Contextual Inquiry Review

Key Findings

Our key findings from this research process were that people who are less comfortable in art museums do seem to have internalized some amount of self-consciousness about being in art museums. Although these people feel out-of-place in museums and sometimes struggle to connect with the art, when they do find a connection, it is usually through personal anecdotes, familiar outside references. When people are given a comfortable or anonymous space to respond to art, the resulting responses are often less-thought out gut reactions or emotional responses. Still some of these art amateurs retain their skepticism toward art and respect the fact that art spaces are for more “refined” people who care about art. This is an interesting perspective that we did not expect to hear.

Contextual Inquiry and Graffiti Walls

Contextual Inquiry

Over the past week, we conducted two traditional contextual inquiries, from which we hoped to learn more about our potential users and how they interact with the museum space and each other. Our first contextual inquiry was Arthur, a psych major and math enthusiast. He had previously expressed that he had little to no experience or interest in art. This contextual inquiry took place at the Jacob’s Pillow exhibit in WCMA on a Monday afternoon. Our second contextual inquiry was Martha, a biology and geosciences major. When asked to participate in the inquiry she mentioned that although she liked some art, she didn’t know much about art in general. This inquiry took place throughout WCMA on a Thursday afternoon.

Overall, our process for contextual inquiry was fairly uniform. We found people who we knew or heard were not particularly interested in art and would not typically go to a museum unless prompted. Before beginning, we outlined our guidelines for the inquiry: we told our subjects that we wanted them to walk around the museum the same way they would if we were not around, with the exception of narrating their thoughts to us as we walked through the exhibits. For the next 15 minutes, two of us would follow the individual around the museum as they shared their stream of consciousness. One group member would take the primary role in the conduct of the contextual inquiry, and was responsible for asking questions to prompt response as well as prodding the participant to elaborate on comments made. This member asked questions such as, “What drew you to this particular artwork?”, “what is your first reaction to this painting?”, or “do you feel comfortable talking about this painting?” The other group member would trail slightly behind, effectively conducting fly-on-the-wall observation and taking notes. The notetaker mainly focused on observing the following things: content and nature of the participants narration, changes in behavior such as increasing animation or loss of enthusiasm, confidence levels in the communication of their thoughts, speech volume and facial expressions.

After the first 15 minutes elapsed, we switched into a new stage of our interview, in which the two group members added to the conversation by providing their own short, casual and candid comments on the artworks in the space. For example, one of our team members noted that the mouth on a particular painting looked like a raspberry. In facilitating this type of conversation, we were able to assess the participant’s behavior in a community conversation. As the interview reached its later stages, we found it especially informative to ask more pointed questions. We asked about the types of questions we’d just had, in which the participant shares their ideas. Our goal in asking such questions was to attempt to assess directly how ‘art amateurs’ view the prospect of sharing their un art-educated ideas with other people like them. In asking this at the end of the interview, we avoided orienting them towards a particular way of narrating their thoughts and

When Arthur expressed that he did not think he made meaningful connections with art, we asked him if being surrounded by more people who also don’t have meaningful connections with art would improve his experience. He responded that he wouldn’t want a “museum for goofballs who don’t really care”. He held the opinion that museums were spaces for people who appreciated and understood art and he seemed to be content to not be a part of that space. Martha mentioned multiple times that she did not like to be forced to think and talk about deep “art thoughts”. In fact, she expressed that she probably wouldn’t share her thoughts unprovoked even if she was with close friends. Both of these comments at first sound contradictory to our idea for a way for art amateurs to share any of their thoughts. However, we believe that these opinions actually match up with important tenets of our design: we want our product to offer people the chance to express any thoughts, but we don’t want to detract from any “high level” appreciation of the art. Our final product must somehow be simultaneously non-intrusive to art enthusiasts, yet enticing to anyone who doesn’t feel that their artistic opinions are worth expressing.

Graffiti Walls

In place of our third contextual inquiry, we decided to perform a Graffiti Walls Study based on the description in “Universal Methods of Design”. We saw the graffiti walls method as being especially appropriate for our project, since our ultimate goal in this research stage is to determine whether people who lack appreciation or expertise on art would benefit from a community of museum-goers like them. A blank sheet of poster paper, in our case, represents an opportunity to have a conversation or to express thoughts anonymously. We set up out graffiti wall in between Baxter Hall and Whitmans’ in the Paresky Center. Our setup was as follows: We put up a painting of six sheep on a pink canvas. Below the painting, we had a poster with the “Thoughts?” written at the top in black sharpie and two arrows pointing up at the painting. Additionally, we hung a sharpie from the wall.

