Presentation by Erin Branham, Manager of School Programs at The J. Paul Getty Museum for National Art Education Association National Convention 2015. This presentation describes the use of the Design Thinking process applied to developing solutions for creating an online docent manual for the Getty's numerous docent programs across two sites.
Designing Solutions for YOUR Docent Corps: Erin Branham NAEA 2015 presentation
1. Designing Solutions for
YOUR Docent Corps
NAEA Annual Convention
March 27,2015
Erin Branham, Manager of School Programs
2. Upcoming Programs at the J. Paul Getty Page#
2 Sites, 13 miles apart
3 Docent Programs at each site
Site, Gallery School, Gallery General Public – nearly 500 total
docents all with different audiences, and content with substantial
overlap, but by no means identical
No history of using volunteer gallery teachers so no training materials
Getty Center
Getty Villa
3.
4. 1. EMPATHIZE: We asked the docents – what do you need?
A. The list is too long to share here…
2. DEFINE: We asked ourselves for which of their problems could we
develop solutions?
A. Training materials
3. IDEATE: We identified an existing tool that wasn’t working for its
original purpose.
A. The wiki
4. PROTOTYPE
6. 5. TEST: We chose a test group of docents to use the
wiki, and then…
1. EMPATHIZE:
2. DEFINE: Which problems can we solve?
3. IDEATE: Develop solutions
4. PROTOTYPE:
8. Now on Fifth Iteration, with “EMPATHIZE” done through training sessions
and comments written within the wiki as well as an upcoming Survey
Monkey to inform Sixth Iteration
New features: gallery profiles,
table of contents, embedded videos,
improved sidebar
9. The wiki is a perpetual Work-in-Progress.
Now using Design Thinking Process to inform our
development of a training curriculum and evaluation
procedure.
1. EMPATHIZE: Ask the docents
2. DEFINE: What can we solve?
3. IDEATE: Develop solutions
4. PROTOTYPE: Create curriculum
and evaluation rubric
5. TEST: Present and debrief
among staff and then.. Start again!
1. EMPATHIZE: Ask the docents.
Notes de l'éditeur
Every museum docent corps has a unique structure and a unique set of problems it needs to solve. What are the best strategies for developing and implementing change across a docent corps?
At the Getty, we identified that the Design Thinking technique closely fit our traditional way of problem-solving through an iterative process. In Design Thinking you begin by EMPATHIZING – asking open ended questions of your audience, in this case, docents. You then DEFINE problems and choose one to solve. The IDEATE phase is non-critical brainstorming in which people can constantly add ideas, using the YES! And… model. Next you build a PROTOTYPE, an inexpensive model of your final product. Then you TEST the prototype with your audience, taking in feedback. Use that feedback to fashion questions for your next EMPATHIZE round, and continue through the cycle as many times as necessary to create your final product. Design Thinking helped us define the steps of our iterative process and assisted us in not missing vital aspects of it, such as a round of EMPATHY in each cycle.
Of course, when we asked docents “What do you need?” we received more problems to solve than we could ever hope to! So we went through the answers and picked a problem to solve – we needed better training materials to assist docents with research for their tours. Since the Getty had used professional gallery teachers up until 4 years ago, we had not developed the kind of training materials volunteers needed. We then went through the IDEATE phase and identified a tool created for another purpose that could be adapted to provide up-to-date, online training materials – a wiki. We then built a prototype.
Our first prototype was very straightforward and not very pretty. It communicated but did not invite exploration.
We chose one division of our 6 docents programs to test the wiki, the school group docents at the Getty Villa. We then went through another round of EMPATHY, gathering feedback via a SurveyMonkey. Again, numerous issues were identified and we created a list of which ones we could solve, developed solutions and produced a second prototype.
The second prototype was more icon-based, more inviting and better organized. We used feedback to flesh out areas of content, and to add more visual information.
We are now on the 5th iteration of the wiki, which has features such as embedded videos, better organization via tables of contents and gallery profiles, as well as an improved sidebar which points docents to rich research resources on the web.
The wiki is near its mature stage, but will go through 1-2 more iterations, including a major revision of its information architecture. Then we will periodically revisit its structure to keep it up to date.
The Design Thinking model was so successful that we are now using it to revamp our training curriculum and evaluation process for tour quality. It’s structure is perfect for implementing change with docents because it has a space for feedback and input from them on every cycle, and it lets them test each change before it is implemented in its final form. These aspects help to empower docents while providing steps for staff to make key decisions.
