Interview Tom Tits 20 sept 2014

Interview Tom Tits 20 sept 2014 afternoon top floor (experiments of the human body)

Intervjuade: Mamma och Pappa till 2årig son samt ett spädbarn

START

Q: Är det första gången ni är på Tom Tits?

F: Ja jag tror det. Kommer inte ihåg om jag har varit här när jag varit liten?

Q: vad vill ni få ut av vistelsen?

F: få bort så mycket energi som möjligt

Q: har ni använt någon teknik? Det finns en app Det finns lite reklam här och där.

F: Nej inte hunnit med

Q: Finns det teknik som skulle kunna vara till fördel

F: Ja det tror jag. Ja sen när man kommer med äldre barn kanske. Det är lite svårt med en två åring som tycker något är roligt för en halv sekund och sen springer han till nästa grej.

Q: Ja då kommer vi från en teknisk utbildning.

F: men då skall ni prata med min man istället han har varit här flera gånger.

Q: Vi Gör ett arbete som handlar om det skulle kunna finnas någon teknik som skulle kunna underlätta under besöket. Som vi har varit inne på ja det finns en app. Har du sett att det finns en app? Med information om experimenten och så.

M: Vadå för Tom Tits eller? Nej jag har inte sett det.

Q: hur kan man få ut informationen?

F: gör det lite tidigare vid ingången. Inte när man kommer in för då ser man inte var ungarna tar vägen.

Q: Man vill ju kanske kunna förklara för sina barn vad som händer med mer kött på benen.

F: Ja speciellt med de där vätskorna och sånt där Där skulle man ju vilja ha lite mer om hur det fungerar och så.

M: det är du som använder det där med appar (till kvinnan)

Q: Vad skulle du vilja ha för att lära dig och få mer kött på benen? Kanske någon liten skärm?

M: Något sånt, jag läser ju de små lapparna som finns bredvid. Det spelar ingen roll för mig.

K: men det finns ju inte så många lappar.

Q: Ja det finns ju inte så mycket information i lokalen och inte så mycket personal.

K: vi tänkte på den där spaceball. Där det står det fråga personalen. Och där står man och då borde det finnas någon personal här uppe iallafall eller ska man åka ner till ettan och receptionen?

Q: Det är sjukt roliga experiment. Och alla föräldrar är lika aktiva som barnen.

K: Ja, verkligen Vi sa det att om 4-5 år kanske vi åker tillbaka hit

Q: då kanske vi har den där tekniska lösningen som är lite mer.

K: Ja då behöver vi inte vara med. Då har de säkert sina egna Iphones och gå runt med säkert.

Q: det var en som tycket att det var en bra blandning han hade en femårig dotter som tyckte om såpbubblorna och han tyckte om illusionerna. Det finns något för alla.

K: Ja verkligen det är det som är kul här. Av det lilla jag hinner se.

Q: barnen kan springa runt fritt det. Man har bra överblick iallafall och det är lugnt

K: Jag tycker de borde ha en bebis avdelning. För det är ändå 0-2 år som går in gratis. En förälder i barnhörnan. Det behövs inte så mycket. Han (2 åringen) tyckte de där uppe som man sätter ihop var intressant för honom.

Q: Det finns något för alla.

Q: Tack då har vi fått lite generell feedback.

SLUT

Short summary

During my interview I got told that the parents thought it was hard to use any kind of personal device to get information because they had to keep track of their children. To get information about the experiments they used the short texts that were beside them, but they said that they missed short texts at many experiments. Furthermore they said that they wanted to be involved in the experiments with their kids and that they wanted to be able to explain to them. They also told me that Tom Tits had something for everyone! Finally they had not used the app and even if they have had the time they wanted to get the information about the app earlier preferably before their visit.

Interactive screens – State of the art analysis

UPDATED!

Currently Tom Tits don’t use many screens at their exhibits and during my visits there I can’t recall any interactive screens at all only a small number of TV monitors. During the last years they have developed a mobile phone app, something that our visit showed haven’t got the result they wished, we only saw a few persons using it. Maybe they should consider interactive screens.

