helps retain institutional
knowledge and culture
Staff initially employed to boost
VSO numbers during blockbuster
exhibitions are kept on board after
the exhibition ends if they prove their
worth. Casual staff have gone onto
quite senior roles which means that
knowledge and expertise is kept
within the organisation.
VSOs need a diverse range
of skills to do their job
It’s not just about customer
service.VSOs have a wide remit
of responsibilities and must be
adaptable and able to juggle multiple
demands. All of these skills are
looked for when recruiting as are
skills in film or the performing arts.
Staff are encouraged to
collaboratively develop
outside projects
VSOs will help each other on creative
projects. ACMI exhibitions have been
developed this way.
Tessitura helps
to plan the day
Tessitura ticketing software
shows when the museum will
be busy based on ticket sales.
The VSOs can plan their day
based around this if there is a
paid exhibition on.
Tessitura has potential
but not enough resources
to explore them
The ICT team is relatively small and
there is only one Tessitura expert.The
ability to explore the true potential of
systems integration is small.
Staff use an app to
choose their shifts
Staff can use a phone app, website,
or the iPad in the staff room to
choose their shifts.VSOs do not
sit at a desk so availability through
multiple devices is a plus. Rostering
is made easier through regular
programming.
Visitor diversity is mirrored
in the VSO population
The diversity of the visitor population
is reflected in the diversity of VSOs
and volunteers.This helps to make all
visitors feel comfortable, no matter
their age, gender, or background.
Pre-shift briefings are
the best way to share
information with a
mobile workforce
Face-to-face briefings are essential
as floor staff don’t have desktop
computers to refer to through the
day. Paper briefing sheets are the
‘single source of truth’ for the day
but these cannot be updated quickly.
Some staff will use their paper with
visitors as a talking point which is
slow and looks unprofessional.
Arrivals
Arriving visitors look for somewhere to‘reset’
Directly after entering the museum, visitors are
looking for places to sit and things to do to help
them transition into ‘museum’ mode.
Transition
Entry experiences can be confusing
Although the opening of the Flinders Street
doors has improved general flow into the
museum, the arrivals experience is still less
than perfect for some visitors.
VISITOR SERVICES
VSO VSO
You are in luck.ACMI is THE bestplace to work inMelbourne
I love ACMI but my
skills are really in
other areas than
customer service
I’m confused.
Am I meant to pay
for this or not?
International visitors
require different levels
of service
Both ACMI and Fed Square
have high proportions of
international visitors,VSOs
and volunteers are the only
way that ACMI currently has
to service those who speak a
language other than English.
mapping the visitor journey with meld studios

119. building a house in the
middle of a flowing river
source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/30674396@N00/68903700/

120. service design and digital
transformation as
organisational change

121. thank you
want the font? its open source
at cooperhewitt.org/typeface
@sebchan
cxo/chief experience officer
acmi.net.au | freshandnew.org