Designing CLIO with the MUSETECH Model
The MUSETECH Model[1] posits that in order for museums to successfully utilize technologies, there are three stakeholder perspectives that must be considered. Throughout all stages of a museum technology project, these perspectives offer views that complement and inform the others in a way that can build institutional synergy. This model also states that there are four primary stages or constituents of a museum technology project. These quartiles contain evaluation criteria per perspective, grouped by thematic categories, which allows for a granular overview of the considerations throughout each stage of the technology project.
As a team, we used our monthly workshops to consider each of the 121 Evaluation Criteria and our answers to these questions helped form the foundation of the project. As the scope of the project changed and new design proposals were considered, these evaluation criteria were re-visited and re-assessed. This continually evolving process guided our research, design and evaluation. By building upon the strengths of previous design proposals and workshopping the weaknesses, we were able to adequately assess each criteria. We have provided a brief overview for each quartile cluster.
Design Quartile
(D1) Design and product ideation
D1Pa. Design concept
Perspective: Cultural Heritage Professional
When considering how technologies were utilized, we decided specifically to pursue open-source web technologies. These technologies provide a versatility and portability that many other technologies did not, allowing them to be used on numerous devices. These technologies have matured with the internet. We would focus on active projects with growing documentation and communities in order to ensure future support. We would be creating a web application to exhibit interactive activities that could be integrated into informal education in numerous ways. We would be creating a portable interactive kiosk system using low-cost open hardware that ran an internal web server, allowing the exhibition software to function completely offline.
D1Pb. Integration with the exhibition
Perspective: Cultural Heritage Professional
We wanted to create an interactive experience that acted as a contextualizing part of the exhibit without overshadowing it. The POP kiosk was available to provide additional or related information to the exhibit objects through interactive activities, but it wasn’t meant to detract from the tangible exhibit. For use within the Nature's Network program, we wanted most interactive activities to be completable within thirty seconds with several longer ones available for use at the facilitator's discretion. Our hope was that it could lure their eyes towards objects that they had just learned about through the kiosk and continue moving visitors through the exhibit.
D1Pc. Integration with other ICT
Perspective: Cultural Heritage Professional
It may be possible for CLIO to integrate with certain open-source collections databases, such as Collective Access[2], to pull multimedia and metadata for use in activities. This is outside of the scope of the initial CLIO release and would need to be added in future versions. The POP kiosk uses a Raspberry Pi microcomputer with the Debian operating system and could potentially be integrated with other electronics through ethernet, USB or GPIO ports. CLIO is an open-source web application and can be used on any computer system capable of running a web server.
D1Pd. Balance of physical with digital
Perspective: Cultural Heritage Professional
For the BurkeMobile, the POP kiosk would not have any speakers, make noise or auto-play any multimedia. We didn't want the kiosk to overpower the tangible parts of the exhibit, so it would blend into the background when not in use through various mechanisms. After a configurable amount of time, the kiosk would return to a home screen illustrating the available activities with visual and textual instructions. The screen can also be dimmed when not in use, temporarily overriding the facilitator and visitor brightness settings until interacted with. There would be a card on the exhibit table talking about the kiosk, its activities and how to get started. Our goal was to help self-facilitate learners through the exhibit by interesting them with the objects and draw their attention to an activity before they left the table.
D1Pe. Clear understanding of the fabrication process
Perspective: Cultural Heritage Professional
We would be creating documentation surrounding CLIO and POP that included guides for creating and editing activities, as well as creating and maintaining a POP prototype kiosk. These guides would also act as quick primers into various subjects related to CLIO, such as JSON data storage or 3D printing procedures. Workshops could be held where professionals are trained in the new processes by interactively doing it themselves under educator supervision.
D1Pf. Level of in-house technical knowledge
Perspective: Cultural Heritage Professional
We wanted CLIO to be accessible to professionals without design or software development experience using an easy-to-use and interactive web interface for creating, managing and exhibiting activities. We also wanted CLIO to accessible to developers looking to add new features, interact with external hardware, design activity types or create menus. Our goal was to create defaults that work out of the box for institutions without designers or developers, but are easily changeable with the appropriate knowledge. In addition, we would be creating extensive documentation surrounding the project.
