Use of Clay in the Dialogue with the Visually Impaired

Mariana Salgadomsalgado[at]uiah.fi

Anna Salmiasalmi[at]uiah.fi

ABSTRACT

The topic of this paper is the tools used for designing accessible solutions in the context of museum exhibitions. The paper focuses on the use of clay pieces during two participatory design workshops held in Ateneum Museum in 2005. In addition we explain how we use cards and affinity diagrams for analyzing the results. Based on the diagrams produced we describe some features that are relevant for visually impaired people in exhibitions.

The analysis of the clay pieces together with the participants’ oral interpretations is an exploration into visually impaired people’s perceptions in the context of museums. Emotions and space were the central topics that came up from this process of organizing the workshops and making sense of the material we collected. From this analysis we develop preliminary suggestions for planning future dialogues with visually impaired people in this particular context.

Keywords: museum, participatory design, visually impaired, tactile and visual materials, accessibility.

INTRODUCTIONAs part of our process in the design of an interactive tool for the visually impaired people’s community we posed some questions: how to engage with this community in order to understand their needs in the context of a museum visit? How to clarify questions about accessibility that deal with emotions?

In an attempt to look for these answers we organized two workshops during 2005 in Ateneum Art Museum, The Finnish National Art Gallery, in Helsinki. The workshops were based on Participatory Design methodologies. Researchers such as Hulcrantz and Ibrahim have been using workshops of this type in order to evaluate future concepts (Hulcrantz and Ibrahim 2002, 344-348). Our workshops were based on the model that Taxén proposed for introducing participatory design in museums (Taxén 2004, 204-213). Taxén describes methods for evaluating museum exhibits and for developing exhibition concepts.

Two workshops were organized as part of the research activities of the project Äänijälki.1This project consists of an interactive audio service for museums that allows the exchange of comments within present, past visitors and museum staff. These comments relate to the pieces in the exhibition and the navigation inside the museum. 1 Sound traces

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Äänijälki is an interactive audio service for museums that allows the exchange of comments within present, past visitors and museum staff. These comments relate to the pieces in the exhibition and the navigation inside the museum. “Äänijälki will be used for sharing hints about the experience of going to and being in an exhibition. The goal is to motivate visually impaired people to visit museums by providing a tool to get information about museum spaces and exhibitions, with their ‘comments.’ ” (Salgado and Kellokoski 2005, 10-17). It is now in a prototype stage.

Participants did not get to use the actual Äänijälki PDA application in the workshops. They were informed about the concept and basic functionality. In addition the workshops are an attempt to gather research material that can be useful for the project and to obtain inspirational ideas for making museums accessible for the visually impaired people’s community. The aim of the workshops is to enable us designers to create a thorough understanding of the users’, their opinions, emotions and the challenges that they face when visiting museums.

DESCRIPTION AND COMPARISON OF THE SITUATIONS

The workshops were planned in order to use the audio material produced in them as part of the content of Äänijälki. We have video and audio documentation of both workshops.

We organized these two workshops in different ways. In the case of the first one we sent a letter through a mailing list of visually impaired people advertising the workshop and invited the people we were in touch with. In the first workshop we had six persons, only one was a sighted person and she was the wife of one of the participants. Two of them knew each other well before and one of them was an acquaintance that by chance met the others in the workshop. Three were ladies that were around 70 years old and three were around 40 years old.

In the case of the second workshop we invited the people through Arla Institute, a vocational training and development centre, where we went to give an introduction about our project: Äänijälki. Seven participants were visually impaired and the rest were assistants or teachers. All of them participated in the workshop in equal terms. In this group there were people of different ages, from 16 to 50 years old, and from different backgrounds (For example: craft or masseurs students). In this workshop the total amount of people present in the workshop was 17: 12 persons came from Arla Institute, two persons were Ateneum Museum staff, one person was in charge of documenting and two researchers conducted the workshop.

The program of the two workshops varied for some parts. In the second one we added a tour in the museum and the whole workshop lasted one hour more than the first one.

CLAY PIECES

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The aim of the first task of the workshops was to shed light on the factors that for the visually impaired make up a good experience in the museum. In the first workshop the first hands-on task was to describe the features of an ideal future guide for museums. It could be a person, a dog or a device. In the second, the task was to describe features of a good exhibition. In both workshops clay was used as material for visualizing thoughts. We chose clay because it utilizes visual medium, essential in design, for conveying ideas and also because neither of us knows Braille. We also thought that the familiarity with the material and the connection of it to childhood memories could facilitate the task. Participants were asked to make a piece for each aspect they wanted to present. The pieces were placed in the middle of the table one by one, in the order of being finished. Participants modeled the clay and spoke about their ideas. After the participant explained the clay piece we asked some questions related to the issues that rose from the explanation. In many cases the question was how the person connects the piece with the topic of future exhibitions.

