Hello everyone! I hope you’re all enjoying a wonderful holiday week. Today, I want to share my journey of creating a digital component for a cultural heritage institution, an experience that fundamentally changed how I think about the intersection of technology, museums, and public engagement.
When I first learned about this challenge, I felt confident, perhaps overly so. The task seemed straightforward: develop a vision plan for a digital component at a museum. We weren’t even required to build the actual product, just envision it. As someone who loves museums and has spent countless hours wandering their halls, I thought I had this in the bag. How hard could it be to imagine something better?
Everything started smoothly. Our team selected a forest museum and quickly aligned on our vision: an app that would connect visitors with nature and Finland’s rich forest heritage. We answered the vision document questions with enthusiasm, crafting compelling statements about our project’s purpose and values. On paper, our concept looked beautiful.
But then came the pitch presentation. The feedback we received was invaluable, though humbling. It revealed a critical gap between envisioning something aspirational and planning something achievable. I learned that creating a successful digital component requires far more than good intentions and creative ideas. It demands rigorous practical planning grounded in technological reality and institutional constraints.
The questions came fast and exposed layers of complexity I hadn’t considered. What specific technology would power our app’s features? How would we locate individual trees in a dense forest where they stand in close proximity? What about user privacy when tracking location data? How do we collaborate with our imagined partners to ensure data collection? These questions first require solid knowledge of digital technology. As our team members are all beginners in digital tools, we are still learning as CHI fellows. But more importantly, I realized the technical knowledge gap pointed to a deeper issue: I hadn’t fully thought through the multiple audiences this project needed to serve.
On one hand, we needed to think deeply about end users, the museum visitors who would actually interact with our app. I initially believed we had considered their experience well by designing engaging features. However, feedback revealed significant blind spots. We hadn’t adequately addressed privacy concerns, accessibility needs, or diverse technical comfort levels. On the other hand, we needed to think about institutional stakeholders, specifically the museum as the party responsible for running the app. What would museum administrators consider when evaluating our proposal? Their practical concerns about funding, data management, technical maintenance, and alignment with institutional mission are not trivial. A digital component must fit within these realities.This realization illuminated why our pitch needed to be not just compelling but also credible and actionable. Museum decision-makers need clear answers about implementation, maintenance, costs, and outcomes. The art of the pitch lies in balancing inspiration with pragmatism, painting a compelling vision while demonstrating you’ve thought through the hard details.
This project also marked my first experience with coding tools like Visual Studio Code, GitHub Desktop, and version control systems. Learning these technologies while simultaneously trying to create a coherent digital vision added another layer of challenge, but it grounded my understanding in practical realities rather than abstract concepts.
Beyond technical and strategic challenges, this experience taught me about communication and teamwork. During our website-building phase, our team’s communication was not ideal. We worked somewhat independently without sufficient coordination. The result was a product that, while functional, lacked the coherence that comes from true collaboration. This matters enormously because digital heritage projects are inherently team efforts requiring designers, content specialists, technologists, and subject matter experts working in concert.
Overall, I’m grateful for this learning journey. The gap between vision and implementation isn’t a failure. It’s where real work begins, where ideas are tested and refined, where we learn what’s truly possible.
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