Some museum visitors truly appreciate a traditional museum environment they visit to learn from experts or to view exhibits. So how can museums design good participatory experiences? The bulk of the book is devoted to answering that question, so I will just briefly summarize some of Simon’s most compelling points.įirst, Simon acknowledges that not everyone WANTS to participate. Yet Simon argues that this is not because people do not want to participate it is just a case of bad design. Despite the fact that I am an avid user of social media online, I cringe at the thought of video-taping my response to an exhibit. I am sure that every museum-goer has had a similar experience in the past 10 years.

Group of teens, overflowing with enthusiasm, “express themselves” via shout-outs and walk-ons.Person stares at camera and mumbles something incomprehensible.I’m flipping through videos that visitors have made about freedom, and they are really, really bad. We’re checking out the final exhibit-a comment station where visitors can make their own videos in response to the exhibition. I’m in Chicago with my family, visiting a museum. Simon begins her first chapter with an eloquent example of bad design. But as Simon is quick to acknowledge, this process is harder than it sounds. Translating the participatory nature of social media to a museum sounds like a great idea. She broadens her case studies to include for-profit corporations including Netflix, Nike, and Harrah’s Casinos. The case studies and examples that Simon cites are not limited to the museum world nor even to cultural institutions. Simon looks for inspiration in unexpected places. Rather, Simon is concerned with gleaning knowledge from web and new media interactions, and apply this knowledge to the real world.

These new media strategies do not always (and often do not) take place on the web. Both Simon’s blog and The Participatory Museum offer compelling real-life examples and case studies of cultural institutions that have adopted new media strategies to help fulfill their institutional missions. I am a longtime reader and fan of Nina Simon’s blog Museum 2.0 and so I jumped at the chance to review her book. In The Participatory Museum, Nina Simon argues that the social web has changed the way that people relate to one another and the world, and makes a case for introducing participatory design to cultural institutions.

The Participatory Museum by Nina Simon