Issues

In my research I found several iterations of what seem to be commenly recognized problems/difficulties in the museum web development community.Two articles in particular took a broader look at thte field or museum web development and in each of these articles. Each of the articles stated problems in the field and each article's authors gave possible solutions to the problem.

Haley-Goldmans' article describes the emerging profession of museum web development. The direction of the field is still unknown, even since this article's publication in 2005. Haley-Goldmans indicate that the field is struggling to find its identity. The filed doesn't know if it is in the education domain, or the entertainment domain and it seems from other articles about museum web site users that the needs of these users are different from the needs of traditional museum users. Ultimately, the museum community's problem with understanding museum website users is cyclical. The museum web domain doesn't advance because the developers don't understand their users and users are understood by the museum web domain because as a domain it is still in its infancy.

While the Peacock Brownbill article also gave a sysnopis of the state of the field. Brownbill and Peacock examine the language used to describe users and how these terms affect the way museum professional approach and serve their users. These unnoticed biases effect so called "user centered design." The authors thought the mixed terminology is causing some confusion for the museum web site community and that esstially that the museum web site community doesn't know which master to serve.

They go on to say each term, 'audience', 'visitor', 'user', offers only a partial explanation of what users (in the most generic sense) of museum web sites are. Museum Web site users as 'audience' portrays a passive group, or a group people waiting, captive, to be entertained or enlightened. Where, museum Web site users as 'visitors' implies they visit for recreational purposes or educational purposes by their own volition. Finally, the senses of 'user' itself; museum Web site user as 'user' in the parlance of the usability engineering a user is an active agent with goal oriented tasks. While in the social sciences the user is a citizen targeted for educational or cultural improvement.