What Do You Actually Do? Episode 73: Human-centred design in the cultural sector

/ Stephen Furlong

Listen to this and all the previous episodes.

Alyson Webb is a Director at Frankly Green + Webb, an agency specialising in human-centred design to improve digital experiences in the cultural sector.

Listen as Kate gets to the bottom of what Alyson’s job looks like. They cover working in the cultural sector, digital experiences, human-centred design thinking, consultancy and more!

Alyson’s bio:

Alyson has worked in the cultural sector for 30 years. As a creative director and innovation programme leader, she has helped countless museums, galleries and historic sites share their extraordinary stories with diverse audiences around the globe.

Having designed the experience and content of the world’s first-ever multimedia guide, mobile phone guide and gallery podcast, Alyson has seen first-hand how this work can change how people think, behave and see the world. Collaborating with the expertise and profound knowledge within each organisation is one of her favourite parts of every project.

Her greatest reward comes in helping teams discover new creative opportunities, express what is unique and authentic to them, and understand their audience on a new level–ultimately so everyone feels that the knowledge and beauty held in these sites is theirs to take in.

Alyson is a National Heritage Lottery Fund digital mentor.

Useful links

Transcript

Kate 

Hello and welcome to this episode of what do you actually do? My name is Kate Morris, and I’ll be your host today. In today’s episode, we’ll be talking about working in the digital experience, design and consultancy area within the museums and cultural sector. Today, we’re joined by Alison Webb, director of Frankly Green and Webb, a digital agency and consultancy that helps cultural organisations use digital technologies effectively to enhance the experiences and services to their audiences. So Allison, that’s a mouthful. What do you actually do? 

Alyson 

It it is a mouthful, what do we do? So we describe our practise as human centred design and by that I mean all our work starts with an understanding of or a seeking to understand the needs, the motivations, the behaviours of humans inside the organisation and outside the organisation and then designing solutions to support them in whatever area we’re working. When I say design, we’re not visual designers. I’m using the term design in a way that sometimes we struggle with, but it’s around working through a challenge or an opportunity in developing solutions and and so we sometimes work alongside visual designers but we’re not visual designers ourselves and we sort of work at different stages of projects and activities, so we might be supporting organisations to develop strategy. So how can they use their limited resources most effectively to achieve the impact they want to have? Sometimes we’re working a much more tactical level, so a client might come to us with a question like how can we support online researchers more effectively who use our collections? And so we might work at that level or it could be that they want to attract a particular audience or serve a particular audience on site in a museum, a historic site, you know, those kind of venues. So it’s really wide-ranging but I suppose the critical thing is, it’s the human beings at the centre of it. Rather than leading with the technology we are, I suppose, technology agnostic. We don’t say, oh, look, AI has just been developed. What can we do with it? We’re always thinking like, what is your need or what’s the opportunity, you know if an organisation says I want to support a particular audience, that’s where we would start from. Not, oh you could do something really nice with virtual reality because in our experience that tends to fail mostly, yeah. 

Kate 

It sounds like what you do really depends on the needs of the organisations, of the museum or gallery or other type of institution, but also what it is that they’re trying to achieve. So what’s the sort of key elements of your role? What kind of tasks are you doing in order to achieve that? 

Alyson 

The act of research is at the heart of it, but I’m using the term research really broadly so for example, well, at the moment we’re working with the National Trust, for example, to help them develop the digital strand of their new organisational strategy. In that instance, one of the things we’re going in and asking them about, is what as an organisation do you want to achieve and we’re investigating with them what resources do you have or you’re likely to have, what kind of impacts do you want to have in the world? So the research is very informal, It’s within the organisation but we might then go on to look at, technologies, look at the landscape and help them figure, you know, what the their vision is for the future and what they would need to achieve it. In other instances we might be working through a problem that the client set. As I said, something like we want to support this audience more effectively, and then we might be developing quantitative surveys, we do use those, we might be developing qualitative research, so we use all sorts of approaches. We give cameras and audio recorders to visitors as they explore galleries to find out what they’re doing, what they’re enjoying for example. We do interviews, we do games. All sorts of things to try and help uncover people’s, I suppose latent motivations and behaviours and needs. Then we’re doing a lot of analysis, so that’s quite rigorous work in trying to understand what that means and what it means for the solutions that you might suggest. At that point, we might start working with digital teams in the museums, curators, learning teams, designers, all sorts of people to begin to develop the solutions to those challenges. So I’d be absolutely 100% honest to say every day is different. It’s really varied and every challenge is quite unique so you have, you know, you really have to be thinking on your feet and thinking you know, what do I need in this situation? What do I need to do? What would success look like? How can I do that most effectively, most efficiently, most creatively, so it’s a constant, I suppose creative activity really. Which is, I mean, hugely enjoyable. 

