iTunes U is a rapidly growing international platform for institutions interested in distributing their educational content broadly. Although there are more than 1,000 institutions contributing content to iTunes U, iTunes U is much less noisy than other platforms such as YouTube. Understanding the iTunes U environment, and audience behavior is critical to competing favorably in that space. Through an extended process of planning and investigation, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) peeled back the layers of iTunes U and developed strategies for target audiences, market segmentation, and promotion. The approach was methodical, thorough, research-based, and creative, and it followed best practices for site development from Apple Inc. and user-centered design. This presentation will outline the design and development process for creating an institutional iTunes U site and also the strategy NMNH used to position this media platform to be successful.
Basic Civil Engineering first year Notes- Chapter 4 Building.pptx
Design and Development Strategies for Building a Museum iTunes U Site, and the Perplexities of Apple’s Site Design
1. Design and Development Strategies for
Building a Museum iTunes U Site, and the
Perplexities of Apple’s Site Design
Katie Velazco / velazcok@si.edu; @velazcok
Smithsonian
National Musem of Natural History
2. Milestones
2001: iTunes is introduced as Apple’s digital media
player application
2003: iTunes Music Store launched and is now the #1
music vendor in the world
2004: iTunes service added to other countries besides
the US
2007: iTunes U announced to manage, distribute, and
control access to educational audio and video content
and PDF files for students
2012: iTunes U launches Courses
3. Why iTunes U?
over 1.5 million iPads in use in education institutions
over 1,000 one-to-one iPad deployments in K-12 schools
over 700 million downloads at iTunes U over past 5 years
over 500,000 learning objects available on iTunes U
over 1,000 institutions around the world using iTunes U
over 40,000 ‘education and learning’ applications
available for iPad
4. Availability of iTunes Store
*countries in green are where iTunes Store is currently available as of 2011
13. Development Process
Discovery
benchmarking sites for best practices, site design,
site design and IA—Each person
gap analysis--key word searches against NMNH t
14. Development Process
Discovery
benchmarking sites for best practices, site design,
site design and IA—Each person on the team
gap analysis--key word searches against NMNH
15. Development Process
Discovery
benchmarking sites for best practices, site design,
site design and IA—Each person on the team cre
gap analysis--key word searches against NMNH
16. Development Process
Discovery
benchmarking sites for best practices
site design and IA
gap analysis
quality analysis
17. Development Process
Discovery
benchmarking sites for best practices
site design and IA
gap analysis
quality analysis - are we game?
18. Development Process
Discovery
benchmarking sites for best practices, site design,
site design and IA
gap analysis--ke
quality analysis
19. Development Process
Discovery
benchmarking sites for best practices
site design & IA research
gap analysis
quality analysis
information architecture
assessed NMNH assets for 1) topics, 2) iTunes U
appropriateness, 3) decided what collections we wanted
and what we could create (need min # of assets)
20. Development Process
Audiences
Gen Y and Millennials—raise awareness of NMNH
research and collections, using shorter video podcasts
on behind-the-scenes and popular topics
Students, pre-professionals, and professionals—scientific
lectures
Museum professionals and pre-professionals—video
podcasts on museum studies
30. Development Process
Design
Developed major IA categories and subcategories & used
wire frames
Featured, Research Areas, Museum Edu & Lectures
31. Development Process
Design
Developed major IA categories and subcategories & used
wire frames
Featured, Research Areas, Museum Edu & Lectures
32. Development Process
Design
Developed major IA categories and subcategories & used
wire frames
Featured, Research Areas, Museum Edu & Lectures
Created titles that show key words that work with key word
searches
33. Development Process
Design
Developed major IA categories and subcategories & used
wire frames
Featured, Research Areas, Museum Edu & Lectures
Created titles that show key words that work with key word
searches
34. Development Process
Design
Developed major IA categories and subcategories & used
wire frames
Featured, Research Areas, Museum Edu & Lectures
Created titles that show key words that work with key word
searches
Created descriptive text for each collection
35. Development Process
Design
Developed major IA categories and subcategories & used
wire frames
Featured, Research Areas, Museum Edu & Lectures
Created titles that show key words that work with key word
searches
Created descriptive text for each collection
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
46.
47.
48.
