Info We Trust

by R J Andrews

  The object, you see, is the key to a trove of information. When the object is put on display, its data goes on display too. There, it collides with the knowledge of the visitor, and new ideas emerge. When I gaze at the vase, I see its heroic imagery, geometric patterns, and elegant contours. I imagine sun-soaked rituals above Mediterranean shores and reflect on the milestones of my own life. A single museum object channels a spectrum of information, from its own physicality to what it means to the visitor. Likewise, the museum audience will consist of a wide spectrum of interests and capacities for interacting with that information.

  The exhibition-maker's job is to arrange this encounter between people and what puzzles them in such a fashion that they will derive the maximum benefit and pleasure from it.

  ROBERT STORR, 2006

  A single vase may strike you with awe, but traipse through a storeroom of thousands and you will go numb. Experience psychologist Stephen Bitgood characterizes the success of exhibits to good management of visitor attention. Any higher goals, such as learning, is a byproduct of attention. To manage attention well, we must understand audience and setting factors. “Museum fatigue” is a low-energy exhaustion where your body and mind beg for a break from cultural enrichment. Also called information overload, it can arrive in a number of ways. Satiation occurs from repeated exposure to too much of the same thing. Distraction occurs when you are overrun with stimuli begging for your gaze. Dazzled by the options, the excitement of exploration quickly recedes as each additional decision saps energy from your visit. What room should I visit next? What art should I focus on? How do I get to where I want to go? Why is this meaningful? What if I don't see everything? The more times we pause to figure out what is going on, the more we are pulled out of the flow of interfacing with the objects. So then, how does a designer help fight museum fatigue?

  One may think of an information forager as an information predator whose aim it is to select information prey so as to maximize the rate of gain of information relevant to his or her task. … Our notion is that the proximal perception of information scent is used to assess the profitability and prevalence of information sources. These scent-based assessments inform the decisions about which items to pursue so as to maximize the information diet of the forager.

  PIROLLI AND CARD, 1991

  Museum curators come to the rescue by easing navigation, not only as we negotiate the physical rooms of the building, but also as we explore psychologically and intellectually. Curators do this with careful planning of architectural layout, selection and arrangement of objects, signage and labeling, handheld brochures, and even lighting and wall color. These elements are put to work to maximize visitor interest, curiosity, and satisfaction, while minimizing visitor time and effort.

  A high-value experience begins in the museum lobby. It performs the same function as the entrance antechamber of a temple or hallway concession area of a movie palace. Lobbies offer a place to help transition visitors from the frenzy of the outside world, and orient them to be receptive to the experience ahead. A lobby calms and encourages you to take a moment and determine. What is there to see and do? Which direction should I explore? This orientation is enhanced by personal greeters, handouts, and signage.

  What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention, and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it.

  HERBERT SIMON, 1971

  Some museums are able to orient visitors simply with their architecture. A high-ceilinged expanse that is beautifully ornamented puts you in a state of wonder and slows you down. From lobby center, with the museum entrance to your back, you might get a glimpse of what each gallery option holds: a monolithic seated Egyptian pharaoh statue if you go right, a Greek column to the left, and a gold-framed European painting if you go straight.

  NYC's Metropolitan Museum of Art calls its lobby The Great Hall while London's British Museum calls their lobby The Great Court.

  Large objects can act like billboards, they inform and beckon you to come closer. You do not even need a map to begin. These points of prospect give you the space and time needed to consider options. Good entry points are inviting and easy to access. They give an emotional first impression and tell you a little about what lies ahead.

  You-are-here-maps: Provide salient, coordinate labels in both the terrain and the map. Place the map near an asymmetrical part of the terrain. Design the you-are-here symbol to indicate map-terrain correspondence. Align the map with the terrain. Be redundant, that is, use as many of these supplements as possible.

  MARVIN LEVINE, 1982

  Effective entry points act as progressive lures. They first attract people to enter and then gradually disclose more about what lies ahead as you get deeper into the experience. Information overload is prevented by displaying only what is necessary. But progressive lures can also deceive, such as when you turn a corner to discover that the line you are waiting in is much longer than anticipated.

  Wayfinding is how a visitor navigates, or finds their way. Long sight lines, right-angle turns, and human-scale distances all make it easier for visitors to construct their own mental maps of the museum's galleries and paths. Frequent “you-are-here” locator maps and well-labeled landmarks help visitors check in with, update, and expand their personal maps. Together, these design cues help the visitor navigate, circulate, and keep track of how much there is left to see.

  Wayfinding is the use of spatial and environmental information to navigate to a destination. It is aided by orientation, route decision, route monitoring, visible and recognizable landmarks, and clear and consistent labeling.