With screens they can present their information in a more exciting way. They can present it while the visitors are interacting with, and exploring the software of the screens. A good example of successful, or at least interesting, can be seen at an art museum in Cleveland. They have made a solution where you can make the same pose as famous artwork and draw a line and then it find your drawn line in an existing artwork. I think they have an interesting application where they make the visitor interact with the art works.

I think interactive screens can offer a great way to encourage kids and younger persons to visit and enjoy a museum visit and still add an extra dimension to middle-aged persons. Another thing that is an opportunity for customization is the ability to offer customized texts and languages for different visitors.

However the screens can offer an interesting solution for museums they have some problems. First of all screens are at the moment expensive. Especially big ones and when going down in price and size we might not get the wanted result. Another thing I have noticed on the ones I have tried is that they often “steal” attention from the exhibits and actually themselves becomes an enjoyment for the visitors. In my opinion we should try to make the screens to an aid during a visit at a museum. Furthermore the solutions I have had the pleasure to try have not been able to use by many people at the same time, instead it most have been one person – on screen. After a short research I have found that there are screens that have solved this problem through multi-touch and a big sized screen. Finally I would like to point out that even if the target group is big it might be difficult for older people to use the service. I have own experience of trying to teach my grandmother using a touch device and she struggle with touching small “button” and even not touch other things.

At Tom Tits they don’t have any problem with encourage their visitors to interact in the exhibitions. But they might take benefits of it in a more educational way. Today they have some short texts next to the experiments something that isn’t very attractive for kids. Width interactive screens they will be able to present it in a way which makes it more interesting for kids. I think the museum in Cleveland have made something great when they have incorporate body movements into educational purposes. I believe something similar could improve the visitor experience at Tom Tits.

State-Of-The-Art Group Analysis

‘Tom Tits Exp’ App

In conclusion it can be said that the app provides helpful information, is nicely illustrated and easy to use. Unfortunately it only aims for swedish speaking parents and isn’t used by as many people as we guess they’d hoped. Furthermore the usage without mobile internet is limited to orientation with the maps as extensive descriptions are only online available. This makes the app less enjoyable since you are dependent of the Internet. 

Some of the experiments that we found difficult to understand had no information text and where neither presented in the app. On this point we felt that the app failed as it could be a good complementary on the lacking information text.

Interactive screens

Interactive screens offer a new way for people to get to know the exhibitions at the same time as they are active. Especially it offers younger persons and kids, who are used to touch input systems, a funnier way to get information. However it can be hard for elderly people to use the benefits from it due to their inexperience of similar systems such as touchscreens on mobile phones. We also think it is important to develop a system where the screens don’t steal to much attention form the real exhibition. Instead it should be used as an aid to improve the overall experience. At Tom Tits we believe that they can use the benefits from screens or even make it to an exhibition of its own.

Website 

It’s a very good website where you can read about the experiments on the different floors, so that when you go there know what to expect. It doesn’t show all the experiments and the explanations of each experiment are very short. 

We think it´s very good of Tom Tits to show what they offer so that parents and other people with children can get an idea of what to expect and see if it is something for them. Therefore the website is more for those who think one step ahead or haven’t been there before. Since our study focused on when you are already there and how to get information and explanations we tried to visit the website by my phone and got disappointed. It didn’t adapt to the screen so it was hard to read and navigate. So if we wanted to know something about an experiment and didn't get satisfied with the information signs we would rather use their app.

Exercise 2 - Isabella Richiello

Interview with father visiting with his 7-year-old daughter

Interviewer=Bold text

Father=Normal text

Du är här med dina barn?

Ja, ett barn.

Hur gammal är hon?

Pappa: Hur gammal är du Tyra?

Dotter: Fem år, snart sex faktiskt.

Pappa: Det är första gången som Tyra är här, jag har varit här ganska ofta.

Vi har olika dragningskrafter, vi har alltså inte exakt samma intressen.

Vad har ni för olika intressen?

