Action Stations: Embedding digital in the physical – What did we learn?

Richella King, ANMM, Australia

Abstract

Keywords: digital interactives, project management, learnings

1. Introduction

The Australian National Maritime Museum (ANMM) launched a new immersive navy experience, “Action Stations,” in November 2015. It combines a magic-realist interpretation of the submarine HMAS Onslow, an update of the on-board experience for the destroyer HMAS Vampire, digital and physical interactives, and an eight-minute widescreen immersive cinema experience. The new experience was designed to engender the feeling of being on board a warship during an operation.

The non-vessel aspects of the experience take place within a new $12 million light-filled building that provides vessel on-boarding and a Discovery and Exploration space that allows visitors to explore the history of the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) and investigate the techniques used to identify and examine significant RAN wrecks. After hours, the Discovery and Exploration space is transformed into a commercial venue.

2. Background

The ANMM is home to one of the largest water-bound heritage fleets in the world and provides visitor access to four key vessels: the replica of James Cook’s ship HMB Endeavour that “discovered” Australia in 1770, the destroyer HMAS Vampire, the submarine HMAS Onslow, and the patrol boat HMAS Advance.

Internal visitor research consistently rates climbing on board the museum’s vessels as the museum’s unique selling point and visitors’ favourite activity. However, research also found that the quality of visitors’ experiences on the vessels was swayed by the quality of the tour provided by the volunteer guides. The tour was either a major highlight or a detraction. In addition, access to the two larger navy vessels (Onslow and Vampire) was via a shipping container that had been installed for the Sydney Olympics in 2000 to provide temporary gangways.

These three factors combined with the centenary of the Royal Australian Navy in 2013, the centenary of ANZAC (Australian and New Zealand Army Corps) in 2014, and a political focus on National Defence to make a capital investment that highlighted the crucial role of the RAN, an attractive proposition to key stakeholders.

The result was the agreement to build a multimodal building that provided five key functions:

• Physical access to the vessels
• A discover and exploration space
• An outdoor projection facility
• A venue space
• Facilities including pram parking, lockers, and toilets

The Action Stations experience was designed to reposition the museum as an interactive experience, provide visitors with a reason to revisit, and as a result sell an additional fifty thousand tickets per year.

Figure 1: exterior of Action Stations

3. Vision

The vision of Action Stations was to put crews back on the ships and provide intellectual and emotional ancillary information.

Furthermore, there was clear direction from the assistant director of Public Engagement and Research and the director to avoid a didactic approach and deliver a product that went beyond visitor expectations. Research into the primary motivations of cultural consumers (Mencarelli et al., 2009) and the characteristics of successful blockbuster exhibitions (Rentschler et al., 2014) identified a combination of distinctive competencies—being authentic, immersive, and spectacular—that would be key to exceeding visitor expectations.

4. Challenges

The project had to contend with a number of challenges posed by external factors such as the physical environment and internal factors such as staff and budget constraints.

Physical challenges

• The complexity of the project: Creation of a new visitor experience reinterpreting three navy vessels the museum has owned for nearly twenty years, and integrating them with a Discovery and Exploration space that was to be constructed at the same time. To add to the constraints, the new building was on a wharf—constraining the shape, construction materials, and methods—and had to provide continuous access to two vessels, the Onslow and Vampire. This meant there was no way to isolate the interior of the space from the exterior marine environment. In addition, the whole experience is tidal, with a drop of around 1.5 metres a day.
• The multimodal nature of the building added complexity, particularly the dual-venue/Discovery and Exploration space, which needed to facilitate visitor flow to the vessels when in museum mode and allow formation of social huddles and facilitate speeches when in venue mode. In addition, the displays would need to be either easily packed away (and easy to install) or replaceable and easy to clean.
• The main Discovery and Exploration space is light filled, open to the marine environment, and not air conditioned, which on a Sydney summer day means temperatures of 40 degrees are not uncommon. This is uncomfortable for some visitors and plays havoc with the digital displays on the Microsoft Surface tablets.
• The heavy armour of the navy vessels blocks wireless communications technologies. Installing Wi-Fi and Bluetooth throughout the vessels would be expensive and require regular maintenance.
• A large part of the experience is outdoors and/or on the harbour. This adds health and safety issues with the potential for visitors to trip and fall into the water, or more likely drop a handheld device overboard. Sydney averages seven hours of bright sunlight per day, making mobile phone screens invisible outdoors during peak visitor hours.
• Occasional transient power outages (brownouts) occur each time a visiting vessel moors at the wharf and plugs into the museum’s power outlet. This happens around twenty times per year at irregularly spaced intervals.

