American museum experience designer Nina Simon is in New Zealand presenting seminars on ‘Engaging museum audiences’.

In this Q&A she talks about why exhibits should encourage visitors to engage in conversations and how the changing cultural landscape, including the social web, has affected museum audiences.

“People expect multiple perspectives on a given incident or story, and they are unlikely to consume any content—including exhibition labels—in a vacuum.”

Simon runs the online resource Museum 2.0, which explores ways that web 2.0 philosophies can be applied in museum design.

During what hours of the day do you feel most inspired?

Early in the morning. I live in a cabin in the woods, and I like to sit at the kitchen table with tea watching fog roll off the mountains as I work.

How would a good friend describe your aesthetic or style?

Energetic, colorful, slapdash. I’m as likely to be building a zipline as painting on the wall.

What aspect of your creative practice gives you the biggest thrill?

Finding elegant and surprising ways to design simple ways for people to participate, without technology or frippery. I used to work as a performance poet, and I still appreciate a good metaphor—whether in language or physical design—more than anything else.

How does your environment affect your work?

Hugely. I live in a very unusual place—a cabin in the woods off the grid. I’m surrounded by redwood and eucalyptus trees; no cars, just a few people. I’m easily distractable, and when I lived in the city, it was hard for me to do focused creative work. Now, I see my home as my most productive place. Unfortunately, I spend a lot of time on the road, which disrupts my creative production. So I think of travel time as time to communicate and to learn, and home as the place to make things happen.

Do you like to look at the big picture or focus on the details?

Big picture—but quickly. I’m a practical person, and I got into museum exhibit design because it’s so tangible. Most exhibition projects take years, but I like to do short projects—get the exhibit up in a few months, start messing around with visitors and make changes post-opening instead of trying to get everything right up front. People can get too precious about projects the longer they go and the more money is poured in. I believe you can make just as many mistakes in 5 years as you can in 5 weeks, and the shorter version is a heck of a lot cheaper and more fun.

What's your number one business tip for surviving (and thriving) in the creative industries?

Be specific and outspoken about your focus. I thrive because I’m a participatory exhibit design specialist, not an exhibit designer generally. This has two benefits. First, in a small industry, you can become known as “the person” if your niche is specific enough—and people will call you when they want your particular skills. And second, if you are clear about your slant, you don’t have to do as much negotiation to argue your case. I don’t have to convince any clients that they want to do participatory projects—they come to me specifically for that, so I’m reasonably assured that we can work together on something exciting rather than having to spend a lot of time advocating for my preferred design approach. 

Which of your projects to date has given you the most satisfaction?

I worked with a team of graduate students at the University of Washington who designed an entirely participatory exhibit called Advice. I told them they had to build an exhibit that would “get strangers talking to each other.” The exhibit was only up for three days in a university student center, and over that time, people from across the university community—students, professors, families, maintenance staff—came in and filled it up with questions and some really wonderful, funny, and intriguing advice. The exhibit was small, but it was everything I love—quick, cheap, and entirely focused on supporting meaningful social connections among visitors.

Tell us a little bit about your background and Museum 2.0.

When I was a kid, I wanted to design pinball machines. I went to university to study electrical engineering, and at the same time, I worked teaching math. I was always amazed by how many people hated math and how poorly formal schooling seemed to be set up to support them. I went to work for NASA for a bit after school, living the engineer dream, but I hated how detail-oriented it was. So I took my old love of pinball machines, combined it with my interest in non-school-based learning, and started working at science centers designing exhibits and working with teenagers on co-creation exhibit projects. I worked at the Spy Museum in Washington DC as the experience developer on a “you be the spy” immersive game experience, and that was where I really got interested in pushing the limits of how visitors can participate and how institutions can respond and change based on what visitors do.

In 2006, I started the Museum 2.0 blog to start exploring these questions as well as how the social web might affect museum audiences. So when I left the Spy Museum in 2007 to head to California, it was time for a natural transition to consulting. The blog became very popular in the museum industry, and institutions all over the world started asking me to help them develop experiences in which visitors serve as collaborators, co-creators, and active participants. As an independent designer under the Museum 2.0 brand, I’ve done projects with institutions all over the world, developing cross-platform games, curriculum for co-creative educational programs, and mostly, exhibits that incorporate visitors’ voices and skills. I also do research and facilitate workshops on participatory design patterns across different industries, and I’m now finishing a book called The Participatory Museum to compile and offer practical techniques to cultural professionals.

You attended the National Digital Forum in Wellington this week. What did you learn and observe about NZ’s culture, creativity and community online (conference theme)?

