Storytelling for Exhibitions and Museums

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If the Earth is round,

and Museums

Storytellingfor Exhibitions

then why are maps flat?

Storytelling for Exhibitions and Museums If the Earth is round, then why are maps flat?

Storyfactory Ebook 3 April 2016

2Storyfactory Ebook 3 April 2016

Storytelling for Exhibitions and Museums

ContentsIntroductionpage 3

If the Earth is round, then why are maps

page 4

Clarity that teaches complexitypage 5

The conceptual model: the map of the sky1. From a Mental Map

to the Conceptual Model2. Interaction Designpage 6

Architecture of contents and interaction3. Architecture of contents4. User Interfacepage 8

Storytelling Experience Designpage 11

Conclusionspage 12



From ancient times, sailors and explorers have always looked for reference points to find their way.

One of the most adventurous feats that people can accomplish is discovering what they don’t already know, and to do this they need a model that helps them to deal with the complexity of the world and a tool that translates the model into something useful… like a map.

Visiting an exhibition or a museum is not very different to exploring unknown territory and the need to get one’s bearings is both innate, and very strong. But how many times have we found ourselves trying to negotiate our way through a whole series of artefacts, documents and explanations that don’t mean anything to us? And we begin to feel inadequate, foreigners in a hostile land, explorers in an inhospitable territory that has nothing to offer us. But there is

a way to avoid running aground like this and losing our desire to discover and understand: narrative is a potent direction tool to guide our visiting experience of visiting an exhibition or a museum.

Museum directors and curators who want to improve and get the most out of what they have on show by using storytelling become skilled cartographers who map out routes to find our way through these isles of wonder.

In the following pages we will introduce some fundamental guidelines to use storytelling to plan an exhibition or a museum, a tool that lets us get our bearings and choose paths that best fit with what each individual visitor likes and wants.

Introduction Viola Giacometti, partner — @ViolaGiacometti Sara Mazzocchi, partner — @SaraMazzocchi3

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The Earth is round, and that is something we have known for quite some time. But nowadays our maps are not very different from those – flat – maps that sailors used to cross the sea when people were still afraid that once they passed the Pillars of Hercules, the earth suddenly came to an end and you were in danger of falling into an abyss… Why is this?

Because a flat map works very well. It allows us to have a clear – and easy to remember – image of very large areas and where points of interest are positioned. If we don’t know where we want to go, a map can help us to decide. And it can help us to understand where we are in relation to where we want to be, and what route to take to get there.

Maps are conceptual models to build tools that work well with our mental maps. Because they work in the same way that we are used to working: we move

in two dimensions, forwards or backwards, and to the right or to the left. A pigeon might think that our maps don’t make much sense.

And that’s the point. A museum or exhibition should do the same thing: offer itself as a tool that works well, because it knows how its visitors work.

If the Earth is round,then why aremaps flat?

Claudio Branca, partner and innovation manager — @KlaudeB



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How do you plan a museum that works well for its visitors, and not just for “pigeons”?

The thing to remember is obviously not to flatten out the profundity of art, or turn museum exhibits into a series of children’s collectable cards. Nor is it to eliminate the complexity of the world, or give up any hope that visitors will leave with something more than they came in with.

The important thing is to come up with a conceptual model which is both solid and functional, which can naturally interact with visitors’ mental maps and to give them access to the mental maps of other “pigeons” (curators, planners, experts and others…).

And then to convert this conceptual model into a beautiful experience: pleasant, surprising, useful, engaging, simple and stimulating.

The concept behind a museum or exhibition should always aim to serve the visitor: “clarity that teaches complexity”. It should be designed so as to help exploration.Just as the constellations we have drawn in the sky help us make use of the stars.

What are the most important steps in the process of designing a visiting experience? How do we put together our exhibition, or our museum?

