Existing Tasks

Leave a comment or thought about art! (EASY)

Bart is an 8th grader at Mt. Greylock High School whose class has gone on a field trip to visit the Williams College Museum of Art. Bart doesn’t mind art, though he isn’t exactly a huge fan of it and definitely isn’t excited about listening to his art teacher Ms. Rebeccarte wax poetic about the different exhibits. Unfortunately, Bart’s best and only friend Artem is out sick today. Because of this, not only is he lonely, but he’s also unable to make comments about the art to his friend as per usual, and thus is left without a way to have his funny comments appreciated without participating in Ms. Rebeccarte’s discussion.

See/Respond to someone else’s thoughts or comments (EASY)

Carter is a college student who has never visited an art museum in his free time. He is spending the summer at his college campus in the middle of nowhere, and figures it can’t hurt to go to the campus’ art museum. In the museum, he feels overwhelmed by the first exhibit he visits. He has never seen art like these pieces. He wishes he had come along with someone else so he could hear their thoughts on the pieces; maybe they could help him orient his own thoughts. If he knew what other people thought about these art pieces, he could develop his own thoughts and compare them with others.

Share personal stories or experiences linked to artwork (MODERATE)

Artemis is a new father. On this rainy Sunday afternoon, he has brought his 8 month-old to WCMA. Artemis is not an art connoisseur, and doesn’t usually care much for museums, but he decided to visit WCMA anyways, in hopes of lulling his daughter to sleep as he walks the quiet museum halls. Fortunately, this worked like a charm and Artemis spent the time gazing at the artworks as he pushed the stroller around. Happening upon a particularly beautiful oil painting of a father and son, Artemis was surprised to find himself tearing up-- he doesn’t usually feel any connection with art. The piece reminded him so much of an early memory of his own father that his emotions overcame him. In that moment, so tangible was the passing of time and the circle of life that he felt he had to share this memory.

New Tasks

Feel comfortable being an art amateur in an art museum (DIFFICULT)

Martina is a 22-year-old banker who works in New York City. She lives a 15-minute walk away from the Met. Her banking colleagues are constantly inviting her to spend an evening at the Met with them, but Martina always claims she is busy and never ends up attending. Martina really likes all of her colleagues (except for Arturo who she finds to be a bit stuffy to be honest), and she wants to spend time with them. But every time she has visited an art museum in the past, she felt out of place and slightly lost. Martina never really understood art, and she is worried that if she goes to the Met with her colleagues, she won’t be able to contribute to meaningful conversations about art. She is worried that people (especially Arturo) will judge her for her opinions, and therefore she avoids art museums (and as a result, her friends) like bankers avoid taxes.

View comments from and feel community with people who share your ideas (MODERATE)

Marta is an English major at Williams and a comedy enthusiast who loves making puns. Often, those puns are sadly not appreciated by her peers; however through her involvement with college comedy and improv groups, she has found a community of peers that understand her humor. Outside of this group, however, Marta is less outgoing, loud or willing to share her opinions. One summer day, while her parents are visiting her at Williams, they drag Marta to WCMA (her least favorite place). Begrudgingly, she tags along. While wandering around the museum, she stumbles upon a painting of six sheep on a purple canvas. Her mind immediately goes to the pun “Sheeph” (like eph but but sheep). Sadly, there is no one around to share the pun with. Marta wishes, in that moment, that she could find and connect with other people who love and understand art-based puns.

Receive validation about your own art opinions, no matter how ridiculous they may seem (DIFFICULT)

Cartney has never been to an art museum by herself. When she does go to art museums, she goes with her friends who major in art history. Her friends talk a lot about the art they see, making many intelligent-sounding comments. Cartney feels insecure about her own thoughts on art; she hasn’t forgotten the time her friends laughed at her when she said she “liked the cows” in a painting. She thinks she would express her random thoughts on pieces of art if people were more accepting of and even agreed with her ideas.

Designs

Design 1: Mobile App / Web App

Main Idea

A mobile app that allows people to leave their own comments and to respond to other peoples’ comments about art. Any work of art in the museum can be commented on when the person is in the museum (determined by location services). When a user sees a piece of art they wish to comment on, they can use a camera feature in the app that detects what piece of art is being viewed in the camera. They also have the option of selecting an art piece from a page that displays images of each piece. Either way, the user ends up on a page containing all previous comments about the selected piece. They are then able to leave their own comment, view and reply to other comments, and vote on other comments. Comments are anonymous, but the user is able to check their previous comments at any time (in or out of the museum) by going to a personal page on the app. When outside of the museum, the user can leave a new comment in any comment chain they’ve already posted in. All comments have a character limit in order to promote short, amateur thoughts. This design is inspired somewhat by Yik Yak, with a location-based (formerly) anonymous commenting system. This design could also easily be done as a web app rather than a downloaded app, which would let users interact with this community without having to download any new app.

Tasks

Task 1: Leave a comment, thought about art!

