GordonGR10

Information Design ~ Reading Day 10 ~ Today I read from the Critical Reflections on Museums by Saul Carliner, PhD, CTDP. He is Director of the Education Doctoral Program and associate professor of educational technology at Concordia University in Montreal. He has written 7 books, is an industry consultant and visited 30 museums in several countries in 30 days as research for this study. I went to the Milwaukee Public Museum and Discovery World this past week. I will now attempt to match wits with Saul.

In Saul’s blog, he comments on human nature and the inherent habit of veering to familiar subjects of interest. He also points out that people will take in the information at a museum through habitual means as well. He basically noted that readers will read. Meanderers will meander and some folks will just look at stuff. Thanks Captain Obvious. He also mentioned that he shied away from tours that were in a language he couldn’t easily understand. I gotta remember that one too.

Now I’m sure good ‘ole Saul is a brainiac and could box my ears for hours – but on the subject of taking in a museum, we are both at the root of it all, consumers. We are both the customer and therefore – both right! His take on his experience and my take on mine are equally valid (as long as we both pay the admission fee). To his point, we all absorb and process information in our own unique ways. True, there are common educational tracks for general schooling, but as life long learners, we “evolve” to what works best for each of us individually. Kinda like a mouse through a maze, I went strolling through the museum drawn to the kind of cheese that I like. I’d stop and look, read and wonder at the subjects that appealed to me (and of course, the mandatory subjects on the scavenger hunt too).

As I now have had some time to reflect on my museum exercise, I too have some industry observations of my own. Our home town public museum could do itself a favor in the area of information design. Studies of traffic patterns, demographics and behavioral statistics should be in constant review. A program for continuous improvements in technology and information delivery should be in the annual operating budget. Various layers of Information Design should be incorporated where appropriate. The criteria would be to decrease noise and clutter while vastly increasing the overall muti-layered informational experience. Know any good consultants…. Saul?