Kate 

And are you going to these different museums and institutions and kind of literally on the ground level, talking to people and meeting with the staff there and spending a lot of time out and about? Or are you doing a lot of work back in an office, kind of analysing this information? So it’s I’m just trying to sort of visualise, it sounds like you probably are really out and about quite a lot?

Alyson 

We are out and about quite a lot. I have to say it sort of changes depending on the projects you’re working on, and obviously COVID has had an impact, so you know for two years we worked on mainly digital strategy from our offices and and never went to the site. But we do, do a lot of work on on site and we might be in the galleries, working with audiences. We might be, you know, working with curators and digital staff in a workshop. Yesterday, we were working with curatorial staff, learning and engagement staff and a web and social media team at a National Museum, developing content approaches for online and social content, for example. So we could be with the visitors, we could be with the clients in their institution or we could be back at the office doing the analysis. So it is really, it is really varied and depends on which projects we’ve won in fairness, you know sometimes we we win a lot of work on the web and you can do most of that at a distance. Other times there’s some really lovely projects where you’re actually trying to design a physical experience and then you really need to be in the space where it’s going to be used and really understand those physical affordances for visitors. 

Kate 

That point about projects that you’ve won, so you’re as a consultancy having to kind of pitch alongside other agencies, presumably?

Alyson

Yes, we are. I mean sometimes, you know sometimes we’re developing a project with a client but generally because most institutions in the UK are public sector, even if we’ve designed the project with the client, you know they’ve come to us and said we’ve got a particular problem even then, we probably have to bid for it. They’d have to get multiple companies to apply and they pick the winning bid. My job is not just doing the work, but is is running and hopefully growing the business as well, and so that’s balancing those two things is challenging I have to say. It’s very easy to put always put the client first, you know having an external form of accountability but there’s a real joy to running the business as well and and actually you know, pitching and coming up with approaches that’s really fun too. 

Kate 

You studied history of design at degree and masters level. Where did this interest in technology and running your own business come from? 

Alyson 

So I did my masters degree. It’s a joint a joint masters with the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Royal College of Art. I think it still runs today, but I was like, maybe the second intake. To be honest, I had no idea what I was going to do even when I got to the end of the degree and I actually at that point invented myself a job and got the associates of the museum to fund it for a year, which was really just doing support work for the course itself, because I just had no idea. At that point I was actually approached by one of the curators who taught me and they said, you know, another curator’s wife is running this business and I think you might be a good fit. That was an audio guide company and so I started work for that company and I stayed in the field of audio guides for a long long time. This is going back you know a 100 years! to the late 80s and they were cassettes then and of course, technology changed so while I was in that job, you know, first of all, they invented random access digital technologies so we went from doing linear experiences to random access experiences and we had to think about what that meant for the content design and the experience design for the visitors. Then you know I did the very first mobile guide on what was then called a PDA, you’d think of it as like a mobile phone kind of device. I did like the first mobile phone tour out in cities, first podcast and so as technologies change, I just had the opportunity to kind of actually, I suppose, do the innovation and I really loved it. I really loved that problem solving and and trialling things out. So I sort of fell into innovation and I actually fell into the content design part of that as well. I was so fortunate in that first job, at the time there was me, the Managing Director of the company, and like a half time person, and we grew the business together. My boss was wonderful and she gave me all sorts of different things to do and some of them I was absolutely terrible at and I failed miserably at but she I suppose gave me the space to fail and she gave me the space to succeed. Gradually, over time, as the company grew, I had the chance to specialise in areas where I was really strong and I really worked at and I cannot tell you how fortunate that is, and also because it was a small company I was doing multiple things, so you know, right at the beginning, I might have been pitching for a job and and talking, going out and sales meetings with clients and then producing the content as well, so that kind of gave me that understanding of how a business works as well as beginning to kind of reflect on what it could and couldn’t do. You would not in a million years leave me in charge of a staff timetable and you probably wouldn’t leave me in charge of any other form of operations, you know. You know you have to kind of be quite upfront as you get experience, with what you’re no good at and blossoming where you can succeed. 

Kate 

So it sounds a really interesting point there that actually working for a smaller organisation can be super valuable because you do get that chance to be exposed to lots of different things and I think often it can feel quite overwhelming as a new graduate, where there’s lots of marketing and lots of big flashy companies and you know, formal schemes that you can join, which that’s great if you wanna do that and that appeals to you but actually to do something where it’s less clearly defined can be really advantageous, it sounds like?