D1Ma. Level of innovation and business intelligence
Perspective: Museum
This type of exhibit technology offers to different perspective for interactive content than many traditional means. CLIO hopes to create an interactive exhibit framework that can be integrated into a museum's galleries and re-used through out different exhibits. POP kiosks are small and portable, allowing them to be moved around your institution based on its changing needs, or even take them outside of the building to facilitate live lessons or pop-up exhibits. CLIO and POP are based on open hardware and software that are extensible, allowing these kiosks to control different exhibit elements such as lighting, sound or mechanics. Additionally, the kiosk is modular, built using open hardware, and printed in-house, allowing individual parts to be replaced only as needed.
D1Mb. Brand name, uniqueness and originality
Perspective: Museum
CLIO is intended to act as a framework that an institution can build on top of to create something that is unique, aligns with their mission and fits their design language. By creating new activity types, theming interface elements, or changing filament colors, CLIO and POP can be customized to any institution. The project is also based on open-source technologies that are available for free and built by the community.
D1Mc. Integration with other ICT
Perspective: Museum
It may be possible for CLIO to integrate with certain open-source collections databases, such as Collective Access[2], to pull multimedia and metadata for use in activities. This is outside of the scope of the initial CLIO release and would need to be added in future versions. The POP kiosk uses a Raspberry Pi microcomputer with the Debian operating system and could be integrated with other electronics through ethernet, USB or GPIO ports. CLIO is an open-source web application and can be used on any computer system capable of running a web server.
D1Md. Budget
Perspective: Museum
CLIO and POP are open-source so licensing costs aren't a consideration when budgeting for interactive activities and exhibits. CLIO can be used on any computer system capable of running a web server, allowing institution to re-use existing hardware systems or utilize low-cost commodity hardware, such as Raspberry Pi and Adafruit. Extensive customization or utilization of CLIO and POP may require additional staffing or contractor support.
D1Me. Staff acceptance
Perspective: Museum
Initial education staff reception to CLIO and POP were generally positive with an interest in adding technology elements to their exhibits. User interface evaluation was completed with the education staff and museum volunteers, which garnered feedback used to improve clarity and navigation of the interface. General reception at the Lunch and Learn Seminars, as well as the MuseWeb 2020 conference, were generally positive with a majority of concerns relating to the ease of use and documentation of CLIO and POP. Classroom teacher responses from the Nature in the Classroom remote pilot program was generally good, with several positive comments relating to its asynchronous possibilities and varied informal educational uses.
D1Va. Co-design, front-end evaluation and visitor acceptance
Perspective: Visitor
Due to the Covid-19 crisis, all in-person visitor evaluation for the POP kiosk and CLIO interface were put on hold indefinitely. Observation of over 20 Nature in the Classroom remote pilot program through the Slater Museum garnered generally positive feedback. Students were able to easily navigate all of the activities used within the lesson and they were all accessible through their home web browser while facilitators led the lesson with on-screen examples.
(D2) Experience design and narratives
D2Pa. Experience added value
Perspective: Cultural Heritage Professional
Our goal with CLIO and POP was to add enticing or interesting supplementary information to exhibits and lessons through technology, without the technology itself being a part of the spectacle of the exhibit. The technology aims to integrate into an already interactive exhibit or lesson and provide exploratory avenues to pique curiosity through interaction. CLIO is not made to create a whole-cloth digital exhibit from scratch. The versatility, extensibility and customizability of both CLIO and POP allow it to be used by professionals in a wide range of informal educational content formats as a learning aid, both in-person and remote.
D2Pb. Relevance to Audience
Perspective: Cultural Heritage Professional
We wanted the ability to categorize activities by audiences, allowing the facilitators to tailor the content and experience for their exhibit on the fly. These audiences can be anything, from school grade, to specific subject experience, or demographics.
Occasionally, the BurkeMobile would need to create condensed exhibits due to space concerns. When CLIO is used in Facilitator Mode, professionals can interactively select which activities are displayed, allowing them to tailor their exhibit more closely to the current audience at their event or merge multiple exhibits into one.
D2Pc. Tailored content
Perspective: Cultural Heritage Professional
By creating different templated activity types, CLIO can tailor the experience more closely to the educational goals your institution is trying to achieve by using simple or familiar interaction paradigms, such as timelines, annotated images and card matching games. An interactive and looping slideshow could more effectively communicate the cyclical lifecycle of salmon than a static block of text or flash cards.
