Social Journaling to incite museum visitation
The Hood Museum of Art highly values co-curricular student engagement and yet, there are still students who visit only once or never at all during their college career. The Hood wanted to know, are the programs we offer and the objects on view appealing to students? Are there better ways we could be investing our efforts to increase unfacilitated student visits, program attendance and sustained engagement?
As an incoming freshman at Dartmouth, I was excited to take advantage of the on-campus museum, films, and performing arts. Instead, I, along with many of my peers, became distracted by many campus commitments and never made time for art-based activities. Sophomore year, I was selected for a Design Corps, a design collective that partnered with the campus museum to increase engagement in the galleries. Through dozens of interviews, my team and I identified three types of students who would, but didn’t, engage with the museum: ‘the art lover’ who wants to see art, ‘the socializer’ who wants to connect, and ‘the thinker’ who wants to reflect. Our research proved that students didn’t lack the desire to engage with and reflect on art; they needed the motivation to do it. In response to student needs, we developed a journaling program where friends assembled in small groups to share a collective journal. Each week, one individual would write, inspired by gallery-specific prompts, and pass the journal along weekly. The program was successful, attracting over sixty participants and turning first-time visitors into regulars.
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Conducted 30+ interviews with students to uncover insights into student perceptions of the Hood as well as information about student behavior and needs. Brainstormed 50+ ideas to address insights from research. Used storyboarding and user personas to iterate on solution that addressed all student needs.
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Designed launching event that attracted 200+ students and retained 60+ student groups to participate in the term-long journaling program.
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Worked with a team of four throughout all parts of the design thinking process, collaborating on research, data analysis (including story mapping, user personas, and thematic coding) ideation, prototyping, and testing.
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Managing communication between team and partners to successfully meet deadlines during the academic-year long project.
THe project:
Understanding the Context
My team and I began by researching museum engagement at other universities to better understand success trends and patterns of problems. We then focused in on Dartmouth’s Campus, completing a primary round of interviews to better understand how students were currently engaging with museums generally, as well as specifically with The Hood. We aimed to contextualize Hood visits within students busy lives.
Additionally, we completed field work, attending Hood events such as “Hood After 5,” a free social event for students that consists of a mix of art, music, and entertainment and is hosted by the student Museum Club. We also led a storyboard workshop for the Museum Club where students drew maps of their individual journeys to the Hood. This research provided insights into current offerings and successful engagements.
DEFINING THE PROBLEM
Our research and analysis uncovered insights into student perceptions of the Hood as well as information about student behavior and needs. Three main insights stood out:
1️⃣ Students perceive the Hood as belonging to Dartmouth and Hanover, it feels different than other student spaces. This feeling can create a barrier to entry as students are unsure how to engage with the space.
2️⃣ Students desire productive downtime. When they are not busy with classes, they fill their time with constructive activities such as exercise or clubs.
3️⃣ Students engage with activities when they are a part of their routines or “bucket list” items. Routine activities examples include clubs, exercise, or “woccoms” (walks around Occom Pond). Bucket list items are activities that students feel are “quintessential Dartmouth” and must complete at least once while in college, such as attending the Dartmouth Homecoming Bonfire or hiking Giles Tower.
This third insight—that students engage with activities when they are a part of their routines or “Bucket List” items—guided the team to design a second round of interviews where they aimed to inform their understanding of factors that drive student engagement on Dartmouth’s campus.
From there, we generated “How Might We…?” questions that articulated foundational, aspiration and focused prompts. These questions allow for structured brainstorming around the problem and user’s identified needs, constraints, and opportunities. We conducted individual, team, partner, and Museum Club brainstorming workshops, generating a large list of possible solutions and ideas. The ideas coalesced around trends of student needs, which helped the team to identify different types of students; the Art Lover, the Socializer, and the Reflect-er. We created a Venn Diagram with these three student archetypes and organized the ideas to visualize which ideas could attract all three.
Image of the student archetype venn diagram; Art Lover, Socializer, Reflect-er. Each set has multiple post-its that seem to be color themed, some post its have icons: thumbs up, heart, down arrow. The text of the post-its is illegible.
The Solution: “The Museum Journal: Pause, Pass It On”
We used Storyboarding to quickly explore our top ideas and decided to pursue The Museum Journal, a shared journal for art and personal reflection, full of prompts and activities that the team designed. The journal is shared between a small group of students. Each week, one student journals while attending the Hood Museum, the following week they pass the journal to a friend who reads the previous entries and then goes to the museum to create their own. This process continues throughout the term, culminating in a Museum celebration.
This solution met the needs of all three identified student archetypes and responded to our three main insights. The Museum Journal generates a student-focused space by encouraging friends to connect through and within the museum. The journal responds to the need for productive downtime by providing a structured visit as well as a “result”. An interactive journal passed amongst friends also fits in both the routine activity and bucket-list potential boxes. The process of journaling together encourages students to routinely visit the museum, share that experience with other students and encourage their friends to join, too.
Prototyping
In our second term, we conducted a “mini” prototype creating journals with instructions and a list of prompts such as, “What piece of artwork do you connect with the most today?” and “Think about your week. Find a piece that reminds you of a specific moment, person, or feeling. Write about it.” A total of 20 participants joined the team at the Hood for a demonstration of how to use the journal. The team gave the participants a list of prompts and guided the students to spend about 15 minutes in the galleries reflecting and journalling. Then, they swapped journals with a friend. The students either read their peer’s writing and responded or worked with a new prompt. We conducted an exit interview of the prototype and received extremely encouraging feedback: 90% of prototype participants said that they were very likely to return to the museum, and the other 10% said they were likely to return.
In our third term, we conducted a longer prototype that included a marketing campaign with posters, flyers and bookmarks and individual invitations to student organizations such as Spare Rib student group, The Student Wellness Center, the English Department, and Greek Houses. The prototype kicked off with an event at The Hood. A total of 50 students registered, enjoyed the galleries, and decorated their Museum Journals. Every week the participants received a newsletter from the team reminding them to visit the Hood and providing new prompts to journal with.
At the end of the long term prototype, we held a closing event. There were a handful of dedicated museum journalers who participated with strong commitment throughout the term, and there were new people who hadn’t attended the kick-off but joined later, through friends. We conducted an exit interview and heard from many participants that their motivations to join the Museum Journal Prototype was spread amongst the desire to journal, the desire to share an activity with their friends, and the desire to visit the hood. This demonstrated a satisfaction of the needs of all three student archetypes the team design for. The main barrier reported was a lack of time. Overall, the Museum Journal prototype was a success.
Student reflections
“I had never visited the Hood before this term but I really enjoyed going a few times and reflecting with my friends.”
“I spend a lot of time in the Hood already, but this project allowed me to connect with the pieces in a new way.”
Partner reflections
“I’ve been extremely impressed with Design Corps. Not only are they comprehensively tackling a problem for us, but it’s wonderful to provide content to the student team while the Design Corps staff manages the process. The structure that Design Corps offers has been invaluable, making the process as enjoyable as the final product is useful. I would love to work with them again in the future.”