  There is more to making a museum mental map than traversing an architectural floor plan. That is just a spatial layout. We are much more concerned with the meaning we wish to experience during our visit. Each institute will be a little different, of course, but many fine arts museums show how space can be used to weave meaning into our mental maps. From the museum lobby, you step onto an enormous timeline that snakes through collections that are juxtaposed according to a higher plan. You can then take an uninterrupted stroll through a complete survey of Western art in the order that it was created. Start by admiring ancient Greek sculpture and then proceed to the next gallery to see all their Roman copies. Accelerate through medieval and Renaissance painting, through French Impressionism, and into abstract contemporary art. Gallery flow creates a time-travel experience that reinforces the artistic traditions connecting the works and subtly strengthens mental maps.

  In a general way, I have come to the conclusion that a [museum] visitor likes to see the reasons for things—more often indeed than many imagine. And he is confused by dissociated objects: he feels satisfied if what he sees in the cases can be brought together in his mind as belonging to a plan.

  BASHFORD DEAN, 1915

  The National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City presents an exquisite collection in a way that uses space to pile on layers of meaning. The first gallery sets the stage by showing what we know about prehistoric life in the region. Then, you proceed counter-clockwise and chronologically, beginning in 2500 BC through exhibits on great preclassic, Teotihuacana, and Toltec civilizations. With each new gallery, you advance forward in space and time. Finally, you arrive at the heart of the museum and its most amazing room, the Mexica gallery, which spans AD 1200–1521. At the center of this gallery is the museum's most iconic object, the Sun Stone, which is 12 feet in diameter. After not spending enough time in the Mexica gallery (there is never enough), you can continue exploring Mexican history, eventually finishing back in the present day, where you started your journey.

  A favorite detail of mine about the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City is that funerary objects of each culture are housed in underground galleries. You must descend to meet the art of the dead.

  Space is the medium in which ideas
are visually phrased.

  ROBERT STORR, 2006

  Successful museums have thoughtful route design that reduces the friction of the visitor-object interface. You mostly do not notice these cues, by design. They are there to reduce your mental burden, after all. We can more directly sense other efforts by museum curators by recognizing the tools they equip us with, such as handheld maps, good signage, audio and guided tours, and smartphone apps. The best place to see how they help us achieve an exceptional experience is in an individual gallery.

  Where museums use timeline layouts, zoos use maps. Each can be conceived as a little Pangea, grouping species within continent-themed zones that are smushed together.

  Inside a particular gallery, our search strategy begins with a simultaneous gestalt view of the entire space that drives our attention to a large or prominently placed object—such as a painting in the center of a wall or statue in the middle of a room. Then, we often shift to a sequential visual processing of other objects in the room. These are often grouped thematically to highlight a certain form of fabrication, geographic origin, or chronological story. Objects are arranged in an aesthetically pleasing way that is in harmony with the room's design.

  The most important and frequent visual queries should be supported with the most visually distinct objects.

  COLIN WARE, 2008

  We engage with objects that are able to hold our attention. To do this, an object must first be detected. Detection is a function of salience, which in turn depends on size, contrast, color, distinctiveness, and from how far an object is visible. Once detected, the object is judged based on our perceived value of it vis-a-vis our time. Will the benefit outweigh the cost?

  Detection + Value = Attention

  Good gallery signage and labels provide context. In an art museum, I appreciate one or two paragraphs of introductory welcoming text that orients me to what is going on in the room. Some items are so salient that we will read their individual labels. Beyond aesthetic beauty we yearn for context and labels can give it. They open access to the metadata that the object attracts us to. What is this called? How old is it? Who made it?

  More distance can be introduced between the painting and its label, such an entire gallery room's worth of labels in a single location, usually by an entrance. But this physical distance introduces a cognitive load to anyone who wants to know more.

  But labels can also distract and interfere. You go to an art museum to see art, not to read labels. One approach advocates that visitors should first experience art with their own eyes before being inffluenced by the curator's written narrative. Ingrid Schaffner, Carnegie Museum of Art curator, describes an ideal interaction where you take in the art, read the label, and then return again to the art. She explains that “the standard placement of labels follows this simple rule: because we read from left to right, the label should appear to the right of the object, at eye level, where it appears like a footnote to the work of art.” Appreciate the art, the raw data, for what it is first.

  Appeal to someone who knows more, less, and as much as you do.

  INGRID SCHAFFNER, 2003

  Just as people can tell a good steak from a rotten one, they have the power to tell a good design from bad, even if they don't know it.