D2Pd. Attentional balance
Perspective: Cultural Heritage Professional
We didn't want CLIO to require too much attention of event facilitators, educators and operation managers. Kiosk systems can be configured to load Facilitator Mode at startup, allowing professionals to tailor the content to the audience, or they can always load the same exhibit and activities. Once a POP kiosk is set up in its environment, it will operate independently as a black box system without the need to access the internet. If there are ever problems, the kiosk can be easily restarted. When used with Facilitator Mode, professionals can reload the last used activities in the event of a system failure.
D2Pe. Social Interaction
Perspective: Cultural Heritage Professional
We discussed the possibility of creating the same activity for different age groups, such as children, teenagers, adults and mixed age groups. For example, activities designed for mixed age groups could provide questions to indirectly facilitate conversation within the group, while activities for children could prompt an interaction with a facilitator to answer their more specific questions.
D2Ma. Interpretive, Educational, Learning Potential
Perspective: Museum
CLIO is meant to be a framework used to enhance informal education exhibitions, events and lessons. This creates the potential for informal education spaces to slowly bridge the gap between the physical and digital presence.
Your institution can create CLIO activities for your in-person exhibit, as well as provide access online when they return home. Facilitators can use the activities in remote lessons, and send their students links directly to the activity for them to complete either together or separately. These activities are not meant to replace a qualified educator, but to help supplement and solidify the knowledge they do gain from them. Activities can be used to display information, or create small interactive experiences, such as games or digital flashcards.
D2Mb. Personalization potential
Perspective: Museum
CLIO itself does not provide any mechanism to automatically curate or personalize content for the visitors that interact with it. This is generally left to the Cultural Heritage Professional to do. CLIO activities use descriptive URLs and it would be possible to utilize such mechanism through external methods, such as through a web server script returning a specific URL based on some visitor-related input.
D2Mc. Public Outreach and Communication Potential
Perspective: Museum
CLIO can be made publicly accessible through the web, providing access for local and remote communities from the comfort of their home. By adding POP or a portable kiosk solution, these same activities can be used outside of your institution as part of a pop-up exhibit or live event.
D2Md. Big Data Potential
Perspective: Museum
CLIO does not provide any analytics about the activities that are used. Because CLIO uses descriptive URLs, it may be possible to achieve usage metrics by using a service that analyzes URL traffic, such as Plausible[3] or Matomo[4].
D2Va. Engagement
Perspective: Visitor
When it comes to physical technology within exhibits, it can difficult to walk the line between engaging the visitor through technology and overwhelming the visitor with technology.
For the BurkeMobile, we made the conscious decision to treat the technology parts of the exhibit as almost secondary to the physical exhibit. We had a desire for the students to interact with the museum objects before they had their attention drawn to the technology. This required employing different techniques to make the technology blend into the background, while also advertising its existence through exhibit cards.
We made the decision to only engage visual senses through the kiosk, as well as some minor proprioceptive sensory input from the screen. With the current technology, it is also possible to use audio, through both attached speakers and headphones. Given the open-source nature of the technologies, it may also be possible to directly interface various external lights, sounds, and mechanics with the CLIO interface.
D2Vb. Personalization
Perspective: Visitor
While it is not possible to tailor content to individual visitor preferences, it is possible to tailor content to audience visitor profiles when curated by a professional or other external mechanism.
D2Vc. Learning, Edutainment, Entertainment
Perspective: Visitor
When creating activity types for CLIO, we purposefully aimed to create activities that did not attempt to quantify the user's score or correctness. While activities had the option for correct and incorrect answers, part of the purpose of the activities was to begin a dialogue with the user to prompt them with clues when they had the incorrect answer or provide them with additional solidifying facts when they had the correct answer.
As a result of this, we went the route of attempting to gamify several of the activity types in hopes they could provide an additional positive and fun experience on top of the interaction with a live facilitator. Many activities were shorter in duration and built upon or worked in conjunction with the lesson as taught by the facilitator.
