squander is something we're not doing over at SI! (Image IWM EPH 4611: Squander Bug (a cartoon character to persuade people to avoid waste) air rifle target, 1940s)

A while back I announced that we had been awarded part of the NESTA R&D fund for a joint project with the Imperial War Museum(IWM), Knowledge Integration and our friends over at UCL CASA well we have well and truly started and are knee deep in agile project management, user centered design and puppy dog enthusiasm. So much so we have started a blog over at IWM Blogs, so all the project comings and goings whether they are good, bad or downright ugly will be posted in one spot from all of the project partners.  It should make a good read, and if not there are lots of pretty pictures, like the Squander bug!

I’ll post on here when there are updates, and will put a more personal spin on some of the posts.

For the past couple of days, I have been down on the gallery floor, hiding behind tanks and rockets whilst observing visitor behaviour, to get an idea of what type of behaviours we need to design for in the social interpretation applications.  What I really liked was that my feet, back and brain were sore by the end of each day, not because it was difficult, but because all the visitors were really engaged and did their best to fully explore the gallery space.  It was hard to keep up with them sometimes.  I can’t begin to imagine what I would have been like if I followed the visitor through their entire visit rather than just one gallery!

I’m in the process of writing up the findings from the observation sessions, which I will then post on the Social Interpretation blog, already there are some brilliant themes emerging.

Bring on the focus groups next week!