Feedback from Hugues Boily (July 8 & 31, 2009)

Notes from a mobile feedback session with Hugues on July 8, 2009.

- Thumbnails are really important
- Keep length of text fixed on lists, and replicate the text on the next screen if the text got cut off, or shorten the text
- "Featured artifacts" are handpicked
- Subdivide large lists into subcategories, list a few objects for each category (not fully random; just random from a small pool--not all objects within a particular subject/category are appropriate/representative), and give the option of "seeing all objects"
- What filters do we use for narrowing down lists? Some facets are more important than others, and we'll need a user study to understand this better
- For some collections, some filters are more important than others (e.g., time period for artwork)
- Allow for multi-faceted browsing
- The most important field for artifacts: object name for 3D objects, title for for 2D objects (paintings, photographs, etc.)
- Having the accession number visible is important
- Show objects that are only display
- Exhibitions might have video clips, or objects might have video clips (what about clusters of objects, or themes around objects?)

Notes from a mobile feedback session with Hugues (and vicariously, Nicole) on July 31, 2009.

Language

* Language: need to provide both English and French versions, and the ability to alternate between the two languages
* Ideally, it would be great if we could alternate between languages on a screen-by-screen basis (i.e., be at a screen in English, and get the French version at the press of a button). This is crucial for the desktop experience since any page could be the entry page to the site (e.g., if they get to an arbitrary page from search results), but not necessarily as important on the mobile device, since there's a common root-level entry point for all users.

Home screen

* On the home screen, would be nice to see what the community has favourited
* On the home screen, would be nice to see what artifacts are currently on display
* On the home screen (or off the home screen), see general museum information--this should be the bread and butter of the app

Browsing

* Browsing collections screen: prefer fixed length (over variable)
* Exhibitions browsing: current exhibitions should be a top feature; upcoming sort of important; past not really
* Collections browsing for EVERYTHING is an unlikely use case. Useful for just a subset, like highlights. Yet, at the same time, it's good to have extensible, scalable support for the "everything" scenario

Artifact view

* Artifact view with thumbnail: great for in-gallery, and in-exhibit--a small thumbnail lets the visitor know he/she is at the right artifact
* Artifact view with full size image: good for out-of-gallery, since the artifact view might be their first experience with the artifact
* But we should maybe stick with one view to avoid confusion

Commenting, tagging

* Forcing users to register or not: mandatory registration certainly hampers the use of the feature; McCord is willing to go without registration
* Ways of mitigating abuse: have a "report abuse" button for commenting (what about tagging?)
* Some concerns: an individual vandalizing a page; link spamming
* What to put in the comment field: the comment, email, name, location, anything else?

Other

* Offer downloadable media content on the device--photos, images, wallpapers, audio, video
* Where are maps and tours on the mobile?
* Image pairs and image annotations: drop it
* Will want to do user testing in-museum with actual visitors