This is How a Museum Uses Creativity & Collaboration to Reach 200M Annually
In this interview originally published by IDEO U, Chris Flink, executive director of the Exploratorium, talks about how the museum cultivates creativity with visitors, the broader community, and within the organization.
A design thinker in residence: an interview with Henry Trejo of Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art
Henry Trejo is the design thinker in residence at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Fayetteville, Arkansas. In his role, Henry advocates for visitors and works to make the museum welcoming and inclusive.
Why every organization needs a human-centered design hallway: lessons from the Akron-Summit County Public Library
In an interview with Jennifer Stencel of the Akron-Summit County Public library, I learned how a scrappy, makeshift space is transforming the library from the inside out, making it a more human-centered place for the community.
How a small arts organization on Vancouver Island is dreaming big with design thinking: an interview with the Nanaimo Art Gallery
How can small arts organizations with limited budgets and lean teams leverage the power of design thinking? Learn how the Nanaimo Art Gallery on Vancouver Island is using design thinking in this interview.
How the Computer History Museum is using human-centered design to develop a new education center
The Computer History Museum, in collaboration with the design firm IDEO, is using human-centered design methods to research the needs of local communities, generate creative concepts, and build consensus for a new Education Center opening in fall 2017.
Design sprints for visitor experience advocacy: 5 lessons from the British Museum
This is the second in a two-part series about running design sprints in museums. This post examines how the British Museum is experimenting with design sprints in the Product Development Group.
Design sprints for content development: How Phoenix Art Museum ran a design sprint
For a series of printed visitor guides, The Phoenix Art Museum adopted an innovative approach to content development: a design sprint. For this post, I interviewed Christian Adame, Assistant Education Director, about the sprint and what they learned.
Co-creating a new museum with the community: an interview with Laura Musgrave of Coventry Transport Museum
The Coventry Transport Museum in England recently underwent a massive redevelopment effort, involving the community in an effort to better tell the stories of the people of Coventry. I spoke with Laura Musgrave from the Museum to learn more about their human-centered design process.
Embedded participatory design: 5 principles for designing with and in communities
This guest post by Maryanna Rogers explores how museums and cultural organizations are looking outside their walls and co-designing public space with their communities.
Daring greatly through human-centered design: an interview with Hannah Fox of Derby Museums
Earlier this summer, I came across the Derby Museums Human-Centred Design Handbook, developed by the Derby Museums Trust in Derby, England. I spoke with Hannah Fox, Project Director, to learn more about the Museums' use of human-centered design methodologies.
Agile user research at the Metropolitan Museum of Art: an interview with Liz Filardi and Karen Plemons
At the Metropolitan Museum of Art, staff from different departments are working together to employ rapid, low-cost research methods to better understand the needs of museum visitors and inform the development and design of apps, websites, and digital games.
Becoming human through human-centered design: reflections from the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center
In this guest post, Rachel Griner, an independent strategy and innovation expert who served as an Executive On Loan to the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, explores how human-centered design can be an expression of humanity.
How might we embed design thinking into a museum? 5 steps from the Denver Museum of Nature & Science
How might we embed design thinking into a museum? This is the question I've been exploring with the Denver Museum of Nature & Science over the past six months.
Activating the museum with design thinking: stories from the Minneapolis Institute of Arts
The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, one of the largest encyclopedic museums in the country, began a design thinking process in 2013 to find new ways to enhance museum visitors’ experiences.
Lean and smart human-centered design: three lessons from the Grand Rapids Art Museum
How is design thinking being implemented in smaller museums? Recently I spoke with Jon Carfagno, the Director of Learning and Audience Engagement at the Grand Rapids Art Museum, or GRAM, about how the museum is taking a human-centered approach to the development of everything from strategic planning to in-gallery experiences.
Design thinking on the run: using rapid methods at the Getty Research Institute
This guest post is from Liz McDermott, Managing Editor of Web & Communications at the Getty Research Institute (GRI). This post discusses how, with little time and limited resources, a team at the GRI used rapid methods and tools from the design thinking process to answer the question, "How can we make visitors in our galleries aware that we have a mobile tour available?"
Spreading design thinking throughout an organization: lessons from Atlassian
For this post, I interviewed Karen Cross, the Design Manager at Atlassian, about the internal design thinking program the company has been building up over the past year. Atlassian makes tools for software development, collaboration, and project management, and several museums and nonprofits use their products. Readers may be wondering why I’m featuring an interview with someone from a software company, and the answer is simple: I’ve always looked outside the museum sector for models of new ways of working, thinking, and collaborating. I believe museums can look to the private sector for new models of working, and adapt these processes to make museums smarter, more efficient, and more awesome.
Using design thinking to connect the physical and digital at the Rijksmuseum: an interview with Shailoh Philips
Last week I had the honor of interviewing Shailoh Philips, who worked for the last two years setting up the Media Lab at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, about a project titled Augmenting Masterpieces. The project explores connections between the physical and digital within the gallery space, and aims to build a theoretical framework for digital interfaces in a museum context from a human-centered design approach.
Discovering design in every nook and cranny: the V&A Museum Residency Programme
This guest post is from doctoral candidate, Saskia Coulson, and describes her journey of using design research to explore residency programs in museums. She explains how museum residency programs can be used as a lens to think about the traditional and emerging frameworks of design. This is then explored through a recent example of research she conducted on the V&A Museum Residency Programme in London.