Alyson 

I think it was hugely advantageous for me though I do also reflect that I am, I think what has been termed a quick start person, I don’t mind swapping between things and trying different things out. I’m not particularly phased by that, and having run a team, I know some people need more structure. I think sort of reflecting on your personality type like what situations you’re comfy in is really important. If you need that structure and you need sort of process sort of mapped out. That would be really hard in a small, fast growing business, whereas if you’re really curious and you can swip swap between things and that kind of feeds your energy and your thinking, then I think it’s a wonderful place to be. There’s one other thing about being in a commercial organisation in the cultural sector that is super, super important and that is just how much of the cultural sector you get exposed to, I have worked with, I think every National Museum in the UK, I’ve worked with, I mean, I’ve literally worked with hundreds and hundreds of museums, historic sites. I know it’s over a long time, but like even in this last year, I’ll probably work with I don’t know 10 different institutions in the in the US, the UK and Europe, and so you get a really broad understanding of how the sector works, what issues are important to them, the challenges they’re facing, you know. My experience is I don’t have the in-depth experience of a curator in a particular subject but I’ve worked with hundreds and hundreds of them and I know how curators work, and I know the issues that matter to them and that’s a huge strength as well. 

Kate 

So it sounds like to do the type of work that you’re doing, you really need to have that flexible mindset. You need to be really curious, interested in a lot of things, particular interest in technology but as you said at the start, it’s not starting with what is the latest exciting bit of tech out there, it’s what are the issues and how can we best support the organisation to achieve what they want to achieve.

Alyson 

Yes, and also I I suppose maybe it’s no surprise we ended up in human centred design but because it’s about, I think, myself and my business partner are really, really passionate about being useful and having an impact and helping our clients have an impact. We’re doing this to help make things better and we’re really, really focused on that. So it’s not theoretical, or sometimes we use the phrase academic and that can sound rude in the university context, but it’s not abstract. It’s about making things better in the real world and therefore that need to have empathy for people who are often in quite difficult situations in terms of they may not have all the resources or the skills they need or their organisation may not understand digital and they get a lot of pushback from colleagues, so actually being able to go into situations with empathy, but with that drive to make things better I think that’s really critical as well. 

Kate 

So it must be really rewarding to feel that you’re helping people and to see the results of your work as well actually. What’s the worst bit of the job, because this is all sounding really, really good. What’s the bits that you sort of put up with?

Alyson 

What’s the worst bit of the job? I really love it. I mean, every job has its dull moments and slog. I mean, if you’re doing a lot of research, you know, if it’s quantitative research, you’re ploughing through a lot of data and that requires a huge amount of attention to detail and focus and similarly, with qualitative research, you just have to be very careful. You’re representing people so I suppose for me just that kind of long term focus and application can be tough. I’m not sure there are any bits I don’t enjoy, maybe some of the travel. You know, if you go and work for a fancy bank, you probably travel first class. We travel, you know EasyJet and stay in various relatives, spare rooms or cheap hotels or whatever, because the sector doesn’t have a lot of money and that can get to be a bit of a slog after a while yeah. 

Kate 

So what do you think will be the sort of key challenges for digital experience design, particularly working with the cultural sector over the next few years because you’ve mentioned, you know, money is a challenge because the organisations you’re working with, a lot of them are publicly funded, money is tight as we know. What else should people be thinking about or anticipating if they think that they might want to break into this sector? 

Alyson

The cultural sector is typically very excited about the idea of technology and has been less successful in implementing it well, because they tend to kind of go, oh, look, there’s a new shiny thing, let’s go do the new shiny thing and they haven’t been as quick at picking up on, I suppose best practise for digital experience design generally. I suppose what you can see happening is if you work in this sort of area, it could be on content strategy on web strategy and user experience design or physical experience design. You know, there’s a lot of people like that out in the rest of the sector. You know, gov.uk is a really good example sort of setting the pace there. So there’s lots of that happening in the outside world and developing methodologies and training and practise that we’re only just beginning to see filtering into our section, I suppose that’s that’s our area of interest. So for some people, I’ve seen come from the outside world as you might call it, into the museums. and culture sector are like oh my God, everything’s so slow, It’s really hard work, they don’t follow best practise, they’re really resistant to it. That can be difficult. You’d I think you’d have to see you’re in a space where practice is changing and changing practice and changing culture in organisations can be hard, but I do think that also means there’s a chance to to shape the space and to really make an impact. So that’s, I suppose one of the big things that’s happening at the moment. You know, I’m still getting a few major directors telling me, you know, well, you can’t make money out of digital or digital doesn’t have an impact which most people would think was quite shocking but there’s still a bit of that left in our sector. 

