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References

Dawson, D. (n.d.). User Evaluation: Sharing Expertise To Build Shared. In Museums and the Web 2007 Proceedings. Retrieved November 31, 2007, from http://www.archimuse.com Web site: http://www.archimuse.com/mw2004/papers/dawson/dawson.html

Annotation:This article takes a broader perspective on museums as part of a cultural-sector. The describes the research conducted on the cultural sector in more detail and proposes a way of evaluating cultural projects which in the purview of my project would be informing the way the museum web sites are evaluated.This article was found in going through another paper the Haley-Goldman article. It seemed interesting and so I added it to my reading though it did not directly influence the writing in my project.

Griffiths, J.-M., King, D. W., & Aerni, S. E. (2007, March 31). The Use, Usefulness and Value of Museums in the U.S. In Museums and the Web 2007 Proceedings. Retrieved October 31, 2007, from http://www.archimuse.com Web site: http://www.archimuse.com/mw2007/papers/griffiths/griffiths.html

Annotation:This article presents a preliminary analysis of museum usage according to an Institute of Museum and Library Services funded study called the "Uses and Potential Uses of Online Information." The article was useful because it provides empirical survey statistics about the percentage of American adults visit museums in-person or remotely. The survey results also conveyed important details about both the visitors, and their visits. This kind of information is key in order to execute a user centered Web site design. This authority of this article is limited because the survey result this article is based on is ten years old. Therefore the conclusions are made with qualification due to the age of the data. The information in this article is relevant to museum professionals and those interested in the museum industry. The study involved six thousand interviews. A percentage of American adults who visited a museum in the last twelve months were inferred from the response from five thousand three hundred and three telephone interviews. This group of interviews was designed to reveal the total number of museum users and the types of museums they visited, and the modality of their visit either on-line or in-person. A sub-group of the five-thousand telephone interviews was targeted to reveal the details museum usage. These one-thousand and thirty-eight interviews included questions regarding the reason for museum visits, the outcome of the museum visit, the rating of the experience and the perceived value of museums. Griffins makes the following conclusions from the survey, museums are used by a majority of American adult. At the time of the study there were one billion visits museums within twelve months. The study revealed that people visits museums for a variety of reasons.

Haley-Goldman, M., & Haley-Goldman, K. (2005, March 31). Whither the Web: Prfessionalism and Practices form the Changing Museum. In Museums and the Web 2005 Proceedings. Retrieved November 2, 2007, from http://www.archimuse.com Web site: http://www.archimuse.com/mw2005/papers/haleyGoldman/haleyGoldman.html

Annotation:The direction and future trends of the field were still unknown at the time of this articles publication. The article was useful because its authors stated an observation that I hadn't thought of regarding the problems with museum web sites. The limitation of this article is that it is becoming out-of-date since being first delivered to the Museums and the Web 2005 conference. The authors of this article are prominent and reliable source on the development of this field. They have also written an interesting article on mobile technologies and presented a paper at the 2007 conference. The Haley-Goldmans offered ideas about how to coordinate the information gathered about museum website users. Note this article was not empirically based.

Harms, I., & Schweibenz, W. (n.d.). Evaluating the Usability of a Museum Web Site. In Museums and the Web 2001 Proceedings. Retrieved November 2, 2007, from http://www.archimuse.com Web site: http://www.archimuse.com/mw2001/papers/schweibenz/schweibenz.html

Annotation:The paper presents a study of evaluation methods employed by museum web sites. They hoped to evaluate the usability engineering for the web and specifically evaluate the Saarland museum in aims of improving the institution's web site.

Haynes, J., & Zambonini, D. (2007, March 31). Why Are The Doing That!? How Users Internact With Museum Web sites. In Museums and the Web 2007 Proceedings. Retrieved October 31, 2007, from http://www.archimuse.com Web site: http://www.archimuse.com/mw2007/papers/haynes/haynes.html

Annotation:The intended audience for this article is the museum community and specifically museum web professionals. This article was useful in two ways. One, the article did a good job explaining the power of web analytics. Two, the data collected from five museum web sites paint a picture (however limited) of users that I have not seen elsewhere in the literature and this picture was helpful in itself. The limitation of the article is a product of its focused content. This article depicts one way of understanding users. Web analytics is not the only way people in the museum field attempt to understand users of museum web sites. My only criticism is that though the article seems reliable it does not take into account the existing literature in the field.

Madden, M. (2004, December 5). Artists, Musicians and the Internet. In PEW Internet & American Life Project. Retrieved October 31, 2007, from http://www.pewinternet.org Web site: http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_Artists.Musicians_Report.pdf

Annotation:The article was helpful in answering a specific question, if museum web site users are not mostly musicians, can I confirm this finding somewhere else? I did not directly confirm this detail but I did find that the majority of those surveyed did not go to museum web sites to find inspiration, and of those who did go to a museum for inspiration they reported going primarily to physical museums not their web sites.

Mitroff, D., & Alcorn, K. (2007, March 31). Do you Know Who You Users Are? The Role of Research In Redesigning sfmoma.org. In Museums and the Web 2007 Proceedings. Retrieved October 31, 2007, from http://www.archimuse.com Web site: http://www.archimuse.com/mw2007/papers/mitroff/mitroff.html

Annotation:Mitroff's article is about the process the Modern Art Museum of San Francisco (SFMOMA) took to re-design their web site. The author stated that the SFMOMA partnered with a user centered design firm and that they employed a variety of user centered design and research tools. The methods are considered best practices in the UCD community. The paper took the reader through the process of the re-design and shared the lessons learned from the user research conducted by SFMOMA.

Peacock, D., & Brownbill, J. (2007, March 31). Audiences, Visitors, Users: Reconceptualising Users of Museum On-line Content and Services. In Museums and the Web 2007 Proceedings. Retrieved October 31, 2007, from http://www.archimuse.com Web site: http://www.archimuse.com/mw2007/papers/peacock/peacock.html

Annotation:This is a somewhat philosophical article where the authors consider the ways in which the museum web site user is conceptualized and the implicit implications of such conceptualizations. The writing team present the different conceptions of museum web site users and explore how those competing conceptions are detrimental and cause frustration within the museum web development community, while the competing conceptions go un-noticed with the terms audience, user and visitor employed often interchangeably. Note this article was not empirically based.

Techniques for creating User Centered Design. (n.d.). Retrieved November 22, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org Web site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Techniques_for_creating_a_User_Centered_Design

Annotation:This web site helped me understand more about the principals and best practices of usability and informed me on specific techniques used to create user centered design.

Tognazzini, B. (n.d.). Ask Tog. Retrieved November 22, 2007, from http://www.nngroup.com/index.html Web site: http://www.asktog.com/

Annotation: This web site helped me understand more about the Norman Neilson group and understand more about usability in general.

User Centered Design. (n.d.). Retrieved November 22, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org Web site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User-centered_design

Annotation: This web site helped me understand more about the principals and best practices of usability.

Web Analytics. (n.d.).Retrieved November 22, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org Web site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_analytics

Annotation: This web site helped me understand some details about web analytics, but I did not find much information about click data which was what I was looking for when I visited this page.