Stakeholder issues

• The museum has around five hundred volunteers who regularly guide visitors around the navy vessels. Many are ex-service personnel who have served on the vessels or their sisters. Getting them on board with the project and engaged from the outset was important.
• The vessels were decommissioned in living memory, so the Royal Australian Navy has a strong emotional and intellectual interest in them. Many stories the museum had wanted to tell were “classified,” so details of combatants and adversaries needed to be obscured. Additionally, many cultural stories that would provide fascinating insights into life on board were considered too sensitive, as the navy has a reputation to protect.

Organisation issues

The project presented a number of organisational challenges, particularly:

1. The scale: The museum was not set up for delivering a project whose cost was equivalent to a third its annual revenue.
2. The museum had a new director, and its precinct, Darling Harbour, was undergoing extensive demolition. As a result, the museum was under pressure to maintain “business as usual” in the two years preceding the opening of Action Stations.
3. The curatorial team: The museum’s navy curator had retired just before the project commenced.
4. The digital team was very small and comprised two digital curators who worked on both Action Stations and developing the museum’s social media, website, and Flickr Commons content; a part-time Web administrator; and a part-time head of digital. We lacked a digital producer, developer, or rich media producer.
5. Interpretation team: The creative producer and head of design and interpretation were new roles for the museum, so their skills, capabilities, and behaviours were an unknown to most of the museum staff.

Internal communication

A museum, and particularly a project as ambitious as Action Stations, brings together a broad range of participants from a diverse range of backgrounds. This brings with it a number of communication challenges:

• Words are interpreted differently by professionals from different backgrounds. For example, the word “design” caused multiple issues because the distinction between “concept” and “final detailed design” was not always appreciated. This had some unexpected results. For example, the large tables in the Discovery and Exploration space look the same as the concept design. However, the maintenance corridor in the centre was designed to accommodate a technician but is barely wide enough for a three-year-old.
• Assumed knowledge, particularly around the steps needed to produce the different exhibition elements. Working back from the open date with detailed explanations around process would have pushed key decisions to be made much earlier and may have allowed time for prototyping and testing.
• Lines of reporting do not always reflect lines of communication.
• Hierarchical decision making structure—via three coordination groups and project steering committees—meant decisions were conveyed second or third hand, sometimes losing valuable nuance in the process.

These four factors created ambiguity for the production team around key elements of the project and cost valuable time.

Project management

The museum is fortunate to have an experienced project management office. However, there were still some issues with project management.

• The project management team’s experience was primarily in managing construction—not design—projects
• For the first year of the project, the project management team was focussed on the design and construction of the building but was not involved in the production of the experience. As a result, the experience team “drifted” for the first year without delivering key milestones.
• The museum’s procurement processes favoured a waterfall project management methodology in which the desired outcome was detailed and costed explicitly before the project went to tender. As result, opportunities to collaborate with specialist suppliers to innovate new products were often lost and the proposed costs exceeded the expected budget.

Time frame

The time frame for Action Stations was extremely tight. The project commenced in May 2013 and the building, vessel interpretation and exhibition needed to be open before the end of 2015. The completed building was delivered in mid-/late October 2015, vessels were moved into position, the on-board experiences were finalised, the access ramps were installed, and the Discovery and Exhibition space bumped-in in the ten days prior to opening on November 10.

Budget

The budget was very tight: $12 million was allocated for the design and construction of the building, and $1.5 million for the entire experience.

5. Approach

From the outset, there was a desire from the director to create something different. Something audience led. Something experiential that would tap into Howard Gardner’s seven distinct intelligences (Gardner, 1991, cited in Lane, 2009). This desire suggested a multisensory and multimedia approach where visitor experience was paramount. The challenge would be to combine the experiential approach whilst remaining authentic, and producing material that would be of value to visitors and sensitive to the needs of the volunteers and Royal Australian Navy. The result was the decision to take a design- (not curatorial-) led approach.

