We created a rubric to guide our evaluation of any type of digital interactive. It takes accessibiltiy, tech, connection to content, and more into account.
Performance of "The Nation We Build Together" at the National Museum of American History, based on the 1960s nonviolent student sit-ins.
Each subsequent post on this blog uses a quantitative and qualitative approach to evaluating digital interactives in museums today. Each post titled "Evaluate" reviews a digital experience from one of the Smithsonian Institution's newest exhibits. Each post titled "Explore" dives into a standout digtial experience outside of the Smithsonian.
For this project, we will use the defintion for digital interactive provided by Gamze Karayilanogulu and Burçin Cem Arabacioglu in "Digital Interactive Experiences in Contempoarry Art Museums" in the Turkish Online Journal of Design, Art and Communication:
"Digital interactive technologies ... identified as; touch screens, digital audio systems, projection mapping, quick response [QR] codes, virtual reality, augmented reality, mixed reality, and artificial intelligence."
Each interactive will be assesed on the categories below:
Accessibility
Who can use it? Who can’t? How long does it take to understand how to operate it? Does the medium work well? Is there anything that pulls or pushes the user in or out of the experience? We will lean on the Smithsonian Guidelines for Accessible Design for. Audio Visual and Interactives to help evaluate this section.
Connection to Content
Is it easy to understand the learning objective of the digital interactive? Is the connection to the exhibit/case/object clear? Does it provide further information or give an alternative way to understand a point already made?
Engagement
What does it add to the museum experience? How long do people spend at the activity? We will employ the idea of 'attracting power' and 'holding power' from Robinson et al to help answer some of these questions.
Technology & Creativity
What type of media is it using? Does the technology used make sense for the learning objective? Is it an innovative use case for this type of technology?
