All posts by Zak Mensah

About Zak Mensah

I'm Head of Transformation for Bristol Culture, the best Bristol City Council Service. We welcome over 1 Million visitors each year. My job is to help the service and you make connections and DO the work that needs doing.

4.2 Testing by a Budding Volunteer

The Hidden Museum

Today I tested the iBeacons Hidden Museums app for the first time. I enjoyed the sense of exploration and involvement it brought. I had to use the map of the museum to guide me to my destination. The app let out a satisfying “ping” when I reached my destination, and I found there to be no problems with the iBeacons. I was then tasked to find an object after I had been given a short amount of time to memorise it; encouraging me look through all the works on display as I searched for the elusive object. Upon finding the object I had the opportunity to take a picture of it, a feature I enjoyed as it would serve as a personal memory of the object.

I thoroughly enjoyed my time with the Hidden Museums app, and did not come across any glitches. An idea for improvement could be to, on the navigation page, have separate boxes which set out which floor and which section so the user can clearly see where they must go.

Joel Grimmer, secondary school student

Supporting evidence for milestone 4.2 – informal user testing

Hidden museum ‘sprints 4-6’ user testing

The Hidden Museum

Our project is working rapidly in a series of two week ‘sprints’ which i’ve written about previously in ‘Working in an agile manner’. I thought i’d bundle together a few of these sprints so folks can see what we have been up to and they all related to the technology phase of the project from my point of view.

User testing (informal)

user_test_5_feb_15

After our initial testing with the museum take over day it was an exciting morning on the 5th Feb for me and Gail as we were unleashed on the first properly usable ‘beta’ prototype. Laura and Jake took notes. We headed out onto the first floor balcony gallery, as shown in the above photo and fired up the app.

  1. Would the app know where we were? YES it did! After choosing our characters we were instructed by the game to head for the Egypt Gallery on the ground floor
  2. Immediately upon seeing the map I tried to press the ‘ok i got it’ button which didn’t work. I needed to press closer to the map, valuable feedback noted by Jake who said “mmmm interesting we didn’t ever do that in our testing”
  3. When we got to the gallery the app kicked back into life and told us that we’d arrived in the right location – all thanks to the ibeacon technology. We got to play our first game of trying to spot the broken object. We had one minute to dash around the gallery and locate the broken object. I found it or so i thought. It turns out we have several broken nosed head objects but in my book we won that task. I really like that the app is almost a guide but disappears during the actual task so we could enjoy the gallery.
  4. Upon completion of the game we were ready for our next challenge. Off to the Birds and Mammals gallery on the first floor using the wayfinding feature of the app which seemed to work but then drop out (noted by the ever watchful eyes of Jake and Laura). When we arrived at the gallery it was mostly under wraps due to a gallery refurbishment. Luckily our ibeacon remained safely tucked away on a high level pillar PHEW. I took the liberty of jumping over the barriers to ensure the app at least knew we’d made to the gallery. At this point it crashed for reasons i’ll leave to aardman to figure out.
  5. After the app was restarted we got sent to the second floor to play two more of the challenges.

My first thoughts are that i’m very confident that the use of sensors, particular the location aware type, are going to be critical to the service in the years to come. The ibeacon technology clearly works. Laura and Jake have just written about the details of the ibeacons themselves and the hurdles that needed to overcome.

Using the app for the first time was genuinely exciting and despite some small issues aardman have pulled magic out of the bag for the games, the visual look and the user experience.

 

Although it is very tempting to test the app with the public I still feel we have 1-2 major bugs that we need to stomp before handing over to the general visitor. I think if great storytelling folks like aardman can master the opportunities of this type of sensor we’re in for some transformational ways of engagement. Onwards.

This blog post acts as ‘milestone 3’ evidence Doc 3.1, 3.2 & 3.3

Using Trello as a task manager

Digital skills

Screen shot showing trello in action

At the museum (Bristol Culture) we use Trello, a free online task management tool to help us work together. Trello allows you to assign tasks for projects to individuals and groups of collaborators and track delivery of said tasks in a simple visual way. For example you can see our 2014-2020 Digital roadmap which is a series of ‘To-Do’ lists of projects and tasks ranging from small to multi-year, each with an assigned member of staff responsible. This particular programme of work is publicly viewable to show transparency and let potential partners see our areas of focus. Trello calls each ‘chunk’ a board. A board has one or more ‘To-Do’ lists, a status of private, shared to a group or public and members who can change the board items which are called ‘cards’.