D2Vd. Attentional Balance
Perspective: Visitor
We wanted a kiosk that would integrate into the exhibit we were creating, while providing additional context or content, without being intrusive. This required creating an interactive with a straight forward interaction paradigm. A kiosk system similar to the Many Voices project, where the user interacted with physical books, could create an interaction experience that greatly detracted from the BurkeMobile pop-up exhibit. Initial BurkeBox prototypes allowed visitors to hold an object to a scanner to load information about the object, but we felt doing this in a pop-up exhibit would draw too much attention to the technology and risk visitors taking the pieces in error.
Each activity type provides a different experience and each will require a differing level or type of attention from the visitor. Many activities were meant to engage and intrigue without requiring deep focus by providing superficial facts. The content was designed to be easily digestible text with accompanying multimedia components. Activities would only provide as much information as the visitor desired, by hiding additional information behind intentional user action, such as interacting with a button or navigating. We aimed to make content that was relevant to the objects on the table, to provide added value if desired, but it was not required to enjoy the physical nature of the exhibit and the pre-existing kinetic activities, such as arranging blocks.
D2Ve. Affective Impact
Perspective: Visitor
The content provided to the visitor by CLIO is entirely decided by the institutional making the activities. This provides them with the power to choose the images, videos and audio they want to provoke the desired affective impact.
When working with the Burke Museum and the Slater Museum, we aimed to use local and regional history to create a personal connection with the content we were teaching. We focused on plants and animals from the area, as well as the local regions that they inhabited.
D2Vf. Social Interaction
Perspective: Visitor
We discussed the possibility of creating the same activity for different age groups, such as children, teenagers, adults and mixed age groups. For example, activities designed for mixed age groups could provide questions to indirectly facilitate conversation within the group, while activities for children could prompt an interaction with a facilitator to answer their more specific questions.
D2Vg. Ability to follow usage on other platforms
Perspective: Visitor
CLIO activities and content can be made publicly available on the internet, allowing visitors to access the activities during and after the visit or live event. CLIO is based on web technologies so it is accessible on any platform that is capable of running a web browser with JavaScript support.
D2Vh. Sense of belonging to a community
Perspective: Visitor
We aimed to make activities that could draw a impactful connection with subjects the student already knew, such as people, animals, or places. By keeping most of the interactive content regional, such as related to the Sockeye Salmon or Hanford Reach, we could provide a personal connection to the interactive.
(D3) Interactions, affordances, and interaction metaphors
D3Pa. Quality of Affordances
Perspective: Cultural Heritage Professional
For CLIO, we attempted to use established design paradigms, iconography and interaction metaphors from the mobile phone, desktop operating system and web design fields. We would provide cards as part of the exhibit that directed towards the kiosk and instructed how to use it, but tapping the screen and selecting an activity. These instructions are also available on the kiosk, should that be what the visitor interact with first. Each activity can have a description, providing the visitor information with how to use that activity.
D3Pb. Suitability of interaction metaphors
Perspective: Cultural Heritage Professional
We chose to use interactive activities for CLIO instead of static object pages, more similar to the BurkeBox project. By designing a framework to create interactive activity templates, we could create new interaction metaphors that could more effectively communicate the points we were trying to make. An interactive and looping slideshow could more effectively communicate the cyclical lifecycle of salmon than a static block of text or flash cards. The different activity types allow variety and unique experience within an interface that will work in an expected fashion.
D3Pc. Interface design
Perspective: Cultural Heritage Professional
We chose to design the interface with a simplistic menu and content system. We used established iconography and interface conventions so that visitors didn't feel like they were required to learn a completely new interface to get the full exhibit experience. We followed design guidelines from Apple, Google and Microsoft.
We designed to interface to only require one finger to fully operate, with multitouch interactive layered on top of those. Overall, the interface is purposefully minimalist to avoid extraneous visual information from the kiosk.
The CLIO interface includes features like Dark Mode and Light Mode to assist with visual impairments as well as environmental conditions. There are three interface screens to work together to create different experiences; Facilitator Mode, Exhibit Mode and Activity Mode.
Perspective: Cultural Heritage Professional
We opted for a small capacitive touchscreen with a one-finger navigable interface designed primarily for accessibility. This provided a familiar interaction paradigm to a cellphone or other touchscreen interface. The kiosk allowed for device specific configuration so educational facilitators could change how the kiosk integrated with their exhibit.
