Month: February 2013

Just read this newsletter from one of the world’s most prominent usability researchers, Jakob Nielsen.
Overly Tabletized Museum Info
Just back from Singapore. It’s about 15 years since my last visit and it’s amazing how much progress they have made. The world’s most efficient country. The new National Museum of Singapore is very impressive, in terms of both buildings and collections. I particularly liked the full-length paintings of old-time governors, including one by John Singer Sargent that could be in any art museum in the world, even disregarding the historical value.
Sadly, the museum is an example of mobile technology run amok. All information about the exhibited objects is provided on a tablet that you borrow when entering the history exhibition. The good news is that this allows for more in-depth information than traditional museum labels, and it’s also easier to provide the text in multiple languages that would crowd a printed label.
But the tablet fails to support the actual museum-going experience. You pause by a wall or display case with maybe 10-20 objects, each only marked by a number. And then you’re supposed to enter all these numbers into the tablet to find out what you’re seeing. No way: much too slow.
Nothing beats the roaming human eye in terms of quickly taking in volumes of information, especially when glancing around a large physical space. In a second or two, you can scan a big wall and focus on the label for the object that interests you the most. A few more seconds suffice to scan the label for the most pertinent information (what is it? how old is it?), and then you can either read more or move your gaze to the next object. All in much less time than it takes to type in a 3-4 digit number on a tablet.
You can easily imagine a more efficient retrieval user interface: for example one that utilizes location and direction to display information about an object simply by being pointed in the direction of that object. While faster, this would still be slower than simply glancing at a label next to the object.
Let’s stick to old technology when it works better. Then for sure use tablets to provide supplementary information, multimedia, and other elements that utilize its strengths and provide sufficient added-value to justify the interaction cost.