Ali Cooper, Digital Art Director at Keepthinking, shares his insights on the challenges of designing digital experiences for museums, galleries, libraries, and archives. Having been part of the Keepthinking team for 10 years, Ali has contributed to the design of Qi itself, as well as numerous website projects for our global client base.
A primary focus amongst cultural practitioners is on the accuracy of data portrayal to audiences, and defining those paths in order to reveal both the content being searched for (the knowns) while also exposing serendipitous connections and suggestive paths for them to delve into (the unknowns). There’s no precise formula for this - each institution varies in their priorities for public engagement. While some elements are shared universally (avoiding reinventing the wheel), the real excitement is the process of collaborating with these talented individuals to reveal connections and find unique ways to present and empower their content for audiences.
All the time. Every institution has its own unique story to tell through the lineage of its culture (whether that’s art, film, oral histories, or literature, etc.) and the way the public engages with that should reflect the nature of the collection. Sometimes that means building a library system for reproduction or licensing requests, empowering the public to curate and share their own insights, or building a sufficient database search logic to sift through hundreds of thousands of records with ease (Boolean search, anyone?). Even in the same sector, each institution has its nuances. Our approach is to focus on these nuances to create purpose-driven design and promote unique dialects between cultural heritage and the public.
It varies, and relies heavily on both the institution’s brand identity and the quality of their data. Part of the responsibility lies with them - messy data can be given a new stage to perform publicly, but it doesn’t make it less messy behind the curtain. The challenge is often appropriateness: experimenting and iterating to find a solution that fits their marketing and comms strategies while also being sympathetic to the quality of their content. Our process is to focus on the essentials: We put everything on the canvas, then remove everything unnecessary. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry said it well - “Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”
That's a difficult one to answer, I'd propose that a designer's academic landscape is (or should be) focused on maturing a universal method for problem solving, across a variety of mediums and fields, transcending any specific sector or challenge. That's why to me, design - and choosing a designer - is (or at least, should be) pivotal to any institution's processes. A seasoned designer should be equipped to contend with a plethora of challenges (visual, experiential, interactive, systematic etc.). As the late great Massimo Vignelli would say, "A good architect should be able to design everything, from a spoon to a city.”
Oftentimes assisting in usability (for collections teams specifically), primarily consists of streamlining processes and workflows. We approach each project consciously with this in mind. Staff can often be subjected to endless repetition of redundant procedures to complete a particular task. Workshopping these processes can reveal opportunities to mitigate and automate these tasks, such as forming bespoke forms for public enquiries, generating content for user download, or more general guidance information being portrayed intuitively.
We like to engage with clients as openly and as often as possible throughout a project. That means establishing clear communication, outlining schedules and responsibilities, and defining who’s accountable for each role. Collaboration requires commitment from both sides - the more prepared a client is when they approach us, the more seamless the process. Since we often work with global institutions from our London office, we balance remote collaboration with in-person workshops. Workshops are an excellent method for demonstrating concepts and prototypes with everyone in the same room, collaborating together to ensure all visions are aligned.
In terms of visual design, I personally try to avoid trends (it's the modernist/bauhausian/industrial ethos instilled in me during my academic years), trends or fads are ephemeral and often short-lived, I find them to be irresponsible in an industry that aims to build long-term systems. That said, in experiential design the digital landscape is in a constant state of flux. From the surge of handheld devices becoming increasingly important, to the newer promises of artificial intelligence and how that can be integrated into experience design. Conceptually speaking, I'm also enjoying seeing the end-user being spotlighted by museums and libraries more and more. I see a growing emphasis on crowdsourcing methods and giving the public a platform for their voice, enabling them to share knowledge and insights. Forming a dialogue between the institution and the audience.
Being able to play a (small) role in crafting how audiences perceive, engage with, and participate in cultural narratives, ensuring the preservation of heritage in how it's communicated to the public, conceptualising interactivity for data portrayal, these are the most satisfying aspects for me. For me, I've always gravitated towards design that exists for practical and inclusive purposes, and not so much for commercial or consumer industries. Democratising knowledge-sharing in the arts and cultural fields for global consumption. I find that the cultural sphere not only preserves our collective stories, but also feeds new perspectives and ideas, and I'm excited (and grateful) to be a part of it.