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Just because your museum objects are online doesn’t make them interesting

March 11, 2015 - Rachel

I was asked by Claire Ross and Jane Audas to talk about objects online at a conference day (Show Us Your Assets) held at Mima last week.

There’s a tendency for museums to “just get our collections database online” without actually thinking about why they’re doing it, how to do it better and who they’re doing it for.

I decided to focus on ten habits that from our experience help to focus the mind

  1. think about (think like) your audience
  2. understand a bit about how to work with Google
  3. create social and sociable objects
  4. iterate, don’t fire and forget
  5. focus on object stories
  6. make informed, long-term choices about technology
  7. know what your users do, and adapt (see #4)
  8. do less, better
  9. don’t be afraid of marketing
  10. be visual, designed, playful

My slides are here:

Just because your museum objects are online doesn’t make them interesting from Mike Ellis

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