49. Development Process
Design
Developed major IA categories and subcategories & used
wire frames
Featured, Research Areas, Museum Edu & Lectures
Created titles that show key words that work with key word
searches
Created descriptive text for each collection
IA design was restricted by Apple’s method of
featuring collections
55. Best Practices
Redo the entire IA
Nonmenclature issue:
“Collections” are small groups of content, alike in
topic, format, and duration (e.g., video podcast
on Etruscan Pottery or an audio podcast about
Greek Archaeology by a particular curator)
“Tag Pages” are pages that group collections
together (e.g., Anthropology)
63. Best Practices
Redo the entire IA
Collections should contain between 5–15 pieces of
media
Collections should be SPECIFIC (i.e., Darwin, not
Evolution in general)
Optimize for possible promotion
Focus on the search function of iTunes and not your
storefront
64.
65.
66.
67.
68.
69.
70.
71. Development Process
Review
TRUST and WAG committees at NMNH, 40+ people
were invited to provide feedback
72. Development Process
Strategic Promotion
NMNH timed the launch of site with Dinosaur
month, a topic our gap analysis indicated was thin
on iTunes U, so we could stand out.
73. Development Process
Strategic Promotion
NMNH timed the launch of site with Dinosaur
month, a topic our gap analysis indicated was thin
on iTunes U, so we could stand out.
Need to have a marketing plan!
74.
75.
76.
77. Year 1 Metrics
Total Browses: 301,766
Total Subscriptions: 31,805
Total Previews (streams): 113,150
Total Downloads: 160,707
Total Plays (downloads + previews): 273,857
83. How To Get Started
Link from iTunes U page on Apple to the Public Site
Manager Enrollment form (https://eduapp.apple.com/)
Application and approval process
84. How To Get Started
Link from iTunes U page on Apple to the Public Site
Manager Enrollment form (https://eduapp.apple.com/)
Application and approval process
Thank you!
Katie Velazco
velazcok@si.edu; @velazcok
Smithsonian
National Musem of Natural History
Notas do Editor
\n
iTunes U is the educational branch of iTunes. It started with just hosting content suitable at the university level, it has since expanded and now offers content to grade schools Kindergarten through 12th grade. \n
\n
This is a map of where iTunes, which iTunes U, was available in 2011. In June of this year, Apple launched iTunes in 32 more countries increasing their worldwide access, and, by extension, your content’s worldwide access. \n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
two screenshots from videos from harvard and a university in Germany (ludwig-maximillians-universitat munchen)\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
There’s a limit to the number of characters that can be displayed, especially on ipad/iphone which lacks mouse-over support, so it’s important to get across your important ideas in the first words. \n
\n
\n
\n
\n
it’s really critical to brand your collection thumbnails because of how users get to your itunes page\n
\n
\n
So this is what the page looks like if I clicked on that Volcanoes with Liz collection. \n
Here you see that branding again on the thumbail. \n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
A major issue for Apple is their use of the term ‘collection.’ For us, we want a collection to be a big group of objects. Like having an Anthropology collection. This doesn’t work for Apple. In Apple nomenclature, a collection is a specific playlist like videos on Etruscan Pottery and a “tag page” (in this case a tag page of Anthropology) would brings multiple playlists like Etruscan Pottery and Greek Archaeology together. \n
A major issue for Apple is their use of the term ‘collection.’ For us, we want a collection to be a big group of objects. Like having an Anthropology collection. This doesn’t work for Apple. In Apple nomenclature, a collection is a specific playlist like videos on Etruscan Pottery and a “tag page” (in this case a tag page of Anthropology) would brings multiple playlists like Etruscan Pottery and Greek Archaeology together. \n
\n
\n
\n
\n
Clean vs explicit.\niPads being used in the classroom can set preferences to exclude content\n
\n
\n
Here’s an example of a collection that is too broad, much like our Anthropology collection would be. \n\nWant users to know what they can expect out of your collection because they subscribe. \n
Here’s an example of a collection that is too broad, much like our Anthropology collection would be. \n\nWant users to know what they can expect out of your collection because they subscribe. \n
\n
Tag pages can have unique URLs, meaning you can link to them from your website. Don’t assume people are coming to your main page and that you bury this organizational feature at the bottom of this main page. \n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
To give context, YouTube had 123,338 plays during this same year period. \n\n\n
\n
So if we take a look at our iTunes U plays on a graph, this is what we get. \n
\n
\n
\n
I cannot understate the value of museums utilizing iTunes U for delivering educational media, especially with the rising popularity of smartphones and tablets. For NMNH, adding iTunes U as a media dissemination platform has almost tripled the reach of media and educational content just in the past year. \n