Hon vill vara mer där nere. Hon vill vara nere i läskiga mörka rummet, dit jag inte vågar gå in i. Men det är mycket intryck för en femåring, hon ville fika direkt.

Hur kommer det sig att du kommer tillbaka till Tom Tits?

Jag tycker att det här är jätte spännande och det är väldigt utvecklande för barnen, jag själv jobbar ju i skolan så det hänger ganska mycket på det. Sen har man ju kul själv. Jag var med när de byggde det här, var med hela vägen och utvecklade. Då var det bara våningen där nere när man kommer in och bara det tyckte man vara helt fantastiskt.

Känner ni att det är bra att ni får vara delaktiga och hjälpa till?

Ja, allt som är interaktivt är roligt och spännande.

Vill ni låta barnen förstå själva?

Jo, jag får jobba på att inte lägga mig i så mycket. Hon är lite liten för vissa grejer.

Finns det tillräckligt med information här på plats om hon har någon fråga kring något eller är de viktigare att hon försöker?

Det är viktigare att hon försöker, hon är inte intresserad av förklaringar än så länge märker jag. Sen har jag ju äldre barn som är det men nej.

Vad har du tyckt vart roligast idag Tyra?

Såpbubbleshow.

Känner du till appen som finns?

Nej, har inte lagt märke till den.

Vi förklarar appen…

Det är jättebra att man kan läsa på en gång. För det saknar jag, det finns ju en bok eller guide men vissa grejer förstår man inte riktigt hur man ska göra. Och det skulle vara jättebra med en app då.

Att ha mobilen framme skulle alltså vara helt ok och inte störa?

Nej.

Någon tanke kring något du saknar här?

Jag saknar min mamma.

I thought that this interview was interesting since it gave a perspective of that parents do have fun while going around with their kids. He tells us that his daughter mostly wanted to spend time on the first level. Tom Tits first level is full of try it yourself experiments meanwhile for example you find the illustration section on level three. He says that he thinks this is because of her young age and careless thoughts of understanding; the touching and trying is more fun than the actual understanding part of what and why it’s happening. I think this is something useful for us during this project since most of the visitors were around his daughter age, which I noticed while observing other. Reasons he comes back are partly because he also enjoys the museums experiments and likes to try them himself. This makes me more convinced of keeping our target group as parents with children. One of the things we wanted to investigate was if parents maybe rather sit down and relax while their children play. But in this interview and others the parent is glad to be a part of trying out and seeing experiments along side their child. It’s also encouraging knowing that he says that the idea of implementing technology to the museum is a positive thing.

                                                                                                                                                               

State-of-the-art analysis

Tom Tits has a mobile application called Tom Tits Exp. In this app you can find information about the museum and its experiments. The target group for the app is everybody that has a smart phone or tablet with preferably access to Internet.

There are three tab pages; Info, Karta and Experiment.

In the first tab, Info, you find information such as opening hours, ticket prices, location and a short text about the application in divided blocks. For more information than the short one given you have to click on the link beneath each block which connects you to their website. I feel this is something unnecessary since the app should be able to provide all the simple information without constraining the user to visit the website. For example in the block opening hours, “Öppettider”, the actual opening hours are not mentioned. The information you find is that they are open all year round, they have extended opening hours during holidays and you can find cafes, store and restaurant there. As a user I would find this irritating as the blocks name, “Öppettider”, promises me to find a specific information only to realize that I have to connect to the website to get that information I wanted. It ruins the purpose of the app since you still are dependent of the website.

The next tab is map, “Karta”, where you find a map of Tom Tits. All the four levels and the outside park are included which is a positive thing. The buttons for switching from one level to another are at the bottom of the screen and very small. You can zoom in on the map and move around easily.  All the rooms have a small bubble you can click on to see its name. Some are only seen as you zoom in on a room. Also only some of those bubbles are links that lead to further information about the room. They show a short explanation of the room, and the user has a button to share it on e.g. Facebook. I feel that idea of giving the user a possibility to share a location on Facebook is smart but poorly implemented on this app. It’s hard to find it and easily missed since it’s only on two of the bubbles on the map.