Team and resourcing

Resourcing constraints meant the initial team developing the experience was small: comprising a full-time creative producer and two part-time digital curators. Their challenge was immense, and they approached it by auditing the museum’s navy assets, establishing a content advisory group, interviewing ex-service personnel, and establishing contacts with other naval historical organisations (e.g., the Sea Power Centre) and external creatives (e.g., James Humberstone from Sydney Conservatorium of Music and script writer Mike Jones).

The Storyworld Bible

Mike Jones led a series of four writer-room workshops with the experience team and three professionals from storytelling industries: Multiplatform Media Producer Ester Harding; Illustrator, Production Designer, and Director Alan Chen; and Film, Theatre, and Digital producer Mel Flanagan. Penny Edwell, one of the digital curators wrote after the workshops that:

Mike helped us visualise our research into a more structured narrative and guided us through the development of a new process for creating multiplatform exhibitions… We came out the other end with a document, a museum version of something known in TV circles as a ‘Storyworld Bible’ [which] … outlines in detail the world our visitors will step into the moment they enter [Action Stations] – physically or virtually – and sets up a concept from which we can generate multiple, connected experiences… It defines what we want people to feel when they visit this ‘exhibition,’ and what we want them to get out of it… In short, our Storyworld Bible is the ‘vibe of the thing.’ (Edwell, 2014)

Figure 2: one of Alan Chen’s illustrations from the Storyworld Bible

The Storyworld Bible separated the experience into four acts: prologue, the submarine, the destroyer, and the patrol boat. At a top level, it defined four meta-themes: Life in the Navy, Intersection of Humans and Machines, Danger, and The Sea.

Life in the Navy

• One hundred years of service in the Royal Australian Navy
• Family and domestic
• Competitiveness
• Discipline and hierarchy
• Changing sociopolitical landscape

Intersection of Humans and Machines

• Technology and communications
• Operational interdependence
• Sensors
• Weapon systems

Danger

• Known and unknown
• Isolation
• Risk
• Paranoia

The Sea

• A sailor’s relationship to the sea is a significant part of his or her experience.
• It is the environment in which these vessels operate.
• The sea permeates all the themes below. It is a source of both danger and wonder, and of isolation, and it creates the need for specialised technology.

6. Deadlines looming

Transforming the Bible into a multisensory integrated platform experience was proving to be a paradigm shift too far. However, key elements of the experience were crystallising, particularly the need for:

• A prologue to set the scene and emotionally engage visitors
• An overall “design” of the experience that would include visual identity and wayfinding and provide a coherent look and feel of its many facets
• Each vessel to have its own atmospherics
• A narrative-led experience to connect the four acts

With twelve months until opening, time was running out. A project coordination group comprising the heads of disciplines was established to help the experience team pull in resources and expertise from across the museum. Around that time, there were significant changes to key personnel: the original digital curators left and were replaced with an Action Stations curator with a strong background in visual design and image curation, three project managers were assigned to manage each different act of the experience, and a copy writer joined the team part-time.

Learning outcomes

The Generic Learning Outcome model (GLO), developed by the Arts Council, England (n.d.), was used to provide a framework for understanding desired visitor responses and assessing ideas. These along with the Storyworld Bible provided the basis of the request for tender documents that were the starting point for the development of the interpretation mix.

7. The interpretation mix over time

Throughout the project, the interpretation mix changed regularly as new ideas, research, and resourcing issues came to the fore.

Table 1: the interpretation mix

8. What worked well

Reinventing the approach to audience experience

Taking a design-led, instead of traditional curatorial, approach worked well. Visitors were put at the heart of the experience and their needs—from being emotionally engaged in the history of the RAN, to having a seat to rest and admire the view—were at the forefront of all decision making.

Getting the building and all elements of the experience delivered on time and as planned was an achievement. The end result exceeded expectations. with visitors spending between thirty minutes to an hour and many wishing they had another thirty minutes. In the initial survey, 82 percent of visitors thought it good value for money, and 90 percent said they would recommend it to someone else.