The National Digital Forum was very focused on policy issues, less so on visitor experiences. There are some serious challenges around institutions collaborating and trying to develop systems so that they can be more open to visitors creating content and using institutional resources for their own needs. One of the benefits of being in a country the size of New Zealand is that the museums and libraries here are well-connected, and it’s possible to move beyond silos to get work done collaboratively. I saw a lot of that collaborative spirit at work at the conference and look forward to seeing how well-integrated institutional strategies can have impact on the population as a whole. That sounds abstract, but the small glimpses I got into the programs that will roll out of these collaborations were really exciting. I just hope that the cultural, intellectual, creative, and social needs of the audiences—both current and potential—will stay at the top of mind.

You attend and present at conferences in the US and worldwide. What are some of the challenges that most museums seem to face?

Inability to articulate how museums are public resources, not just entertainment venues. Overdependence on a few key funders and those funders’ criteria for success. Fear of innovation. Unwillingness to target specific audiences rather than being “for everyone.” Traditional structures that focus on designing and deploying finished products, not projects that can change over time with audience input.

What will the seminar on engaging museum audiences include?

We’ll be looking at techniques that allow visitors to create, share, and connect with each other with institutional support. We’ll talk about the social experience of the museum, and how museum staff can design exhibits and experiences that encourage visitors to engage in conversation, offer their own stories and objects to the museum, and enjoy more customized, personal experiences of cultural content. While some of the examples involve digital projects, this is mostly about changing the kinds of relationships that museum staff have with visitors onsite. And this will be a workshop: we are going to actually try things, plan things, do things. My goal is that everyone will leave the seminar with an actionable idea they can use back in their own work.

How has the changing cultural landscape, including social media, changed museum audiences?

From the visitor perspective, museums are functionally multi-media producers working across many platforms—exhibits, websites, courses, shows, etc. The media landscape is highly fractured, with many, many new sources of content available. People still spend a good deal of time consuming media content (as opposed to creating it), but they don’t solely consume content from authoritative sources. This means people expect multiple perspectives on a given incident or story, and they are unlikely to consume any content—including exhibition labels—in a vacuum. They may not expect or desire the opportunity to create their own content, but they certainly expect the ability to filter, rate, or comment on content. They expect media producers to be responsive to their preferences and needs, and to provide opportunities for users to socialize around and share content. This means allowing visitors to take photos in the galleries, make comments, and get information about which content is most relevant to their interests.

What are some of the basic ways museums can stay current and contemporary?

Ask visitors what they care most about and make sure you are answering their questions and addressing their interests. Find ways to support dynamic content that changes over time—whether that means online integration, inviting visitors to bring objects or questions in, or just putting up news articles related to the content.

Why is it important for museums to incorporate visitors’ voices into their exhibitions and programmes?

Visitors’ voices are more personal and more diverse than the standard “museum voice.” Museums claim to be neutral in tone but that’s frankly impossible. Instead, museum labels often sound dull and washed-out, or in programmes for children, chatty and fake. Visitors’ voices can bring in relevance to contemporary issues, express passion, and reflect wide-ranging perspectives on issues. Museum staff could write this way as well, but it requires a level of personal writing that is typically not seen as “professional.” Visitors can supply personality when museums are not comfortable doing so.

Why is engaging with the community crucial to the ongoing success of a museum?

I have a conceptual and a practical answer to this. Conceptually, museums are created to protect and share different communities’ cultural heritage.  They have an obligation to make the content as accessible and usable as possible for the members of that community so that people can use those objects and stories in their work as civically engaged, creative, caring members of society. When people feel disconnected from museums, they stop seeing cultural heritage as relevant to their own lives, and they lose the use of valuable tools for improving their own lives and the health of their communities.

Practically, if museums don’t make a case for “compelling relevance,” people will look elsewhere—to the web, to coffee shops—for opportunities to connect with each other and their heritage. Museums need to engage audiences to survive.

Can you recommend any recent resources or links for museums to learn more about engaging audiences?

Well, I run the Museum 2.0 blog. There is a very active international museum social network on Museum 3.0. I also really enjoyed John Falk’s new book, Identity and the Museum Visitor Experience, which takes a research-based approach to discussing how museums can attract and connect to specific kinds of visitors based on their self-concept and affinities.

What’s your big idea for 2010?

There is so much money and energy going into online social networks. I’ve been doing work looking at how we can take the best of participatory online experiences and design them into physical community spaces. In 2010, I hope we start seeing a new generation of community centers pop up—in museums, in libraries, in cafes, wherever—that are designed to specifically optimize social connections among individuals in physical space. Building supportive social networks is too important a community project to leave to websites and corporations alone.

Related event: Engaging museum audiences
The free ‘Engaging museum audiences’ seminars, organised by National Services Te Paerangi, were held in Wellington, Christchurch, and Auckland.