The last tab is a list on the experiments on Tom Tits. The text information is small and hard to read on a small screen. Information about what it is and how to use it is mixed and the user is not given the opportunity to sort out text. Some users with small children only care about how to make it work and not about its background. It also takes time to type in the name of the experiment and search for it.

The first thing we noticed when trying the app is that all the experiments are not listed. There was a father with his young daughter during our visit that was actually using the Tom Tits Exp app, he tried the app for the first time on an experiment that had no explanation sign. While observing him we noticed he couldn’t find the experiments explanation on the app. We encountered this man at the end of our visit and asked how his experience with the app had been through out his visit. He told us that he actually gave up after not being able to find the first experiment. This is a good example for showing that trust from a user is easily lost when technology doesn’t live up to a their expectations.

The app should be helpful when you can’t turn to other things as information signs or staff, and this app fails on that point.

Some ideas to make the explanations easier are to make them more visual than written. A simple thing as a .gif could help the user understand how an experiment works.

While interviewing parents we also noticed that many of them didn’t even notice or know there is an app available. The information about the app could be more displayed for the visitors, especially on the website so they have time to navigate around before the visit.

Exercise 2 - Matilda Carlson

Interview:

Have you been here before?

Yes

For how long time ago?

For a year ago I think

With your family then?

Yes exactly, with my son over here

How old is he?

He is ten

Ten? Okey. How come you chose to come here? What is it that you’re after?

Because it’s fun and there is a lot to experiment and try things. Also a lot about the human body, which I find very interesting

Great. Do you feel like you have the tools to explain to him what is happening or is there something you....

Yeah, most of the time. On most of the experiments.

.. But you feel like maybe you would like to have some more information on a few places..?

Yeah, a few places would need some more information. It isn’t that much.

A little more background and so?

Yes exactly

Have you used the app that some people...

No

There is some information about it...

Yeah I saw that now so we will go home and check it out

*Hehehe*

Yeah because we have talked to other people and they now that it exists but they haven’t downloaded it. But there is a lot of information that is missing on the stations. Do you feel like, if that kind of solution had been on every station, if that would have been better?

Yeah I think so, it’s probably more fun to don’t have to fiddle (with your phone) and being able to explain a little bit more.
...
It feels like many explanations has disappeared with the years, would be nice to have some more to be able to explain for the kids.

State-of-the-arts analysis for the Mobile application:

Tom Tits has a well developed application for your mobile phone. It contains a lot of information and instructions about most of the experiments, a map over the museum, some general information like prices, opening hours etc. It has a nice illustration and the navigation is really easy to understand. Over all it’s really good.

What we realized when we visited Tom tits was that even though the application had a lot of information that many of the visitors were missing, not a lot of them used the application. When we asked them why in the interviews the most common answers were that they didn’t know about it or that they just didn’t bother to download it.

In my opinion the application contains a lot of information that is needed to get out the most of the visit of this museum, therefor it’s such a shame that it doesn’t reach the visitors. One important thing about the application is also that it only exist in swedish, which means that tourists visiting the museum don’t have a chance to get the information at all. The fact that not all the experiments is in there is also a problem in my opinion, since the signs that is available on (almost) every station is very short and doesn’t explain too much. The impression I got from visiting Tom Tits and interviewing the parents was that they wanted to learn from doing, so it  should be important to have this information easily accessible. The fact that it’s a mobile application also requires that you have a smartphone and access to internet since Tom Tits doesn’t have a public Wifi. So, in my opinion, there is a lot of flaws with the application.

Exercise 2 - Sebastian Münzner

Field studies: Interview

My original interview was held in german. As I assume that not everybody who wants to read the interview speaks german, I translated it for you.