We refrained from animations if possible because they could cause problems for kiosk users with various impairments. The exhibit home screen was slightly animated with bright colors to draw attention, however, and this was a concession to provide some motion and visual sense of interactivity. Cards within the exhibit would direct to the kiosk, and content on the kiosk would direct the visitor attention to objects in the exhibit.
D3Pf. Multisensoriality
Perspective: Cultural Heritage Professional
BurkeMobile events were already loud and crowded so we chose to limit the sensory stimulation output by the kiosk. POP did not contain any speakers or haptics and we hoped this would prompt visitors to interact with exhibit objects for sensory information. This choice, however, made auditory experiences and accessibility features impossible initially.
We chose to stick to visual media, such as videographics, clips, images or illustrations. We did not utilize audio or other haptic senses. With CLIO, it would be possible to add audio and visual haptics for interface and activity feedback. It would also be possible to create activity types that can interact with external hardware, such as motors, to provide other forms of sensory interaction.
D3Ma. (Ability to) follow-up usage on other platforms
Perspective: Museum
CLIO activities and content can be made publicly available on the internet, allowing visitors to access the activities during and after the visit or live event. CLIO is based on web technologies so it is accessible on any platform that is capable of running a web browser with JavaScript support.
D3Mb. Brand name, uniqueness, originality
Perspective: Museum
CLIO is a framework that can be designed to more closely resemble an institution's design language or color schemes through the use of CSS or JS.
D3Va. Utility, usability and ease of use
Perspective: Visitor
The goal is that CLIO can be used to facilitate discussion amongst visitors and prompt them to interact with cultural heritage professionals.
This should work regardless of the mode of interaction between visitors and professionals, whether it is at an in-person exhibit, a remotely-facilitated lesson plan through video conference, or self-facilitated usage at home and school.
We aim to do this through creating a framework to tier information (such as text and media) behind user exploration. This can work in combination with an interactive interface to navigate between these activities. This allows the creation of exhibitions that are deceptively dense with information, while not appearing too visually overwhelming or cluttered. This framework can be used between different activities and activity types, creating a visually and mechanically cohesive user experience.
D3Vb. Intuitiveness, learnability and learning curve
Perspective: Visitor
We opted for a small capacitive touchscreen with a one-finger navigable interface designed primarily for accessibility. This provided a familiar interaction paradigm to a cellphone or other touchscreen interface.
We chose to design the interface with a simplistic menu and content system. We used established iconography and interface conventions so that visitors didn't feel like they were required to learn a completely new interface to get the full exhibit experience. We followed design guidelines from Apple, Google and Microsoft. Overall, the interface is purposefully minimalist to avoid extraneous visual information from the kiosk.
With remotely-facilitated lessons through video conference, we found that students were often exploring the activities as soon as they received the link and many did not require any additional explanation to complete them.
D3Vc. Responsiveness
Perspective: Visitor
CLIO acts as a single page website, using JavaScript to asynchronously load content as it needs it. During the prototyping phase, JavaScript became the primary language for the CLIO web applications because it was found be more responsive to user input than rendering individual PHP or HTML pages. CLIO Exhibit is designed to be installed locally on each kiosk so that data does not need to be loaded from the internet.
When the user loads an activity, JavaScript is used to dynamically load JSON content. This data is used to populate the page, with data from any future user interactions being embedded within the page through HTML data attributes. This allows future interactions by the user, within the activity, to be enacted instantly using JavaScript without needing to load any additional data.
Perspective: Visitor
We chose to design the interface with a simplistic menu and content system. Depending on how CLIO is utilized, visitors may be limited to a single activity, or be able to navigate between multiple activities using Exhibit Mode. When an activity is loaded, there is always a menu bar available with access to accessibility options, activity information and, if application, a back button to return to the list of activities.
D3Ve. Personalization
Perspective: Visitor
While it is not possible to tailor content to individual visitor preferences, it is possible to tailor content to audience visitor profiles when curated by a professional or other external mechanism.
D3Vf. Social interaction
Perspective: Visitor
We discussed the possibility of creating the same activity for different age groups, such as children, teenagers, adults and mixed age groups. For example, activities designed for mixed age groups could provide questions to indirectly facilitate conversation within the group, while activities for children could prompt an interaction with a facilitator to answer their more specific questions.