User experience design:1. From a Mental Map to a

Conceptual Model2. Interaction Design3. Content architecture 4. User Interface

Claritythat teachescomplexity



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Let’s go back to sailors, and how constellations help us to use the sky. One star is more important than the others, even though it isn’t the brightest: finding that star amongst all the others can help our sailor to find his way to a rich trading port, and then return home. But just saying “the Pole Star is over there” wouldn’t be much help. We need a system which can make this “silent sky” start talking, and help him find his way….

1. From a Mental Map to the Conceptual Model

Where do we start? From visitors: the sailors that will sail across our seas. How do they normally think? How do they organise their ideas and knowledge? What are the things we can latch on to in their mental maps?During long nights at sea, sailors tell each other stories as they look

up at the sky. Stories that are easy to remember, and to share with other people.

We can thus build a conceptual model based on the stories, and we convert the sky into a picture book: we draw the characters joining together the stars like dots, and build stories that make the different constellations interact with each other, helping us to remember their positions in relation to one another.

The conceptual model is the first thing to develop in our planning: it is the tool which shows visitors how to organise ideas and concepts, and how to use our exhibition or museum.

model:The conceptual

the map of the sky



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2. Interaction Design

From a curator’s or planner’s point of view, the conceptual model has an additional function: it is the logical interface that puts the curatorial concept at the visitor’s service, making it accessible and usable. In a way it is already a draught of an Interaction Design, because it puts forward how the system will behave, which elements will combine to make it, how they will talk to visitors, and what it will encourage them to do.

This aspect is fundamental, because it helps us to distinguish what is a pure creativity (random and changeable, just as we could want to see either a wagon or a bear in the same seven stars) from planning (“extending the segment which joins the two previous stars, I can find the Pole Star”), and allows the working team not to stray from the route shown by the curatorial concept.

Our “illustrated sky map” has to have a really strong conceptual model to work this well even now, with all the telescopes and radio-telescopes we have looking at an infinite Universe, satellites, interplanetary probes and tourist space shuttles…

Of course something has changed in the meantime, and there has been a dizzying increase in the quantity and quality of knowledge that we are trying to hunt down between one star and another in Orion’s Belt. We have designed new systems of coordinates, but (for now at least) our point of reference is still the same: it is us gazing upwards from the Earth.



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3. Architecture of contents

Everything that the sky can tell us – content, data, images, suggestions, … has to be filtered, organised and expressed by the end user in a defined way. This is the architecture of contents: the way in which contents are structured, the relationships that arise between them and what exactly they will offer in their dialogue with the visitor.

A very delicate step (and one that is often painful for the planner) takes place at this stage of planning: selecting contents. In an exhibition or museum you can never say everything that you would like to say. In fact very often you realise that you don’t even have the space, or the time, to say everything that you ought to say.

It is very easy to become disorientated in this situation, and to lose sight of the priorities, and

Architectureto try to “cram everything in”. But we made an assumption at the beginning: an exhibition or a museum have to be tools that work well because they know how to work like their visitors. And, most of all, they are at the service of the visitors.

And it is here that the method is of help to us: we have to weave together the planned conceptual model and the interaction design (let’s not forget this is an expression of the curatorial concept and principles) and use it as a sieve. We sift through possible content, and allow everything that doesn’t fit tightly to the structure of our conceptual model to flow through. If it doesn’t strengthen the model, or it isn’t relevant to the dialogue with the visitor that we outlined at the interaction design stage, it is superfluous and ineffective as content.

If a piece of content that we thought was fundamental to

of contentsand interaction



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through which visitors will be able to access this manna. We tell the story of the constellations, but also express them in physical objects: illustrated maps which can be shown and passed around, so that sailors didn’t always have to rely exclusively on their own memories, but could make a direct comparison between the drawing on the paper (or on parchment or wood) with the sky, or the image in their head, and so they wouldn’t lose their way at sea any more.

