Presented in the workshop: Visitor Experiences of Co-produced Exhibits/Exhibitions: Sharing research and exploring approaches, St Mungo Museum of Religious Life and Art, Glasgow, December 2012. The workshops was co-organised by Leeds University and St Mungo Museum of Religious Life and Art.
Rock Art on Mobile Phones : Pilot summative evaluation by Areti Galani
1. Rock Art on Mobile Phones
Pilot summative evaluation
Areti Galani
Aron Mazel and Debbie Maxwell
2. About the project
• Making existing information
about Neolithic and Early
Bronze Age rock art more
accessible
• Develop situated
interpretation for rural sites
• Facilitate serendipitous
cultural experiences
• Co-production was not a
motivation
3. Empathy in design
“Empathy is about being able to imaginatively
construct the world from another person’s
perspective, while at the same time remembering
one’s own point of view in order to creatively work
with the difference.”
(Wright & McCarthy, 2010, p.70)
6. From co-experience to design
Interpretation objective Design approach
Support findability of rock
art
Granular and multi-modal
navigation instructions
Communicate ambiguity
and encourage speculation
Use of dialogic text/audio
content which simulates
conversations among visitors
Support sense of place Non-linear, modular set of
interpretation materials
across a range of modalities
7. Space for speculation: dialogical style
Can you see the grooves and hollows on the surface?
I can see a couple of marks here, but they aren’t very clear…
Well, if you look at the diagram afterwards you may be able to
see them more clearly, especially when there is low sunlight.
Wow, I didn’t realise there was so much! This could be on rocks
all over the hill!
Well maybe it is! The North East of England is particularly rich in
cup and ring marks. Here, at Lordenshaw there are over a
hundred carved stones scattered about the hillside. Throughout
Britain and Ireland there are about six thousand of these
ancient decorated stones!. And these are just the ones that
have stood the test of time!
That’s amazing. But what does it all mean? Why did they do it?
The truth is that we really don’t know what they meant to the Neolithic and Bronze Age
people who made them, but there are lots of ideas – some more sensible than others, from
maps and route markers to doodles made by bored shepherds! Have you any ideas?
Mm, I don’t know. They look a bit like ripples on a pond, but I’m not sure. Maybe they’re just
decoration…
It’s one possibility!
8. Pilot evaluation plan
• Small scale, 10 participants
• Shadowing of site visits using RAMP
• Debriefing interviews
• Focused Personal Meaning Mapping
• Usage figures from Google Analytics
9. Findings – figures*
• 2,567 online visits
• c.1,761 unique visits
• 747 visits on mobile devices
• c. 105 visits through scanning the QR codes
*(for the period: July 2011- December 2012)
10. Findings – visitor experience
• RAMP significantly aided the findability of rock art
• Awareness of the existence of rock art increased
exploratory behaviour and persistence with mobile
interpretation
• Dialogic text gave sense of visiting with other people
and encouraged inquisition
• However, visitors were also keen to have access to
more ‘factual’ information
• RAMP did not interrupt experience of the landscape
– it encouraged sensory imagining
11. Food for thought
Empathy, co-experience = co-production?
Knowledge about how artefacts are experienced =
knowledge about the artefacts?
Does awareness about the design/production method
of interpretation affect visitors’ experience of it?
