MW2006 features a variety of interactions so you can learn from the concrete experiences of others. Mini-Workshops introduce tools, methods, or techniques. Crit Rooms feature a review of museum Web sites in "real time" and testing of attendees' Web sites takes place in the Usability Lab.
Interactions are listed chronologically below, or you can see an overview of the program.
Mini-Workshops
Focused one-hour mini-workshop sessions are designed to introduce specific tools, methods, or techniques for developing, maintaining and evaluating museum Web sites.
Professional Forums
In each Professional Forum, the Convener will present an issue or proposal and allow MW attendees to voice their opinions. You can speak out about the proposals and make suggestions.
| Friday March 24, 2006 | |
| 12:00 pm-
2:00 pm Issues |
Research ForumCurrent Research: Issues and MethodsDarren Peacock, Australia, Joan Nordbotten, Joan Nordbotten, Norway, Paul Marty, USA |
| 3:00 pm-
4:00 pm Issues |
CognitionCreating A Research Agenda for the Cognitive Sciences, Museums and TechnologyLeonard Steinbach, USA |
Crit Rooms
Experienced Web designers and new media managers review real museum Web sites and offer their comments in the "Crit Room". Modeled on the art school critique, Web sites are volunteered in advance by MW2006 attendees who are present to pose the problem and respond.
| Friday March 24, 2006 | |
| 11:00 am-
12:30 pm Design |
Crit Room - 1Chair: Jennifer Trant, Canada |
| 1:30 pm-
3:00 pm Design |
Crit Room - 2Chair: Jennifer Trant, Canada |
Usability Lab
On Friday, March 24, Michael Twidale and Paul Marty will run a live Usability Lab. You'll be able to:
- observe simple, low-cost, high-speed user testing of museum Web sites in action;
- volunteer to participate as a user tester and discover some of the problems users have on unknown sites; and
- volunteer your site to be tested.
Each user test lasts about 20 minutes (with time for comments and questions) and people drift in and out of the session. Sites to be tested are not evaluated in advance and volunteer users are selected at random.
The "user" leaves the room while the owner of the site describes what they consider a typical scenario - something the average user would be trying to do. This scenarios is converted into a task and given to the user to perform along with some randomly selected standard tasks. After each test, the user, site owner, test administrators and audience will discuss what was learned.
Twidale and Marty will demonstrate a variety of testing techniques throughout the day, but will emphasize the thinking-aloud method so it is easy to follow along with the test subject. For more information about this technique, see Marty and Twidale's article Usability@90mph in First Monday.
If you are interested in seeing your site in the Usability Lab, please contact Space is limited, and sites will be selected by the organizers.
| Friday March 24, 2006 | |
| 9:30 am-
11:00 am Evaluation |
Usability Lab - 1Paul Marty, Michael Twidale, USA |
| 3:00 pm-
4:30 pm Evaluation |
Usability Lab - 2Paul Marty, Michael Twidale, USA |
Close-Up and Hands-On
Once in a while an impressive project catches our imagination and we want to share it with the MW community. If you've got something special that you'd like to see featured at Museums and the Web 2006, please
