Ideating around the future of digital archives

Part 3 in my project documentation series The Future of Natural History Museum Digital Archives

I ran a brainstorm session at Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design with Jing Yu, Yuxi Liu, Chaeri Bong, Varenya Raj, and Aram Armstrong on the future of the digital archives of natural history museums. The session was split into two half hour sessions, each devoted to a variation on “how might we design a natural history museum digital archive that engages and inspired non-scientists”. Following the session I clustered the ideas to identify key themes and territories. What follows is my summary of the key idea territories from the brainstorm, with sample ideas highlighted in the images.

1. Make interconnectivity tangible

Making interconnectivity tangible means building digital worlds of inter species context around archive specimens. Ideas in this territory imagined building webs of meaning around archive specimens, and bringing their ecosystems to life in visual ways.

2. Make the evolution of species tangible

Making evolution tangible means turning complex adaptations into simple and engaging stories of change. Ideas in this category imagined storyful and visual journeys into the lineage of a particular specimen of a species.

3. Perspective Shift: Beyond the Human Point of View

Abandoning the human perspective is a creative and immerse strategy for engaging non-scientists in an archive experience. Ideas in this category imagined immersing users in simulated sounds and sights from a non-human species’ world.