Integrating UX into Cultural Institutions

Alistair Cooper (Ali), 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. During this time, Ali has contributed to the design of our Qi CMS, as well as lead the digital design direction of numerous websites and portals 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 arts, film, oral histories, literature etc.), and so the public's engagement with this should also reflect that nature. Whether it's building a public library system - inviting audiences to request reproductions or licensing, empowering the public to curate and share their own insights to collection objects, or building a sufficient database search logic to sift through hundreds of thousands of records with ease (boolean search, anyone?), each institution, even in the same sector, has its nuances. Our approach has always been to focus on these nuances in order to create purpose-driven design and promote unique dialects between cultural heritage and the public.

It varies greatly, and relies heavily on the interpretation of both the institutions brand identity, and the quality of their data. Partly the responsibility lies with them - messy data can be given a new stage to perform publicly but it doesn't make it any less messy behind closed curtains. The challenge is often appropriateness. Experimenting and iterating to find an appropriate solution that not only fits their marketing and comms strategies, but is also sympathetic to the quality and completeness of their content. I tend to focus on the essentials - initially placing everything on a canvas, and then removing everything unnecessary. An interesting quote from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry comes to mind "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 onsite-to-online experiences reflecting a continiuation of one anthor 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 (and critique), forming a dialogue between the institution and the audience. I believe this is crucial for any institution representing culture, rather than talking at the audience, instead opening the conversation to include them, without a form of dogmatic agenda.

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. 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 in society, and I'm excited (and grateful) to be a part of it.