• The user sees a piece of art and wishes to share a thought about it. The camera feature or art selection page brings the user to the correct comment page for that work of art. The user is then able to type out and post a comment on that page.

Task 2: Share personal stories or experiences linked to artwork

• The user sees a piece of art that reminds them of a personal story. They use the same functionality as if they were leaving a comment.

Task 3: See/Respond to someone else’s thoughts or comments

• The user sees a piece of art and wants to know what other people think about the piece. The user uses the same functionality to reach the appropriate comments section, but can choose to view other comments rather than posting a new one. They can see the points and number of replies for each comment, and can vote or reply to any of these comments.

Task 4: Receive validation about your own art opinions, no matter how ridiculous they may seem

• The user left a comment on a few pieces of art several days ago, and they wonder if anyone else agreed with their thoughts. The user uses the “me” functionality on the main page of the app to look at their own comments. They can see the number of points for each of their comments and how many replies people have posted for each comment. The user can continue commenting in these chains no matter their location.

Design 2: Interactive Smartboard Installations

Main Idea

This design uses interactive, touch sensitive smartboards. Each exhibit hall has one large smartboard placed on a wall in a central location. The smartboard is paired with a motion sensor that allows it to recognize when a museumgoer is approaching. The board displays a wide-angle 360-degree video-like perspective of the exhibit hall in which it is placed, mimicking the view a museumgoer has as they walk around the room looking at the artworks. At idle, when no one has approached, the smartboard displays this view, panning slowly from artwork to artwork, annotating the image with a feed of comments relating to the artwork central in the shot displayed. When an individual approaches, the panning slows, and the user has multiple options with how to interact with the smartboard, outlined in the tasks below.

Tasks

Task 1: Leave a comment or thought about art!

• A user has a thought or comment about art that they feel should be seen by other museumgoers. The user can see the large smartboard, which is positioned in a prominent place, displaying a panning image of the space with comments per each artwork. As the visitor approaches, the pan slows. The visitor can then swipe on the smartboard, moving the image along until the desired artwork is in view. The photograph is augmented with a comment feed for the particular artwork, and the user taps to add a new content. They either handwrite or type their comment on the smartboard, leaving it for all to see.

Task 2: See/Respond to someone else’s thoughts or comments

• At idle, the smartboard displays a panning point-of-view image of the exhibit in which it’s placed. Users can see the comment feeds of the artworks scrolling by as they walk the museum. The comment feed shows the comments left on the respective artwork, as well as the replies to each comment. The user can upvote or downvote comments, and can tap on the reply button to start a new reply. To remain on a particular artwork’s comment feed, the user can tap on the comment window shown at idle to show the feed in full screen.

Task 3: Share personal stories or experiences linked to artwork

• The user is able to share personal stories through employment of the comment-leaving function of this design. In the process of finding the artwork that the user wants to share a story about, the display replicates the point of view of the visitor, allowing for facile recollection of the emotions felt when looking at the artwork initially. The user employs the comment-leaving function of this design to share their story. Further functionality is provided to aid with story-telling: the user can record an audio recording with a built-in microphone that can be subsequently played in the comment feed.

Task 4: View comments from and feel community with people who share your ideas

• At idle, the smartboard shows the point-of-view perspective of the museum exhibit, augmented with comment feeds for the artworks as they pan by. Museum visitors are able to view these comments and swipe to view the comments corresponding to other artworks. To view specific comments and threads related to a particular interest, the user can search for keywords in the design’s included search function. Search can be done for a particular artwork, or across an entire exhibit. The user thus gains access to the comments of a community of like-minded museumgoers.

Design 3: Interactive projections + kiosk/ipad

Main Idea

This design is a projection of broad ideas, words, and themes from user comments, in the form of a word cloud. Each exhibition room has a kiosk in the center that has an ipad on it. The ipad allows you to leave comments about art that are then incorporated into the word cloud.

Tasks

Task 1: Leave a comment or thought about art!

The user sees an art piece and wants to share a comment about it, but they are alone. Each room of art has a kiosk at the center with an ipad. The ipad has a menu of options of paintings in that room. The user can select a painting, after which a comments box will appear. The user can type in the comment and press save. It then gets added to the projection.

Task 2: See/Respond to someone else’s thoughts or comments

Each room has a button on the wall near the artwork. If you press the button, it starts a projection of words, themes and general snippets from anonymous comments left by other museum-goers. Curious users can press that button to learn what other people thought of the artwork.

Task 3: Share personal stories or experiences linked to artwork

The projection and ipad combination also supports the sharing of stories. There is an option to either leave a story in the comments box and mark it as “story” or “memory” or to leave an audio recording. The recordings play intermittently when the projection is on. The written stories show up on the wall in random bursts, in between displays of the word cloud.

Task 4: View comments from and feel community with people who share your ideas

The projection allows users to see a variety of opinions from other museum-goers. This hopefully allows them to find opinions or ideas similar to theirs and feel a sense of community with other museum-goers.