We use the following lists across all boards as our default view:

  • Doing – what we’re actively working on for the next 1-4 weeks
  • To Do – a long list of tasks waiting to be moved to ‘doing’
  • Stalled – waiting on an action before it can be progressed e.g. changing our opening hours needs cabinet approval which takes several months so it us stalled until they make a decision and can then be moved to ‘Doing’ again
  • Done – a list of tasks that have recently been completed and sit here for the group to review together before being ‘archived’ and moved
  • Reading/Reference – a list of useful items for the group to read e.g. new policy documents

Why use trello?

Clarity of communication and speed. With over 200 staff and countless partners and collaborators keeping track of what we’re all up to is impossible through email or staff meetings. Trello is specifically made to help show ‘one to many’ what is happening, who is responsible, what an items status is and what has recently been completed . For example when the core management team (Laura, Ray, Phil and myself) make a decision that affects others we note the  date, subject  and decision outcome for all to see. Trello has a search facility making it quick to find outcomes.

We’re starting to find that trello makes lots of meetings more focused and you don’t lose track of where you are. I use it for all my team 1:1s (nothing confidential of course), key programmes and projects. I love that it works on any device making me flexible about when and where I work and it’s simple to use for all. Management team review trello on a weekly basis together using a large TV, saving paper in the process.

Check out the starter board which introduces our staff to Trello and let me know what you think of Trello.

 

3.9.2 Accessibility review for Hidden Museum

The Hidden Museum

Considering the needs of our users is at the heart of all our services and r&d projects are no different.

Littered throughout our digital service work you’ll see reference to Government Digital Service’s ‘Service Manual’ which has helpful guidance on considering accessibility in their resources on ‘assisted digital‘ which they define as:

“Assisted digital is support for people who can’t use online government services on their own.”

We need to consider assisted digital support in two steps, understanding who are the ‘assisted digital users’ and have the ability to provide ‘assisted digital support’. The purpose of offering assisted digital support is to ensure we provide a great experience for all and ensure ‘take-up’ of the project is as fair as possible.

At this point it’s worth noting that we also provide an alternative service for the public by using both visitor assistants who are trained to support our visitors and we offer audio descriptions using the Penfriend technology. We purposely chose galleries and engagement activity that has excellent alternative support in case our project outputs weren’t directly accessible using our approach. We will ensure that the project is delivered within legal and policy constraints , such as the Bristol City Council’s Equality Plan and Equality Act 2010.

Assisted digital action plan

  1. Baseline our % of general visitor who have stated they have a disability using our annual general visitor exit survey to better understand the potential ratio of required support
  2. Test our app and assisted digital in-person support with our inclusion officer
  3. Provide assisted digital instructions to support a visitor ahead of their visit via the website
  4. Ensure visitor assistants are aware of the assisted digital support that may be required and provide appropriate training  via the digital team to support visitors in person (staffing permitting)
  5. Monitor the volume of assisted digital support activity including wait times
  6. Record and monitor feedback by users and experts with the aim of getting ‘fairly or highly satisfied feedback’ in accordance with our standard survey
  7. Test, measure and iterate our app procedures for supporting assisted digital users during our Beta phase
  8. Ensure our support offer is sustainable and consider using volunteers for additional support
  9. Provide guidance that will support any user to complete the tasks of the project on their own
  10. Document steps 1-9 throughout the period of the grant as the information will be valuable to others seeking to provide similar support

Starting website phase two

Websites

In 2014 we launched www.bristolmuseums.org.uk in what we imaginatively called ‘phase one’ which not only gave us a service wide presence but allowed us to:

  • Follow the GDS service delivery approach for the first time – discovery, alpha, beta to live
  • identify real user needs through a discovery phase
  • plan to make the website a platform to help us delivery services for years to come
  • share publicly through a conference, blog, workshops and other events everything about the project
  • Keep my job – i half joke that i’d have quit if I wasn’t able to get the project done

We learned lots from doing this project and have done amazingly well with our key performance indicators.

With more than six months data under our belts as well as a ratified new service structure and direction for 2015-18 we are turning to starting phase two. Fay Curtis will be leading this project between January and April 2015. Check back regularly for updates.

Working in an agile manner

The Hidden Museum

Our project will last 12 months and has three partners with multiple team members plus our funding partners team. As we’re all spread out across Bristol we need to lean heavily on a couple of solid web tools.

We’re working using Agile workflows, Brooklyn Museum recently wrote extensively about their process in Agile Baby Steps.  We work in two week ‘sprints’ starting and ending with a three hour face to face group meetings for the core team of about five.  During our two hiatus from each other we use Basecamp for keeping in touch  and Trello for assigning and reviewing tasks.