Original interview

Interviewer (I): Oh, Deutsche, haben Sie Zeit und Lust an einem Interview teilzunehmen?
Vater (V) & Tochter (T): Ja.
I: Ich studiere an der KTH und dort haben wir ein Projekt, dass sie mit der Entwicklung einer App befasst, um ihr Erlebnis hier in Tomtits zu verbessern. Wie ich sehe, ist Ihre Tochter schon erwachsen, dann überspringe ich die Frage nach dem Alter der Kinder mal. Sind Sie zum ersten Mal hier?
V: Ja.
T: Schon öfters.
I: Was gefällt es Ihnen hier?
V: Es gibt viele interessante Experimente. Aus sehr vielen unterschiedlichen Bereichen.
I: Vermissen Sie etwas hier?
V: Erklärungen zu den Experimenten. Schau, hier ist nur ein Schild mit den Namen und das war es.
T: Am Eingang haben sie uns das hier [eine Art Buch] mit Erläuterungen gegeben. Das ist aber komplett auf Schwedisch.
V: Und äußerst knapp.
I: Glauben Sie Eltern sind überfordert mit dem Erklären der Phänomene?
V: Ich nicht, aber ich bin auch Physiklehrer. Ich denke, dass ohne zusätzliche Hinweise es den Eltern schwer fällt Sachverhalte zu erklären.
   Beispielsweise in diesem Experiment wirkt die Corioliskraft. Das hat damit zu tun...
T: Papa, ich glaube, das war nicht Teil der Frage. (lacht)
I: Hier rennen viele Kinder herum, sogar ohne die Eltern. Lernen diese hier etwas?
V: Nein. Die rennen von einem zum nächsten Punkt und sehen nicht mal, was zu beobachten gibt.
   Hier [Experiment einer mit Wasser gefüllten Schüssel] heben es die Kinder an und stellen es ab. Sie sehen nicht besonderes und rennen weiter.
   Drehen hier [Experiment mit Drehkopf und Wasserstrahlen von innen nach außen und außen nach innen] einmal und weg sind sie.
   Da können sie nicht lernen.
I: Sie die Experimente zu komplex?
V: Unten sind Motoren ausgestellt. Mit Antriebswelle und so weiter.
Das können sie noch nicht verstehen, man müsste alle Teile einzeln erklären. Das ist für Ältere geeignet.
T: Hier oben hat es auch simplere Sachen. Da können die Kinder schon die Effekte sehen, wenn sie wollen.
I: Wäre es für die Eltern hilfreich eine App zur Hand zu haben, die sie mit Informationen zum Experiment unterstützt?
V: Ja, das könnte ich mir vorstellen. Wobei es einen Unterschied macht, wie alt die Kinder sind. Meiner Tochter kann ich mit physikalischen Begriffe Dinge erklären,
   während Kleinkinder weitaus einfachere Sprache brauchen.
T: Ich habe gesehen, dass es schon eine App gibt und sie heruntergeladen.
Leider ist sie komplett auf schwedisch und die Erklärungen sind sogar noch kürzer als in dem Heft.
V: Es reicht nicht Erklärungen zu nicht gestellten Fragen zu bringen. Es muss die Motivation zum Beobachten gefördert werden. Das ist hier der entscheidende Punkt.
I: Die Motivation zum Beobachten, das wollen wir ändern. Vielen Dank für das Gespräch.

Translated interview:

Interviewer (I): Oh, germans, do you have time to participate in an interview?
Father (F) and daughter (D): Yes!
I: I am studying at th KTH and we have a project, whose result will be an app, which improves your experience at TomTits. As I can see your daughter is already an adult, we'll skip the question after the age of your daughter. Is this your first time here?
F: Yes.
D: Once in a while.
I: What do you like at this place?
F: There are many interesting experiments. Related to many different topics.
I: Are you missing something here?
F: Descriptions to the experiments. Look, here you only find a sign with the name and that's all.
D: At the entrance they gave me this [some kind of book of TomTits] with commentaries. But it is completly in Swedish.
F: And really short.
I: Do you think parents are overstrained by explaining those phenomeons?
F: I am not, but I am teaching physics. I guess without addional notes it is an hard task for parents to explain these phenomeons. For instance at this experiment Coriolis force can be observed. It is as...
D: Dad, I guess, this is not part of the question. (laughs)
I: There are many children running around, even without parents. Will they learn anything here?
F: No. They are running from one point to the next one and don't even have a look, what can be observed.
Here [experiment with a bowle filled with water] they lift it and put it back. They don't notice anything special and continue running. There [experiment with turning head and jets of water from inside to outside and from outside to inside] they turn once and digress. On that way it is impossible to learn anything.
I: Are the experiments too complex?
F: Down in the hall you find engines. With motor shaft and so on...
They are still not able to comprehend that. You have to excerpt part for part and explain them on their own. That suits better to grown-ups.
D: On this floor there are some simpler ones. There small children are also able to observe effects if they want to.
I: Would it be helpful for parents, if they can use an app providing them with information to certain experiments?
F: Yes, I can imagine that. Whereat the children's age makes a big difference. I can explain things to my daughter by using physical definitions, while smaller children require a much easier language.
D: I have seen that there already exists an app and have downloaded it. Unfortunately it is completly in swedish and the explainations even shorter than in the book.
F: It is not enough to deliver explainations to questions, which have not been asked. You need to stimulate the motivation to observe. That is the important clue in this case.
I: This motivation to observe phenomenons we want to raise. Thank you for the interview.

The observations of this father and his daughter are very similar to the observations I have made myself.
In conclusion there are three main points.
First of all the need to stimulate children to care about what is observable at each experiment.
Second there is potential for improvement in informing parents and supporting learning with information about observable effects, keywords for explanation and so on.
Third point is that an differentiation in age is of great importance.
I have been at Tomtits on wednesday and there have only been nine families. I have tried to interview all of these.
Two denied the participation in the interview, one was unable to speak english.
Four mothers have been there with children too young to do experiments and just for fun.
Therefore in my eyes there is no need for any kind of app for children under 4.
One family consists of a mother with her fifteen year old daughter and her nine old son. In her eyes this place opens children the eyes for phenomeons in nature.
She let her kids run around and don't see any potential for improvement.

State-of-the-art analysis: TomTits-App

Tomtits provides an app, which offers three categories: generell information as well as maps and descriptions to experiments.
Generell information contains four boxes, one for each: ticket prices, hours of opening, drive map and who is responsible for this app.
Under every box is an link to their web page for further information. This results in the need for an internet connection.
If visitors knew about this app in advance, they could use their wifi at home or more convinient they head straight to the webpage using a device with a bigger screen.
The next category is called "Karta" and offers for each floor a nice illustrated map. Special areas are highlighted by different colours.
Instinctively you try to change maps by sliding, which is not possible. Instead you have to select the name of the map.
By chance it turned out it is possible to zoom in maps. It is the same two-finger motion as you use usually at photos, though no hint is given that this feature is built in.
The detailed map shows each experiment and links to their description in the last category "Experiment".
There you can find all experiments by number or name. Besides the floor is stated, where the experiment is build up.
Selecting an experiment provides you with a short description of it. Furthermore a link to their webpage is given, where an extensive explanation is found.
This requires you to have mobile internet.
The app has some downsides. First of all maps and extensive descriptions need much space on the screen. Probably using a tablet will improve user experience.
As already mentioned in the interview the whole app as well as the webpage is completly in swedish.
This makes it besides orientation useless for foreigners and addionally makes it impossible for me to judge the content.
The target group consists of swedish speaking parents with smart phones or tablets.
In the interviews it turned out that many parents get to know about this app the first time at Tomtits and then in most of the cases are not interested in spending their time to learn of the possibilities the app provides.
On the other hand it is hard for Tomtits let parents know about it earlier since nearly every interviewee stated that they have not prepared themselves in advance.

In conclusion it can be said that app the provides helpful information, is nicely illustrated and easy to use. Unfortunately it only aims for swedish speaking parents.
Furthermore the usage without mobile internet is limited to orientation with the maps as extensive descriptions are only online available.