Hi Mike,
I have benefitted from this discussion as my research is focused on the potentials of digital technology in the representation of museum collections.
In addition to Tony’s more 'stories /less is better/ curated’, it will be more interesting and rewarding if such visitors can participate in the interpretation of those important collection.
As they might have a prior experience or relationship with the object which will also add to the resource of the museum about specific objects.
Cheers
Toyin
On 6 Apr 2014, at 10:34, Mike Ellis <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Thanks Elena, really interesting - again..!
>
> To everyone else: do you research before putting your collections online? How, and what has this shown you about user wants and needs?
>
> Does Tony's "more stories / less is better / curated" resonate with your users? I know it does with me..
>
> cheers
>
> Mike
>
>
>
> _____________________________
>
>
> *Mike Ellis *
>
> Thirty8 Digital: a small but perfectly formed digital agency:http://thirty8.co.uk <http://thirty8.co.uk/>
>
> * My book: http://heritageweb.co.uk <http://heritageweb.co.uk/> *
>
>
>
>> Elena Villaespesa <mailto:[log in to unmask]>
>> 4 April 2014 03:27
>> Hello Mike,
>>
>>
>> Yes, the survey was shown to people after they had visited at least 3 pages
>> and spent at least 10 seconds on a page. There are some data at the end of
>> the report that compares the respondents profile with GA data. The
>> objectives of this survey were to understand better how people use the
>> online collection and get people's feedback so that's why we decided to
>> target people who had spent some time on the website, especially for new
>> visitors who are not familiar with it.
>>
>>
>> Bounce rate is approx. 50% on average for collection pages but it really
>> varies by traffic source and there are other variables to take into
>> account. Bounce rate is much higher from social media sites and online
>> newspapers for example because the behaviour is to follow the link and then
>> go back to your wall, feed or news site. And then regarding Google traffic
>> there are some differences too, especially between people searching
>> specifically for Tate content or people that end up on the collection
>> because they are searching for art terms. This is what the SEO people call
>> branded vs non branded traffic but unfortunately GA does not show this data
>> anymore in the reports. For example, some people search on Google directly
>> for "Tate Ophelia Millais" so they arrive to the page they want and once
>> they get the info they leave but probably they have the same motivation as
>> someone who comes to the Tate website and then search for Ophelia or browse
>> the site to get to the artwork page. So it's useful to combine analytics,
>> surveys and other tools.
>>
>>
>> Regarding your second question, this is actually a hard one. I guess it
>> depends on the percentage of people who come to plan a visit vs other
>> purposes (audience needs) but also on the museum's objectives. Based on
>> another survey we've done, this one on the whole website, approx. half of
>> the visits are not related to the gallery visit but other purposes such as
>> research, download images, get some inspiration... The Tate website would not
>> probably have this big amount of this type visits without having put the
>> collection online, or bounce rate would be much higher because there is no
>> content to look at. But it's also true that 17% of people came to the
>> online collection to see what's on display so there is a basic need to
>> cover for those who are planning a visit.
>>
>>
>> So probably the best thing to do is some research first as the results from
>> a smaller organisation may be or not similar to ours. ;-)
>>
>>
>> Elena
>>
>>
>>
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>> Richard Light <mailto:[log in to unmask]>
>> 3 April 2014 14:53
>>
>> Blog /style/, but ideally organised so that the resulting rich descriptions become part of, or are accessible from, their underlying collections database. It would be a great pity to do all that work and waste it as a web-only resource. :-) If nothing else, the collected stories could become the next must-have coffee table book.
>>
>> Richard
>> Tony Crockford <mailto:[log in to unmask]>
>> 3 April 2014 12:06
>>
>> I'd like to see smaller institutions creating curated collections - blog style.
>>
>> e.g. a decent story about their important/interesting objects. maybe one a week, one a month, or whatever is manageable - it'll soon become a valuable and interesting online resource.
>>
>> As an Internet user I'd rather see a few detailed and interesting stories than hundreds of images with sparse metadata.
>>
>> For many the online objective should be to treat the 'collections' part of their website as a curated exhibition, with unlimited space to exhibit a few items in great detail.
>>
>> I think the future is all about stories from the past.
>>
>> :)
>>
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>> Mike Ellis <mailto:[log in to unmask]>
>> 3 April 2014 11:15
>> Hi Elena
>>
>> This is a really interesting report - thanks so much for linking to it.
>>
>> A couple of questions for you and I guess the group:
>>
>> - of the people who come to those online collection pages (you say 500-600k visits/month) - what percentage of these bounce? I think you say in the report that you only popped the questionnaire to people who were already engaged but you also say that a large proportion of your traffic is from Google, so I'm wondering how these engaged people compare with those who just happened across your collections pages and then disappeared immediately?
>>
>> - a more general question: the Tate is obviously hugely prominent as an institution, has the corresponding investment in digital, huge numbers of well-documented collections online, monstrous quantities of guaranteed Google Juice, etc. What do you (does everyone..) think smaller institutions can take away from this research? Is it kind of "the same, but smaller"? Or are there fundamental differences which are nothing to do with scale?
>>
>> I suppose the question is whether smaller institutions should be trying to follow similar models in getting collections online - or whether they're better off doing something different - for instance, focusing on smaller number of objects at a higher quality, or looking much more closely at the visit ("show me what I can see when I come along") experience, and so on..?
>>
>> cheers
>>
>> Mike
>>
>>
>>
>> Elena Villaespesa <mailto:[log in to unmask]>
>> 2 April 2014 12:20
>> Hello,
>>
>>
>> We've published the report about motivations and usage of the Tate online
>> collection on the website. Here is a link to a blog post that summarises
>> some of the findings and includes a link to download the full report in
>> PDF.
>>
>> http://www.tate.org.uk/context-comment/blogs/understanding-peoples-motivations-and-usage-online-collection
>>
>>
>> We have been doing other research about the online collection using also
>> analytics and heatmap tools. This includes what people search on the
>> website. We will be blogging soon to discuss some of these findings and our
>> thinking to reshape and incorporate some features to improve the online
>> collection pages in the coming months as part of the digitisation of the
>> Tate Archive (
>> http://www.tate.org.uk/about/projects/transforming-tate-britain-archives-access
>> )
>>
>>
>> Best regards
>>
>> Elena
>>
>>
>>
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