VisitorBox

An Ideation Toolkit for Cultural Visiting

Institutional goals

Create design brief

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In this round, the team looks back at the results of rounds 1 and 2, then takes elements of these forward in the form of a design brief. The design brief will be used in rounds 4-5 to check that they’re coming up with appropriate/feasible ideas.

Cards used

Stages

  1. Choose a Goal to design for (from the top 3 identified in round 2)
  2. Choose an Asset that can be used to achieve the goal (from those identified in round 1, or a new one if necessary)
  3. Choose an Audience that can be involved to achieve the goal (from those identified in round 1, or a new one if necessary)
  4. Add characteristics to the audience
    1. Shuffle the Motivations cards, work through one-by-one, and retain the top 2 motivations for that audience to visit the museum
    2. Shuffle the Barriers cards, work through one-by-one, and retain the top 2 barriers preventing that audience from visiting the museum
    3. Shuffle the Capabilities cards, work through one-by-one, and keep those representing the audience’s technical capabilities
      1. Mark capabilities that the audience could teach others
    4. Shuffle the Devices cards, work through one-by-one, and keep those devices that audience has access to
      1. Mark devices that audience brings to the museum
  5. That’s the brief (i.e. the constraints for the design)
Example of a complete design brief, including a key audience with plenty of technical capabilities and devices

Next stage

Define institutional goals

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In this round, the team works out what goals they’re hoping to achieve by coming up with a new visitor experience. From this point forward the cards are more detailed, but the team should still annotate them when necessary to make them more specific/relevant.

Preparation

Before playing this stage each member of the team could prepare by noting down what goals they believe their organisation is trying to achieve by engaging visitors. Allow some time (e.g. a working week) for the team to find any relevant evidence needed to formulate these, and reflect on them, before bringing them to the workshop.

The team should also identify and bring any parts of their institution’s recent strategy documents that identify visitor/audience engagement aims, goals or outcomes.

Cards used

  • Goals

Stages

  1. Lay all Goals cards out
  2. Each team member should check that there is at least one Goal card that reflects the notes they made before the workshop; if not, feel free to add a new custom card to the table
  3. Give each team member 3 tokens
  4. Each team member uses the tokens to vote for the priority of the goals (they might put 3 on one goal, 2 on one and 1 on another, or 1 token on three different goals; the choice is theirs)
  5. Count the votes and – subject to discussion – keep the top 3 goals
  6. Discuss any unresolved action notes and assess whether to progress to the next stage or repeat this stage
An example of the worksheet after votes have been counted and the top three goals have been identified

Possible actions

Throughout this stage, consider the following stumbling blocks and complete an action note if necessary:

  • Do we disagree about what our goals are?
  • Can we say how we would measure success against each of our 3 top goals?
  • Do our 3 top goals contradict our strategy documents?
  • What goals did we not choose? Would any of these be a priority for other members of our institution?

Useful actions to resolve these might be:

  • Investigate ways of measuring/benchmarking your goals and determine whether these would be useful and appropriate methods for you
  • Consider whether new members with more experience of strategic development should be added to the team
  • Share your top 3 goals within your institution and determine whether alternative points of view may affect your choices

Next stage