D3Vg. Ability to follow-up usage on other platforms
Perspective: Visitor
CLIO activities and content can be made publicly available on the internet, allowing visitors to access the activities during and after the visit or live event. CLIO is based on web technologies so it is accessible on any platform that is capable of running a web browser with JavaScript support.
D3Vh. Presence of multisensoriality
Perspective: Visitor
BurkeMobile events were already loud and crowded so we chose to limit the sensory stimulation output by the kiosk. POP did not contain any speakers or haptics and we hoped this would prompt visitors to interact with exhibit objects for sensory information. This choice, however, made auditory experiences and accessibility features impossible initially.
We chose to stick to visual media, such as videographics, clips, images or illustrations. We did not utilize audio or other haptic senses. With CLIO, it would be possible to add audio and visual haptics for interface and activity feedback. It would also be possible to create activity types that can interact with external hardware, such as motors, to provide other forms of sensory interaction.
(D4) Aesthetics, look and feel and visceral qualities
D4Pa. Look and feel (materials, textures, colours, weight)
Perspective: Cultural Heritage Professional
We wanted to keep the interaction with the kiosk pleasant, through the use of a quality multitouch glass touch screen. The kiosk case was printed in black with a protective bumper printed using the BurkeMobile design colors for the pop-up exhibit it was being included in. The kiosk was designed to be small and lightweight with a modular design that can be with different attachments, such as clamps, legs, suctions cups and stands.
D4Ma. Brand name, uniqueness, originality
Perspective: Museum
It was important that the POP kiosk followed the brand and design language of the BurkeMobile exhibits so that it could better blend in without being intrusive. The default CLIO interface is also customizable to allow the Burke to make the interface meet their design style guidelines.
D4Va. Look and feel
Perspective: Visitor
We wanted to keep the interaction with the kiosk pleasant, through the use of a quality multitouch glass touch screen. The kiosk case was printed in black with a protective bumper printed using the BurkeMobile design colors for the pop-up exhibit it was being included in.
The kiosk was designed to be small and lightweight with a modular design that can be with different attachments, such as clamps, legs, suctions cups and stands. We wanted the kiosk to blend into the exhibit and not overpower the other objects on display.
Content Quartile
(C1) Content creation
We needed the digital activities for CLIO to be easy to reproduce because we wanted to make it accessible to those without coding experience. To do this, we would be creating a collection of activities and interaction experiences that could be templated, allowing the creation of similar activities with different content or media. The templated data, which was used to populate the activity templates, was stored using JSON because it was more human-readable than XML, faster to transfer, more efficient to parse and had innate JavaScript support. During the interim design and development stages, this was an important factor because CLIO Create had not been created, meaning templating data for activities required a human to edit the configuration files.
Creating activities for CLIO as a team was a multi-step process, involving as many people as necessary, and the responsibilities were We created a rich text format template for drafting CLIO content that was given to educators to allow them to draft content while the software was still under active development. These templates were made accessible through the cloud which allowed educators to update the draft template at any time so it could be integrated into the POP and online portal prototypes. This process made it possible for software and content development to happen concurrently while still informing the other. Once the draft templates for each activity type were completed, it was simple for the Education team to propose activity ideas and begin drafting their concept of future activities.
Primary Considerations: C1Pa, C1Pb, C1Pc, C1Pd, C1Pe, C1Pf, C1Pg, C1Ma, C1Mb, C1Va
C1Pa. Utility, usability and ease of use
Perspective: Cultural Heritage Professional
C1Pb. Learnability and learning curve
Perspective: Cultural Heritage Professional
C1Pc. Personalization and adaptation
Perspective: Cultural Heritage Professional
C1Pd. Multilingualism
Perspective: Cultural Heritage Professional
C1Pe. Community Support
Perspective: Cultural Heritage Professional
C1Pf. Technology knowledge and support in the house
Perspective: Cultural Heritage Professional
C1Pg. Interoperability
Perspective: Cultural Heritage Professional
C1Ma. Continuity of usage
Perspective: Museum
C1Mb. Logging
Perspective: Museum
C1Va. Perceived Content Quality
Perspective: Visitor
C1Vb. Visitor-created content, creation and curation
Perspective: Visitor
(C2) Content maintenance
In the case of the Burke Museum, many technology exhibits and projects were outsourced to design exhibit firms who often maintained them, as well. With CLIO, we wanted to set up the Education department to be able to update the content on their kiosks as they needed without relying on an out-of-house professional. While activities can't be edited in the field, they can be updated through the development machine at the institution. The same kiosk can also be re-used for multiple exhibits or demonstrations by creating and loading new content. Documentation for CLIO was considered imperative for it's success and was maintained throughout the project.