Storyworld Bible

The Bible was an invaluable tool. It communicated rapidly to the three main creative suppliers the “vibe of the thing” and helped shape its visual identity. Alan Chen’s sketches provided the groundwork for the graffiti on the side of the building. The initial meta-themes were transmuted into eighteen sub-themes, such as stealth and identity, that resonate throughout the four acts of the experience.

Figure 3: screenshot from the Mission & Strategy digital interactive; the illustration style was directly inspired by the Storyworld Bible

The creative producer

Having a creative producer to create, shape, and own the vision was fantastic. Giving him the time and resources to explore alternatives and empowering him to work with interesting people, such as James Humberstone, worked well and allowed different elements to come into play.

The interpretation mix

The philosophy for the interpretation mix was that 20 percent of visitors will love any one element, 20 percent will hate the same element, and 60 percent will be ambivalent.

Anecdotal evidence bears this out. For example, James Humberstone’s composition using objects within the Gun Bay to create an atmospheric soundscape audio is my favourite element, but it is hated by almost all of the volunteer guides. Conversely, the exploded torpedo suspended above the large table barely registers with me but is particularly popular with Asian visitors, who use it as a photo opportunity.

Figure 4: showing the large table with the torpedo suspended above it

Despite the new interpretation, the vessels remain the most popular elements, with visitors spending the lion’s share of their time on them.

Table 2: results of observational studies showing how visitors spent their time in Action Stations

The prologue film

The specially scripted film used actors to put the crews back on the vessels and provide a glimpse into daily life during the Cold War. The film had a dual role in providing context to Action Stations and heightening visitors’ emotions. It consistently rates highly with visitors, though some would like more connection between the film and the rest of the experience.

Figure 5: the prologue film

The modular tables

The Discovery and Exploration space within the main building is dominated by two large tables, on which are placed a mixture of objects, props, labels, and twenty-one digital interactives. The tables work well because:

• It is (relatively) easy to rearrange content along them. This has been particularly pertinent with the Information Communication Technology (ICT) hardware failures.
• The mixture of physical, digital, and written content provides visitors with different ways of exploring the stories.
• The digital interactives on the table were popular whilst they were working.

Observational analysis of visitors shows that most spend between five and ten minutes at the tables. This is possibly because of the intense heat over the summer and because some of the digital interactives were not working due to technical difficulties.

Figure 6: observational analysis of visitors’ movements in the Discovery and Exploration space

The ability to move content around the tables was invaluable as hardware issues that caused the digital interactives to die became apparent.

Virtual reality periscope

An Oculus Rift embedded within a bespoke periscope housing is used to simulate a stealth mission. A gaming engine is used to produce real-time waves, and as visitors rotate the periscope images and descriptors of vessels, sea planes and marine animals appear at random within the field of view. It is the most popular digital interactive, particularly with children, and was voted the third most popular element in the Discovery and Exploration space, after the torpedo and the table as a whole.

Figure 7: periscope with Oculus Rift virtual reality headset embedded in the view finder

On-vessel interpretation

The premise behind Vampire’s interpretation mix was a series of artistic installations that would evoke memories of space rather than provide a literal interpretation. Not all of the forty rooms that are open to the public have been interpreted due to concerns this would overwhelm some visitors. The installations range from atmospheric soundscapes to projections of home above the bunds in the gun room to a model of the harbour bridge made out of soft drink cans and matchboxes.

Figure 8: model of the Harbour Bridge made out of soft drink cans and match boxes

Onslow’s interpretation was restricted by the confines of the submarine (it’s long and thin), the need to keep visitors moving, and health and safety requirements that restrict visitor numbers to fifty. The premise is a game of stealth whose clues only appear if visitors are quiet enough. Emotions are engaged through the atmospheric lighting and soundscape. The game is great, but only 18 percent of visitors to the submarine could work out how to play it, so it needs to be made more intuitive.