Kate 

It sounds like the kind of negotiation and communicating with impact that influencing, but in a diplomatic way is quite important and presumably then it’s really important for people to understand what the best practise is and what the technology can do and what the possibilities are? Do you have any advice for where students could kind of look at examples of the latest technology or what is considered to be best practise? Is there anything they could start researching now to get a heads up on that and know right this is where to go for that type of information? 

Alyson 

Yes, I mean I suppose as I mentioned gov.uk, there’s sort of government design online design service is a really fantastic place to start. Literally just google Gov.uk and they have been phenomenal in documenting the process they’ve followed and they publish all their style manuals and their content guidelines and all sorts of things and just seeing that gives you a sense of the kind of work and there’s a tonne of work in that area. They’re doing lots of user research. They’ve transformed how we experience government as a service online, for example. I think there are really great books out there on content strategy for example, human centred content strategy. We’re doing a lot of work in bringing some of those practises and making them relevant in our sector, so you’re having to kind of look at best practise that’s being developed outside the sector and think well what would that look like in the context of a museum. So if content strategy is about delivering the right message in the right way on the right channel for the right people, what does that look like when you get outside of a commercial sector and you’re thinking about mission and subject matter, but they’re great places to start, so books on content strategy, there’s some really good books on experience design and there are some experience design agencies out there and there are story agencies out there. I think. If you love technology, or maybe you just can see that technology makes things possible, I wouldn’t worry too much about the technology as such. I’d focus more on learning how you can create experiences and how you figure solutions out because the technology will come and you know, if you’re open to that sort of thing, that’ll sort itself out in the end. 

Kate 

I think in terms of experience, I mean we’ve talked quite a bit about the sort of perhaps personal qualities that you need in terms of being able to cope with the lack of structure and actually thrive on variety, that kind of thing. Is there any kind of work experience that you’d recommend as a little taster of what it might be like either working in digital experience or consultancy more generally so that someone could find out if it was their kind of thing?

Alyson 

There are different routes you could take in. You could definitely go, you know, start in the commercial sector and then bring those skills into the museum and cultural heritage sector and you might be looking for work with, you know, digital agencies who are working for those big organisations like. Gov.uk. There are also sort of experience design agencies that you could go and do work experience with. Some of the museum digital teams have, you know, improving practise. Some of the bigger nationals are really shifting their practise so you could go there, but I would say from that perspective starting out in the outside world and then coming in might be a good way. The other area, I suppose is research. We don’t do research for the sake of it. We’re doing research to be able to make decisions to make sort of data and evidence informed decisions, and so working with the research company who’s using research for design. There are a bunch of the people who do, for example, wayfinding. Wayfinding companies use a lot of human centred design processes because they have to map user flows in spaces and create signage and things like that so they’re a really interesting group of people to go and work with. I suppose there are also consultancy companies and I’m not talking about the big you know, Deloitte kind of companies, but there are strategy and consulting companies in the cultural sector. So people who are doing master planning. People who are doing strategy, they might be good teams to go and get some work experience with. They’re really interesting because they again work across lots of different organisations. They often work internationally. Lots of work, for example happening in the Middle East and in Europe and places like that, so again, that might be a really good place to kind of get that breadth of experience of the sector rather than plump for a museum in the early stages. 

Kate 

Yeah, that sounds really useful actually and basically get experience from a variety of places rather than just focusing on one thing, because the type of work that this is does require lots of different skills and knowledge about different areas. More info about the careers we’ve mentioned today and some of those resources I’m gonna add some relevant links to the episode description and a link to the full transcript of today’s show. Alison, thank you so much. That was really interesting. I think the work sounds fascinating. So thank you so much for sharing your insights and experience with us today. 

Alyson 

Not at all. I really hope that more people come into the sector, more people from a range of really different backgrounds. One of the things the sector really struggles with is people coming from perhaps working class backgrounds, people coming from, you know, different ethnicities with different abilities. So and really helping them get into the sector because I think that’s going to make us so much stronger and have so much more of a positive impact and one of the ways to do that is through all the amazing companies that support the sector with specialist skills rather than going into a museum itself. 

Kate 

Thank you for joining us this week on What do you actually do?
This episode was hosted by me, Kate Morris edited by Stephen Furlong and produced by both of us. If you love this podcast spread the word and follow us are. If you’re eager to get tips follow the University of York careers and placements on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. All useful links are in this episode description.

This has been produced at the University of York careers and placements. For more information, visit york.ac.uk/careers.