CLIO is based on web technologies, allowing for the integration of these activities into educational lesson plans that are available online. This allows institutions to extend the lifecycle of the content they create, allowing it to exist online as part of an archive, online exhibit or lesson plan. Activities can be displayed simultaneously in-person and online, or made available online after an in-person exhibit closes.
Primary Considerations: C2Pa, C2Pb, C2Ma, C2Mb, C2Va
C2Pa. Ability to make changes in-house
Perspective: Cultural Heritage Professional
C2Pb. Potential for Documenting and archiving
Perspective: Cultural Heritage Professional
C2Ma. Staff acceptance
Perspective: Museum
C2Mb. Interoperability and Modularity
Perspective: Museum
C2Va. Personalization
Perspective: Visitor
C2Vb. Social Interaction and Sharing
Perspective: Visitor
C2Vc. Continuity of usage
Perspective: Visitor
Compliance Quartile
(MP1) Health, safety and accessibility
Accessibly is a core ideal of this project. Using web-based technologies – such as HTML, CSS and JS – enabled us to refer to established literature for the accessibility of web-based content, such as the World Wide Web Consortium's Web Content Accessibility Guide[5]. These guidelines often include tests the quantify and score accessibility in a range of categories.
CLIO has an accessibility menu always accessible that can provide customizations to the content to make it more accessible, such as font face, text size and contrast modes. Activities also audiences enabling facilitators to use exhibit content that is better suited for their setup location or audience.
A glass screen made it easier to use disinfectant wipes on the screen and around the printed protective bumper. The only noted safety concern was the glass screen, which prompted the inclusion of a padded bumper and screen protector to mitigate potential harm caused by a cracked screen. Under heavy and continuous usage, POP kiosks can get warm to the touch but not uncomfortably so.
Primary Considerations: MP1Pa, MP1Pb, MP1Pc, MP1Ma, MP1Mb, MP1Mc, MP1Md, MP1Va, MP1Vb, MP1Vc
MP1Pa. Accessibility
Perspective: Cultural Heritage Professional
MP1Pb. Appropriateness
Perspective: Cultural Heritage Professional
MP1Pc. Safety
Perspective: Cultural Heritage Professional
MP1Ma. Safety
Perspective: Museum
MP1Mb. Emergency Management
Perspective: Museum
MP1Mc. Disposal and recycling
Perspective: Museum
MP1Md. Hygiene, cleaning and maintenance
Perspective: Museum
MP1Va. Accessibility
Perspective: Visitor
MP1Vb. Appropriateness
Perspective: Visitor
MP1Vc. Safety
Perspective: Visitor
(MP2) Logging and monitoring
User and system logging and monitoring is possible with CLIO, but it was purposefully steered away from as it is outside of the context of this application. Because CLIO is web-based and uses a descriptive URL, web-based analytics software could be used to monitor activity access metrics.
Primary Considerations: MP2Pa, MP2Ma, MP2Va, MP2Vb
MP2Pa. Logging and monitoring
Perspective: Cultural Heritage Professional
MP2Ma. Logs storage, access, privacy, analytics
Perspective: Museum
MP2Va. Personalization
Perspective: Visitor
MP2Vb. Legal compliance
Perspective: Visitor
(MP3) Ethics and legal issues
MP3Pa. Protecting audiences
Perspective: Cultural Heritage Professional
MP3Pb. Data gathering and protection
Perspective: Cultural Heritage Professional
MP3Ma. Other legal issues
Perspective: Museum
MP3Va. Trust and confidence in the museum
Perspective: Visitor
Operation Quartile
(O1) Deployment and setting-up
CLIO is a suite of web applications that is designed to run on almost any computer system by using a web browser. This allows institutions to repurpose old computers for new exhibit kiosks. All of the content within CLIO is also easily updated, meaning that the same kiosk systems can be used throughout multiple exhibits. If the exhibit is portable, you can even bring it with you to outreach programs outside of your institution and set it up without any internet access.