In order to motivate people to be as simple or basic with their comments, we wrote a few sample comments on the blank poster to begin with. We then left the “graffiti wall” up for 24 hours. The resulting poster is shown below.

Overall, very few of the comments were serious. Some involved references such as “beep beep I’m a sheep”, a reference to a popular YouTube video. Others were slightly more thoughtful: One person wrote “be the shepherd, not the sheep”. A final interesting interaction is displayed below. One person wrote “VALID!!!”. A different person (indicated by handwriting) drew an arrow to Person 1’s comment with the question “What’s this supposed to mean?”. A possible third person drew an arrow to the second person’s comment and wrote “Is this valid?”. Here we have not only some interaction with the artwork itself, but an apparent attempt to interact with other observers of the art and start some kind of conversation.

Overall, this graffiti wall study revealed that given an anonymous forum of sorts, people seem to write the first things that come to their mind, without attempting to write something especially deep. One of the issues with a graffiti wall is that we have no information about the types of participants, but it is still helpful to know that not only will people interact with a random piece of artwork, but that they have thoughts that are not necessarily as profound or intelligent, that they are willing to share anonymously.

Affinity Diagram and Themes

We began our affinity diagram process by writing all of the quotes that stuck out to us from the two contextual inquiries and the graffiti wall on post it note. We then began with a silent process of putting the post-its up. After a few minutes we began speaking, especially as we started to move post-its around and reconsider groupings. Once we had reasonably settled groups of post-its, we went group-by-group and discussed what the potential theme was. This often led to some debate about whether all of the post-its in the group seemed to relate to what seemed to be the central theme. We also tried to avoid words we knew such as “self-conscious” and consider what the participants were saying on a deeper level. In the process of grouping some smaller groups were split up and absorbed into larger groups.

• The high level themes that the participants shared were as follows:
• People like hearing and responding to others’ opinions
• People enjoy finding personal connections or associations with art
• People don’t always “buy in” to art. Sometimes they are skeptical or question it.
• Art museums make people feel uncultured, inferior and intimidated. These feelings are often internalized
• Given a blank space to provide opinions, people are inclined to provide gut reactions or raw emotional responses
• People understand and respect the “refined” culture of art museums, but sometimes they don’t want to deal with that “art culture”
• People tend to relate art to outside references that are more familiar

Task Analysis Questions

Who is going to use the design?

The design will be used by people who feel slightly uncomfortable, out of place or otherwise unwelcome in art museums. In regard to age range, it will primary be directed toward college students and adults (between the ages of 18-35)

What tasks do they now perform?

They don’t willingly go to art museums very often, but when they do, they often walk around aimlessly, think about the art (even if those thoughts are not necessarily fully developed, deep, or well-thought-out), and generally express feeling out of place in art museums. When they do make comments about art, those comments are usually stories, outside references or silly observations. They also are willing to express their thoughts about art anonymously by writing on a posterboard hung below a piece of artwork.

What tasks are desired?

We want these users to express their thoughts and interact with other museum-goers who may not necessarily be with them during their time at the museum, but who they can still connect with. We also want them to feel comfortable starting and contributing to conversations about art.

How are the tasks learned?

These tasks are learned by creating an environment that helps people feel more comfortable expressing their thoughts about art, which may not be profound but are still very valid.

Where are the tasks performed?

In spaces where art can be found. This can include art museums, or just other public spaces where art is displayed (for example different buildings on campus).

What is the relationship between the person and data?

Some of these people do care about facts and historical information about the paintings. If an artwork catches their eye, they are likely to read the plaque next to it. Although this sometimes increases engagement and interest with the art, it does not seem to increase level of comfort in art museum.

What other tools does the person have?

The other tools these users have are their personal experiences, memories, and their personal preferences. Often these are the tools that most allow these people to connect with or relate to the art.

How do people communicate with each other?

When people are not in the same room as other people, they seem to be willing to communicate through anonymous forums (such as a public poster). Many of these people do not really want to communicate with other people in the museum about art, because they feel like they cannot contribute to the conversation. One scenario where they are more willing to communicate with others in when they are at a museum with their friends or with other people who they trust.

How often are the tasks performed?

The tasks would be performed any time the person sees a piece of art and wants to engage with it.

What are the time constraints on the tasks?

There are no time constraints; however, if our design involves some kind of space to leave comments, there may be a space constraint.

What happens when things go wrong?

Things go wrong when people feel like they are being judged or when people provide comments that are mean or unproductive. In this case, there would ideally be some way of screening or censoring comments so that highly negative comments are removed.