This is perhaps the most beautiful part of creating a museum, or an exhibition, or the most surprising. But it is also the most complex part of the whole work process: the skills and professionalism involved are both numerous and wide-ranging, and not everybody will have the full knowledge and overall view of the big picture that is going to be created.

visitors doesn’t pass this hurdle, there are two possibilities: either we got it wrong, and the content was actually more relevant to us experts than for visitors, or our conceptual model has to be perfected. In each case, we have to keep focused, we have to arm ourselves with critical spirit and … most of all, deal with the problem! It is our planning that that will support our journey “to infinity and beyond” of future exploration…

4. User Interface

All the wonders and splendour of the Universe must not make us lose sight of where we started: building an experience which is at the service of the visitor.

We have a model, we have a script for interacting with visitors and consequently some structured contents. Now is the time to build a physical interface, by which we mean the spaces and objects



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multiple visit routes (which can be customised by the visitor and extended with potential additions) within a unique experience

• all this is done while still giving full expression to the potential of the curatorial concept, the gravitational centre of the visit experience

This is where things are won, or lost. And solid experience in design expresses all of its worth:• it offers an overall vision of

the project that is clear and defined, and one which can be communicated in an effective way to those who haven’t been involved in the complete work process

• it allows effective briefs to be supplied to suppliers and creative studios, helping them to understand not just “what” they are being asked to do, but also “why”, putting their contribution into a wider, overall vision

• it helps the planner to keep track of the “Ariadne threads” that connect the contents and the various installations, so as to integrate suggestions and corrections at any stage of the project without undermining the balance and the solidity of the general structure

• it offers the chance to manage



1.Conceptual Model

First thing we need is a conceptual tool, showing the visitor how he

could organize ideas and experiences he will go through

during his visit.

Ask yourself: how does the visitor usually think?

What would his mental map of the

visit look like?

You’ll answer your audience needs and turn their visit into

a unique experience.

2.Interaction design

Imagine how the visitor will establish a dialogue with your contents: how will he behave? How will your contents react to

his actions?

How will you inspire your visitor? How will you challenge him? Will the visitor get what he expected?

How?

You’ll design an engaging and

accessbile experience for

new and returning visitors.

3.Architecture of

contents

Select contents and organize them in order to shape a smooth and

meaningful exploration experience.

Your visitor's experience always comes first, and all

of the contents have to be selectedand adapted

to perfecly fit in it.

If it isn’t meaningful,it can’t be necessary.

4.User Interface

Now is the time to build a physical interface: the spaces and objects through which visitors will be able

to access this manna.

Does everybodyin your team get the whole picture of the

experience you're going to offer to the visitor?

How can you helpthem get it right?

Every single detail tells

a story(and it has to be the right one).


StorytellingExperience Design

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Planning an exhibition or a museum using storytelling means designing a map that helps visitors to:• recognise the most important

points identified by the curatorial concept

• find their bearings to follow the main narrative routes, which the contents and items on display allow them to find

• without worrying about getting lost, follow up on tantalising glimpses that attracted their attention, in a special story that finds an echo with our own and makes us feel part of a larger story

Stories that are told and shared with visitors don’t take the place of the astonishment at discovering the works on display, but rather they are useful to:• get the full feeling of the

experience• make more informed choices

about where to pause, so that the visit fits our wishes, whether they are already expressed or are yet to be found out through the surprises that the route holds for us

• remember our experience and tell others about it

This is how exhibitions and museums activate constellations of individual and collective memory and guide visitors through archipelagos to be explored thanks to the storytelling map.

Conclusions Viola Giacometti, partner — @ViolaGiacometti Sara Mazzocchi, partner — @SaraMazzocchi3





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Quote me!Taken fromStorytelling for Exhibitions and Museums If the Earth is round, then why are maps flat?www.storyfactory.it/ebook

Ebook N.3Storytelling for Exhibitions and Museums If the Earth is round, then why are maps flat?AA.VV.

Authors

TextC. Branca, V. Giacometti, S. Mazzocchi

Coordination and preparationE. Babini

Graphic design&1 lab

Reading time 15 minutes

www.storyfactory.it

If the Earth is round,

and Museums

Storytellingfor Exhibitions

then why are maps flat?

Storytelling for Exhibitions and Museums

Design

Transcript of Storytelling for Exhibitions and Museums