Working with the digital agency

By the time the museum came to tender for the digital products, the process had morphed: we detailed the desired visitor outcomes and explicitly requested to work collaboratively with the successful supplier—detailing the skills, capabilities, and time of staff, as well as the assets and total budget available to deliver the project. The successful agency was the only tenderer that both could commit to both delivering all the desired visitor outcomes within budget and showed potential to “make them magic.” The magic was possible because they planned to reuse existing assets (code and 3D models) for two-thirds of the digital products. For example, for a previous client they had a rendered 3D model of the World War I submarine AE2—a key element in the RAN and maritime archaeology stories. The 3D model provided the basis for a digital interactive exploring the AE2 wreck.

Work was collaborative and intense with a short ideation phase followed by a long iterative prototyping phase as each digital product moved toward user acceptance testing and completion. This was managed by three producers: one from the museum and two from the agency, with one focused on code and the other on design and user experience. Communications were honest, open, and two-way. A twenty-one-sheet Google Docs spreadsheet allowed all stakeholders to discuss issues with each digital product in (almost) real time. This was complemented by a weekly, two-hour-long work in progress (WIP) meeting where design and prototype changes were reviewed and tested by the joint team. The result was twenty-one digital products that far exceeded expectation.

Prototypes and testing

Prototypes and testing were also key to the success of many of the physical elements of the project. For example, plywood prototypes of the two large tables were set up in the loading dock for three months prior to bump-in. The experience team used them to map the physical and digital elements of the themes in three-dimensional space and decide which props, objects, and digital interactives fitted best where—bearing in mind both their content and physical shape. As a result, only two elements needed to be switched after bump-in—due to light levels making the digital interactive’s screen too hard to read—something that could not have been predicted in the loading dock.

Figure 9: plywood prototype of the large table with prototype content

Unfortunately, there was insufficient time to prototype the more intimate interfaces between the digital and physical elements. This caused issues down the track with the interactives running on Microsoft Surface tablets and the virtual reality periscope.

Project management

Project management of the building’s design and construction was on time and to budget. During the production of the experience, the project managers kept a close eye on costs and the timeline and provided guidance and assistance with procurement.

Content advisory group

The content advisory group filled the gap left by the departure of the museum’s navy curator. They provided advice and content and agreed which version of the “facts” to run with. They also provided vital links with the key navy stakeholders, which facilitated things like providing the museum with contact details of ex-servicemen who would be willing to be interviewed on video.

Copy writer

Having a professional copy writer to work across the physical and digital products ensured a consistent narrative and tone of voice and facilitated the translation of all content into simplified Chinese for Mandarin speakers.

Chinese translations

Interpretation throughout Action Stations is in both English and simplified Chinese—unusual for Australia and a first for the Australian National Maritime Museum. Incorporating the need for dual language at the start of the project meant all elements were designed to be bilingual. The museum’s bilingual front-of-house manager and two bilingual volunteer guides proofed the translations to ensure they were up to museum standards. For example, they identified that the “heads”—the nautical term for toilets—had been translated literally and made appropriate corrections to the text before it was laid out and printed.

9. What we’d do differently next time

Project management

• Use a clearly defined design process (define, research, ideate, prototype, choose, implement, and learn)
• Open up the visioning process to staff across the museum—to both generate ideas and gain buy-in
• More tightly define the objectives
• Assign a project manager at the start of the experience project and have them work throughout
• Have greater clarity around roles and responsibilities—particularly for ideation and milestone delivery
• Change procurement process to work more collaboratively with third-party suppliers
• Use an agile framework instead of waterfall approach, with a minimum-viable-product approach and increased testing time on the physical–digital integration
• Improve communication between the different teams working on the project; for example, by creating and running a living document that encapsulated all elements of the experience and how and why they were changing
• Move the decision making forward to give more time for prototyping and testing

The museum’s executive team recognised that the experience part of the project needs more work and accept that it is “currently in beta.” Budget has been allocated to address the issues raised by the audience research.

Staffing

• Involve staff earlier, especially in the define, research, and ideation phases outlined above
• Set up the project control group at the beginning
• Hire a digital producer for the entire life cycle of the project to manage the production of the digital products
• A specialist navy curator who would take ownership of the large volume of navy assets and provide the definitive view of the “facts” would have sped up the content creation process significantly

ICT

The physical environment in the Exploration and Discovery space is punishing. Of the twenty-one digital products for the space, there were issues with seven of the twelve that ran on Microsoft Surface tablets and the Oculus Rift virtual reality periscope.