Why not use email I hear you ask? The problem with email is that you can’t easily share threads with entire teams and isolate the project communication quickly from all your other email (stick with your fancy email filtering if your a sucker for punishment!).  Basecamp works very well for remote communication as it is designed to take the best bits of email and apply them to teams. However I struggle with using Basecamp to stay on top of the task management part and this is where trello comes into play. We have a series of “lists” and use the same process for each sprint, enabling us to see where we are at any given time, who is assigned a task and which tasks are in a ‘done list’. We can then make our face to face meetings more productive as we just need to review trello. We expect doing this will make writing project documentation smoother too.

We have been lucky that two of the three partners were already using both these tools to make this easier. If you struggle with managing projects Basecamp and Trello (free) are worth looking at. Onwards to the next sprint.

Introducing The Hidden Museum project

The Hidden Museum

We’re pleased to announce that alongside our partners Aardman and the University of Bristol, we have been successful in winning funding for a 12 month project called “The Hidden Museum” as part of the Digital R&D Fund for the Arts. Check back regularly to hear how the project is progressing.

This project will and test a museum multitool app that makes family and group visits to Bristol museums more fun and playful. The app will promote group interaction directly with the museum, its displays and hidden treasures. The focus is on improving visitor experience in museums and galleries and many of these cite engagement with families as a key goal. New location aware digital technologies such as iBeacons can be used to explore, improve and promote more effective visitor engagement and to encourage higher levels of intergenerational or group activity and learning.

 

New website project kick-off

Notes, Websites

affinity diagram made from our notes
Affinity diagram – the result of considering audience and business needs

We receive over one million unique visitors to our two primary websites, the Bristol museum and Art Gallery museum section hosted on the Bristol City Council website and our own M Shed website. In addition to these two sites, we also have at least twenty other websites and online channels such as brerc, trip advisor, Bristol Record Office and multiple wikipedia entries. Combined, these sites also bring healthy traffic to parts of our service.
Despite having healthy traffic, it was clear that the websites had plenty of room for improvement, both for our audiences and our business needs. For example our internal processes mean that making changes is slow and awkward at best. We also regularly receive public feedback that we are missing key information and that its difficult to understand across the board. Our analytics, which measures web visits (what pages get visited, for how long and much much more!) suggests that current content and/or design is largely ineffective.
I had to write a business case for the first phase which included:

We are seeking to build a phased service-wide website for Bristol Museums, Galleries and Archives to address audience and business needs.
The website will cover all the museum sites and services and focus on evolving our currently unevenly distributed series of websites from a brochure website of static listings, and basic visitor information to a digital platform enabling audience focused tasks and service-wide digital engagement business  focused on addressing our needs beyond our current constraints.

Our website properties have become a destination in their own right for our audience.
During 2012-2013 online we attracted:

  • 1.1 Million unique page views (to the council section and M Shed but excludes our other sites and channels)
  • 20,000 Twitter followers
  • 6,500 Facebook likes
  • 4,500 Mailing list subscribers
  • 8% international audience

We seek to address the needs of both our existing and growing new user base by delivering digital services via the web in line with our strategic objectives. Our evaluation of our visitors through tracking, user surveys and staff feedback, identifies emerging usage trends which our current websites are failing to address to due to existing constraints.
Key performance indicators demonstrate that cost per transaction, user satisfaction, task completion rates and digital take-up must be addressed as a key business need.
The project will adhere to our 8 Digital Principles: Users at the heart, evaluation, digital services, build digital skills, experiment, partnerships, sustainability and open practices which is the start of a long-term commitment to digital delivery.

I met with a small group of recommended web agencies, mostly local, and chose fffunction. We agreed our approach should:

  • Be user focused
  • Be open not just internally but with the public too
  • Run the project in an agile way
  • Make use of the build, measure, learn feedback loop
  • Follow the GDS service  delivery approach oulined in the Service Manual of discovery, alpha, beta and finally live

 

The first part of the project is called the ‘project kick-off’ and was a day with four key internal stakeholders and fffunction.

We took a look at the biggest opportunities, ideas for direction and established obvious constraints such as time, budget and resource. We produced an affinity diagram (shown in this post) and put this into a public trello for everybody to see the ideas. This formally began the project ‘discovery phase‘ which GDS describe as “A short phase, in which you start researching the needs of your service’s users, find out what you should be measuring, and explore technological or policy-related constraints. will last for 3-4 weeks and cover.
We’ll be sharing more about the project in the coming weeks.