1. SFMOMA-DAM Digital Asset Management System San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Margo Dunlap, Thoreau Lovell, Joanna Plattner SIMS 213 March 22, 2001

2. Joanna Plattner | Margo Dunlap | Thoreau LovellIS213 Spring 2001 2 Project Goals Deliver prototype Digital Asset Management (DAM) system that will facilitate:  Access to digital images of artworks  Search & retrieval (onscreen + image files)  new image requests  rights & permissions  Creating and documenting digital image files following museum standards  Long-term preservation of digital master files

3. Joanna Plattner | Margo Dunlap | Thoreau LovellIS213 Spring 2001 3 Proposed Solution: A DAM System Consisting of  Web interface  Database for storing metadata about digital images, their creation, and use  SQL Server  Scripts to connect the two into a single functional system  Active Server Pages

4. Joanna Plattner | Margo Dunlap | Thoreau LovellIS213 Spring 2001 4 Personas (1 of 3) Anton Bellatino is 28 years old and he loves his job. He's a digital imaging specialist at SFMOMA. He spends virtually 100% of his time creating digital images of artwork, using either a digital camera or a scanner, and then processing them with Photoshop. What he likes most about his job is the art. Goals:Anton Bellatino  Make the images he creates available to others today and far into the future.  Help streamline the process of creating and using digital images of artworks at SFMOMA  Be known as someone whose work is always of excellent quality. Primary Persona

5. Joanna Plattner | Margo Dunlap | Thoreau LovellIS213 Spring 2001 5 Personas (2 of 3) Primary Persona Robin Foster Robin Foster is 36, married, and lives in Oakland. Robin has always lived on the West coast and would like to keep it that way. She works at SFMOMA as a multi-media content developer, creating CD-ROM materials in support of exhibits. She’s proven herself to be a good manager and an inspiring team leader. Goals:  Expand ways in which the museum connects with the public.  Convince the museum to increase funding for her projects  Complete projects on time and on budget.  Be recognized for the high quality of her work.

6. Joanna Plattner | Margo Dunlap | Thoreau LovellIS213 Spring 2001 6 Personas (3 of 3) Sophie Lindstrom Sophie Lindstrom is 27 years old and she's been working as a Curatorial Assistant at SFMOMA for 3 years. She has an MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design. She is smart, creative, and sophisticated, but not a snob. Sophie uses the Web at work for research and she uses email for professional correspondence, but she's never bought into all of the hype about the internet and technology in general. Goals:  Advance her curatorial career  Live an intellectually satisfying life.  Meet the needs of the curatorial staff in research, planning, and production of exhibits and publications.

7. Joanna Plattner | Margo Dunlap | Thoreau LovellIS213 Spring 2001 7 Users Two broad classes of users: Image Users: want to find, view, and use digital images (Robin & Sophie) Image Creators: need to create digital images and manage digital image collection (Anton)

8. Joanna Plattner | Margo Dunlap | Thoreau LovellIS213 Spring 2001 8 Design Changes Before 1. Single interface for: a. Users & Creators b. Standard & Advanced image requests. 2. Liberal use of specialized terminology, links to help screens were ignored 3. Vague navigation labels; were misunderstood more often than not After 1. Separated interfaces and added several screens to better support user tasks. 2. Relegated specialized terms to new Advanced image request screen. 3. Simplified nav bar, made labels more task oriented

9. Joanna Plattner | Margo Dunlap | Thoreau LovellIS213 Spring 2001 9 Design Changes (cont.) Before 4.Unstructured search (like google), left one user uncertain about what to put in. He was fearful the result set would be too high. 5. Used a tabbed interface to distinguish “access” requests from “new digitiza- tion” requests. 6. Minimal feedback, no confirmation that an image request had been submitted After 4. Added explanatory text to basic search, added “Advanced search” to support search by attribute (artist, title, etc.) 5. Eliminated new digitization requests (for now) - a challenging problem! 6. New confirmation screens for saving and submitting image requests.

10. Joanna Plattner | Margo Dunlap | Thoreau LovellIS213 Spring 2001 10 Demo

11. Joanna Plattner | Margo Dunlap | Thoreau LovellIS213 Spring 2001 11 Lessons Learned  Beware of feature creep “the bigger the target the worse your aim” - Alan Cooper  Beware of “lazy programmer” syndrome “one interface should be good enough” - Joanna Plattner (famous last words)  User feedback is invaluable  Paper prototypes are good! It’s much easier to “go back to the drawing board”

12. Joanna Plattner | Margo Dunlap | Thoreau LovellIS213 Spring 2001 12 Summary Real world system - many challenges  How closely should DAM match SFMOMA’s legacy collections management system? (record structure, terminology, etc.)  Project sponsor’s priorities not always in sync with user needs  Constrained by museum’s IT environment, funding limitations What’s next? Prototype 2…..  Identify & resolve the most critical design issues  Add database connectivity  Build out supporting pages (help, about.., etc.)