  PAOLA ANTONELLI, 2006

  I appreciate museums that go to the effort of giving each individual object a few sentences so that the nonexpert (me) can be clued in to why it matters. Ingrid Schaffner advises that these labels begin with information specific to the work and continue to knowledge that helps link the work to the broader exhibition. Finally, the label can conclude with a call to action, as advised in Coleman's Manual for Small Museums: “If the concluding sentences of a label are written with a view to persuading the visitor to do something about what he has learned [like look at another picture in the show…], the label attains to the greatest usefulness.”

  Imagine approaching the label of a piece you are curious about but do not quite understand, and then reading only the artist's name and a non-descriptive title, such as Untitled #73. Not only are you dissatisfied, but you probably feel alienated and stupid, too. Composer and critic Virgil Thomson cautioned against the possibility of these types of experiences, advising to “never overestimate the information your readers have, but never underestimate their intelligence.”

  When I lived in Boston I returned to its Museum of Fine Arts many times under different circumstances. It was the quiet backdrop for a Sunday afternoon read, the promenade for a romantic stroll, preparation for a trip to a foreign city, destination to see a touring exhibition, and place to learn from an expert's gallery talk.

  Museums have delighted me since childhood. Studying how they work has caused me to enjoy them even more and to reflect on lessons for the craft of conveying information: Layer information. Give direct access to raw authenticity. Help orient a viewer to many dimensions. Text can augment understanding, but not at the expense of letting people discover and see things on their own. Several paths to meaning can be contained in a single space. Give access to all of them. Create opportunities for return visits. Use subtle design to reduce navigation friction. Help audiences find their own context and meaning.

  Beyond how museums work, why museums exist connects them even more closely to data storytelling. The spirit of ancient Alexandria's Musaeum was resurrected in Wunderkammern, Renaissance cabinets of wonders. These private collections of curiosities were assembled by the affluent, centuries before state institutions like the Louvre Museum and British Museum were founded. Cabinets of curiosities contained objects of science like fossils, minerals, animal specimens, instruments of discovery, architectural models, and diagrams of how things work. This collection of examples and conceptual diagrams is the physical predecessor of the infographic collage, a sensory attempt at taking many angles on a topic.

  Gesamtkunstwerk is the desire to produce a total picture or to realize an entire universe, originally from Richard Wagner's ideal work of art where all parts serve an integrated whole.

  But the cabinets also included biological oddities, religious icons, and mythological images. In short, items that tried to provoke curiosity and help make sense of what was not understood well. Today, science and art are firmly divided, but back then they were united in serving the same sense of wonder. Swiss curator Hans Ulrich Obrist sheds light on these prototypical museums as tools to “organize and explain the world's copious and strange complexity … and luxuriate in what cannot be understood.” In search of better understanding, we naturally delight in playfully confronting the unknown.

  Many museums (and theme parks, another playful encounter) steer you to exit through the gift shop. More than a money-grab, the gift shop gives you a chance to immediately relive it all again, by way of images and other objects related to your adventure. You decompress from your experience and begin to transition back to the rest of the world, with a renewed sense of awe.

  Our tour of encounter design might feel incomplete and that is O.K. Remember that sometimes the best experiences leave you wanting more. There is more informing for us to explore.

  CHAPTER

  12

  LISTEN

  A story comes alive in the imagination of its listener. A life becomes real once it is narrated. Without a story, you would dart from moment-to-moment, embracing pleasure and fleeing hardship as each stimulus went in and out of focus. Without examination and interpretation, life reduces to mere biology.

  Your experience of reality is a never-ending story. Stories give you a place in the world and a place in time. Stories are how you remember the past and expect the future. Every moment, a story organizes your life by accounting for all that you see and all that you cannot see but truly believe.

  Information has not done its job until it impacts the story running in a person's mind. Only then has information informed. If we understand story, then we can help data come alive in a person's mind too. So let us take a critical look at the (sometimes irrational
) art of storytelling.

  The more you know, the better you can navigate the obstacles of life. But there is a natural limit to the knowledge one can learn from their own experience. We each get only one lifetime, and that makes time precious. Stories give access to the accumulated knowledge our ancestors spent their whole lives acquiring. We get to benefit at a bargain price. That is the story of the last 5,000 years of civilization.

  Stories help us see what could be. Fiction is like a laboratory for life. It helps us develop alternatives and store solutions for what might happen. Stories teach us how to interact with one another. They reinforce esteemed models of behavior and chastise misdeeds with scorn.

  I am a storyteller. One of my friends said about me that I think all sorrows can be borne if you put them into a story or tell a story about them, and perhaps this is not entirely untrue. To me, the explanation of life seems to be its melody, its pattern. And I feel in life such an infinite, truly inconceivable fantasy.