With CLIO, we created a black box system that restricts that actions that a user can accomplish with a kiosk system. Users and facilitators are restricted to the CLIO interface with all access to the underlying systems completely disabled, making it more difficult for the system to be used incorrectly. Kiosk systems will automatically start into the CLIO web application without any interaction necessary. If there is ever a problem, simply restarting the kiosk will fix most problems. It is possible for the institution to edit the kiosk operating system to change configuration settings or create entirely new kiosk clones.
We wanted to create a kiosk and content creation system that could be handled by in-house personnel with access to the kiosks, applicable guides and minimal computer experience. This ecosystem was kept simple, with access to the inner workings of CLIO still accessible for those who did have coding experience. Once an activity is created for CLIO and placed on the kiosk, it will work without the need for any technical knowledge.
While working with the BurkeMobile, we monitored a facilitated event, as well as their setup and breakdown procedures. They were often working against a clock; needing to set up before a program, or needing to break down quickly to get to the next one. We needed CLIO to work as seamlessly and simply as possible, only requiring the facilitators to setup the kiosk and hit the power button to get it ready to add to an exhibit. Depending on their schedule or audience, they could reload their last exhibit or set up a new one with the activities on the kiosk. They could also configure the kiosk for specific event parameters, like turning on dark mode in a dark room. At the end of an event, they could unplug the kiosk without needing to power it down and pack it away safely for transport. By creating padded bumpers, they were easier to stack without damaging the screen. A hard screen cover was also considered.
Primary Considerations: O1Pa, O1Pc, O1Pd, O1Pe, O1Ma, O1Mb, O1Mc, O1Md, O1Va
O1Pa. Ease of use for installation
Perspective: Cultural Heritage Professional
O1Pb. Distance monitoring
Perspective: Cultural Heritage Professional
O1Pc. Workflow
Perspective: Cultural Heritage Professional
O1Pd. In-house technical knowledge
Perspective: Cultural Heritage Professional
O1Pe. Additional staffing required
Perspective: Cultural Heritage Professional
O1Ma. Set-up and start-up parameters
Perspective: Museum
O1Mb. Modularity and Interoperability
Perspective: Museum
O1Mc. Staff and front-desk training
Perspective: Museum
O1Md. Distribution, recovery and guarantee
Perspective: Museum
O1Va. Visitor experience quality and customer care
Perspective: Visitor
O1Vb. Visitor-owned devices
Perspective: Visitor
(O2) Robustness and maintenance
Untreated PLA is recyclable through properly equipped Waste management. Damaged or defective electronics can be disposed of responsibly.
O2Pa. Environmental constraints
Perspective: Cultural Heritage Professional
O2Pb. Robustness
Perspective: Cultural Heritage Professional
O2Pc. Level of customized maintenance required
Perspective: Cultural Heritage Professional
O2Pd. Updating and replacing
Perspective: Cultural Heritage Professional
O2Ma. Storage Costs
Perspective: Museum
O2Mb. Level of maintenance
Perspective: Museum
O2Mc. Loss, deterioration, theft, replacement
Perspective: Museum
O2Md. Reusing and disposing
Perspective: Museum
O2Va. Robustness
Perspective: Visitor
O2Vb. Responsiveness
Perspective: Visitor
O2Vc. Stability
Perspective: Visitor
O2Vd. Speed and speed of recovery
Perspective: Visitor
(O3) Power and energy
O3Pa. Day to day running and maintenance
Perspective: Cultural Heritage Professional
O3Pb. Stability
Perspective: Cultural Heritage Professional
O3Ma. Interventions in the exhibition space
Perspective: Museum
O3Va. Overall experience, preventing feelings of failure and frustration
Perspective: Visitor
(O4) Costs
Kiosks can even be made FROM recycled computers or filament.
O4Pa. Workforce, time, additional staff
Perspective: Cultural Heritage Professional
O4Ma. Financial Costs and Investment
Perspective: Museum
O4Mb. Running and maintenance costs
Perspective: Museum
O4Va. Overall experience, prevent feelings of failure and frustration
Perspective: Visitor
(O5) Additional Resources
O5Pa. Instructions and “how to” guides
Perspective: Cultural Heritage Professional
O5Ma. Impact on adapting, financing, sponsoring
Perspective: Museum
O5Va. Uptake
Perspective: Visitor