Microsoft Surface tablets

• The Microsoft Surface tablets worked well for the first two weeks but died one by one over the subsequent six. After the first two died, we began suspect an issue with the custom housings. Further investigations revealed that the housings had insufficient ventilation and were over-stimulating the touch-sensitive screens. The housings had already been back to the manufacturer prior to install, as insufficient space had been left in the gutter to accommodate the connections and wiring. Further research revealed the Surfaces were prone to performance issues at temperatures over 35 degrees. In addition they could not be controlled remotely, which had impacts on battery life and also made rebooting after brownouts an issue. We decided to replace them with Hewlett Packard mini PCs and 19-inch screens that we could schedule remotely using Medialon, an off-the-shelf scheduling software.

Virtual reality periscope

The periscope had some initial teething problems. First, the prototype allowed for a full 360-degree virtual reality experience; however, when placed inside the periscope housing, the view was limited to 180 degrees. Second, there were technical issues. The width and length of the HDMI cables connecting the Oculus to the Brix that powered it had insufficient bandwidth to run the experience. In addition, the fitting to hold the Brix held it in an orientation that left it prone to overheating. The periscope was removed from the table for five weeks whilst the technical issues were identified and rectified.

10. What we learned about merging physical and digital

• Engage a digital specialist who could devote time especially in the crucial definition, ideation, and prototyping stages at the beginning of the project. They would also be able to manage the project from a production perspective and provide a knowledgeable conduit between the museum and the digital agency tasked with the production.
• Communication between digital, ICT, and physical team is crucial. Without this information, essential details such as the frequency of brownouts would have been missed. Closer communication between the physical and ICT team would have prevented small details, such as the space allowed for cables and sockets in the custom Surface housings, to have been specified, correctly saving time and avoiding expensive rebuilds.
• ICT systems need to be well ventilated and able to be shut down and scheduled remotely using off-the-shelf software.
• Allocate time to test products in situ to avoid surprises.
• Avoid bespoke solutions where possible, especially housings for screens or tablets and the custom periscope.

11. Next steps

Action Stations is a museum experience that’s still in beta. Extensive testing over the summer has identified key areas that will be addressed over the next few months to improve the visitor experience.

• Emphasise the narrative that connects the prologue film to the rest of the experience by adding stills and audio from the film to the on-board experience
• Replace the Microsoft Surface tablets with schedulable Hewlett Packard mini PCs and 19-inch screens
• Augment the experience for target audiences by providing themed trails
• Increase uptake of the Onslow mission game by making play more intuitive

References

Arts Council, England. (n.d.). Generic Learning Outcomes. Available http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/what-we-do/supporting-museums/ilfa/measuring-outcomes/generic-learning-outcomes/

Edwell, P. (2014). “Warships, storyworlds and the story so far.” Australian National Maritime Museum blog. Available https://anmm.wordpress.com/2014/03/14/warships-storyworlds-and-the-story-so-far/

Jones, M. (2014). “Writers-Rooms, Storyworlds and Museum Narratives.” Blog post. Available http://www.mikejones.tv/journal/2014/2/10/writers-rooms-storyworlds-and-museum-narratives.html

Kelly, L. (2015). “Visitors, apps, post-visit experiences … and a re-think of digital engagement Part 2.” Museums & the Digital. Available
Visitors, apps, post-visit experiences … and a re-think of digital engagement Part 2

Lane, C. (2009). “Multiple intelligences” In The Distance Learning Technology Resource Guide, by Carla Lane. Available
http://www.tecweb.org/styles/gardner.html

Mencarelli, R., S. Marteaux, & M. Pulh. (2010). “Museums, consumers, and on-site experiences.” Marketing Intelligence & Planning 28(3): 330–348.

Rentschler, R., K. Bridson, & J. Evans. (2014). “Exhibitions as sub-brands: an exploratory study.” Arts, Marketing: An International Journal 4(1/2): 45–66. Available http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/AM-07-2014-0023