Mobile technologies and museums

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Permalink Reply by Seb Chan on June 15, 2008 at 10:45am

Lynda

What is annoying about the SMH piece is that almost certainly your *CURRENT* mobile phone has a QR Reader already built in! None of this nonsense about 'waiting for Telstra' - that's just PR from Telstra who are no doubt sore about not getting the iPhone2 which has stolen all the media coverage in the market in recent weeks. (And will steal a lot of customers away from Telstra)

My Nokia already has QR Reader - and if you have a recent model Nokia with a camera built in, then the QR Reader is under Office Apps / Barcode Reader.

QR codes are also ideal for replacing barcodes on objects in storage because the code itself holds the data about the object (not just a reference in the way that a standard barcode does). Point your mobile camera with a QR reader at the sample QR on the QR Wikipedia page and your mobile will pop up the URL of the Wikipedia page it is on . . .

There's also a huge cultural gap to be bridged before we will have anywhere near the sophistication of mobile usage that Japan has. The very first place, though, it makes sense to roll out QR is in our marketing campaigns - then track its usage.

Seb

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Permalink Reply by Lynda Kelly on June 15, 2008 at 4:41pm

Thanks Seb - I'm interested in where Japan is going with all this. Found a nice piece in Wikipedia about Japanese mobile phone culture (or 'keitai culture' apparently).

I'll check my current crummy phone for QR readers but as it doesn't even have a camera I doubt it will have much else - I deliberately downgraded to a simpler phone, maybe I should have kept my other fancy one!

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Permalink Reply by Seb Chan on June 15, 2008 at 4:47pm

No camera means no visual input device to scan codes with = no chance of QR reader application.

Mobile phones use in Japan has to be seen in terms of wider Japanese culture, lack of private personal space, complex language and carrier issues around adoption of the Internet in general, competitive carrier environment meaning even cross-network SMS wasn't possible etc . .

Also the way in which phone plans are charged is very different.

Simplistic intro article from the Guardian is a good start too.

Still, QR has lots of legs . . . . like a centipede.

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Permalink Reply by Brett McLennan on June 17, 2008 at 3:01pm

Hey Lynda and Seb

ACMI is working with a Melbourne School who received seed money to explore the education potential of Data matrix Technology. The school is working with us to provides a kind of client end project (on a very very small scale).

Brett

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Permalink Reply by Mingfong Jan on July 25, 2008 at 2:32pm

The interaction pattern between the museum display and visitors (as well as their mobile devices), as described here, are still an example of content-driven design which has been prevalent in many museums for many decades. Mobile devices are different tools and they affords mobility and flexibility that previous displays did not have--they should be more than serving the contents. The fact that they are mobile and can be highly interactive suggests some potentials in creating a different relationship between the visitors and the museum. Just my 2 cents.

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Permalink Reply by Sheila Carey on July 25, 2008 at 11:08pm

Hi - there was an article in the New York Times about this last year, and they mentioned a couple of North American uses of this technology.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/01/business/01code.html?_r=1&em=... (I hope this URL works)

We definitely don't have that same attitude about mobile usage here (Canada) as in Asia, but I believe it will come, and this is one of the technologies I think has promise for museums.

Here's an image of the poster mentioned in the article. (by the way, this band has been in the news for all the wrong reasons, but if most of you are in Australia, you've likely missed it)
http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3191/659/1600/BNL_7X10_jg.2.jpg

Sheila

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Permalink Reply by Seb Chan on July 29, 2008 at 10:21pm

Here you go . . . . Powerhouse has gone live with a QR code campaign for Sydney Design 08.

http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/dmsblog/index.php/2008/07/29/our-fi...

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Permalink Reply by John Tann on July 30, 2008 at 4:55pm

Seb,
I like your experiment. Although I can't even try it out (no camera phone), I like the idea.
My view of people using museums is that some of us are readers, some are lookers, some are touchers and turners. And so exhibitions cater to that. By adding one of these QR thingos to an exhibit, it then allows the readers (and perhaps to a different extent the lookers, and touchers) to read/see/hear more than the graphics designers want to put on display as text next to our favourite exhibit. We could take home with us much more about the exhibit than is on display. Instead of being an end in itself (this is the art of the Papunya; this is James Watt's steam engine, ...) the exhibit becomes a waypoint (or even an entry point) en route to far more (eg a video of the artist at work, or a Southeby's auction price list; OR a paper detailing the thermodynamics of a steam turbine, ...).

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Permalink Reply by Lynda Kelly on July 30, 2008 at 6:02pm

Thanks John, that was my understanding of the potential of QR codes - provide detailed mobile content for those who want it later. Do you think QR codes could be the tool for this Seb (or anyone else)?? I know that EMU (a collection database) is trying out this facility but I thought their interface was a bit clunky. Using collection data is appealing tho - no double-handling.

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Permalink Reply by Seb Chan on July 30, 2008 at 7:54pm

QR codes can handles up to 250 characters. That's not a lot.

As we've found out, the 250 character dense QR codes have trouble being read by 2mp cameraphones . . . . so we're really talking about 50 characters max which is pretty short.

Maybe it could handle a label at an art gallery, certainly not a label at a natural history museum!

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Permalink Reply by John Tann on July 31, 2008 at 9:27am

What about a web link?

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Permalink Reply by Brett McLennan on July 31, 2008 at 10:07am

This is where the potential resides for me however it is hindered by the current excessive data costs of most telco carriers.

While this is an area that will no doubt change museums/galleries would need to rely on a mind-shift by users to create an uptake the would justify the investment in both the technology and generation of appropriate content.

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