After this activity, we asked the participants to start dividing the pieces into groups. The task was, first, to classify the objects according to some commonality and then to give each group a title. We participated in the classification task as facilitators. Collaboratively with the participants we went through the pieces on the table one by one repeating the title and asking suggestions for grouping them. Together with the participants we formulated titles for each group. At the end of the task we confirmed that everyone agreed with the titles given. This activity was based on the technique of making an affinity diagram (Beyer, 1998). Most often such a diagram is put together on a wall using e.g. Post-It Notes. The aim of building the diagram is to organize individual notes into a hierarchical structure that reveals the common issues and themes in the subject that is being studied (Beyer 1998).

The clay pieces are unique small sculptures, made for the purpose of communicating participants’ ideas in the context of the workshop. They were a tool for stimulating discussion and an aid for remembering what was discussed. The tangibility of the pieces kept the meaning attached to them in a concrete shape.

ANALYSIS OF THE CLAY PIECES1- Cards“Pictorial montages show their seams, whereas the images produced by words fuse into unified wholes” (Arnheim 1969, 253). Based on this statement, we decided that our interpretation would focus on both the images and the oral descriptions that accompanied them in the situation. To isolate these two sides of the same coin from each other would have led to misinterpretations.

Figure 1. A card shows the title, a clay piece and the explanation.

In the process of analyzing the clay elements that the participants had made we created

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cards. Each card had a picture of the particular clay piece (digitally color-corrected), a title given by the participant who made the piece and a fragment of the oral information chosen and translated by the researchers. In this process of manipulating the cards some of the interpretations took shape. These cards were boundary objects for the analysis.

This process of converting the clay pieces into cards was time consuming but it facilitated meaningful discussion in our group and it helped to familiarize with the material. First there is the fact that the pieces lost their tangibility aspect the moment we started working with pictures and not any more with three-dimensional objects. Second the fact of choosing a small piece of text that describes the piece is arguable. Since some times it was not in this piece of description where meaningful hints appeared but in the discussion that follows. Also, in some cases other participants were adding features or comments to the piece and we chose to leave attached in the card only the comments made by the author of the piece. We know that all these decisions influenced this analysis.

We gave pseudonyms for the workshop participants. Participants described themselves, their intentions and their personalities through these pieces. For example, Hanna associated the small cat with love (Picture 2). For her it was important that the work of guiding was done with love, with an interest in the job and activity that was performed. The piece also showed the ability of the person to make a small, precise cat out of clay. Moreover, seeing the cat as a representation of love was a personal construction, not a straightforward connection.

Figure 2.”Cat”.

The picture above depicts one possible connection between clay pieces and the oral speech that accompanied them. There are a variety of relations that appear in these cards. A cube, for example, has a perceptual and cultural liaison with the semantic meaning of the cube. Everybody understands the cube as a simple form. Anniina put a cube on the stage, adding that for her the cube means clarity. Anniina chose one characteristic of the cube and associated it with the message she wanted to give. On the other hand, the card with the “Cat” shows a personal connection between the metaphor chosen and the explanation.

2-DiagramsWith the purpose of making an interpretation of the pieces, we did two diagrams that describe the results for each workshop. First of all, after the workshop, we made an affinity diagram using the cards with the aim of answering the question of what is a good guide like. Based on our diagram (Figure 3) we found some characteristics that visually impaired people found important: presentation skills, emotional or human features and awareness of the context in which the guide is immersed.

Figure 3. Diagram 1.

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The presentation skills are related to the fact that a guide “has to be clear”, manage the complexity and the shortages that an exhibition might have, and be able to explain one piece in connection with others. The guide has certain emotional characteristics as “love for the thing she is explaining”2, interestedness, humor, personality, presence in the moment and subconsciously connection with the theme. Another point was the notion that the guide has to be able to make connections between knowledge and experience.

The issues undertook in the workshop concerning the situation of being in a museum guided tour were the importance of the dialogue between the guide and the person, the flexibility of the guide in talking about different topics related to the exhibition, “even about technical description that someone could be interested in”. This flexibility is connected to the idea that the guide should not have a fixed speech but could change it according to the audience. Another point concerning the situation was that the conformation of the group of listeners shapes the visit, and therefore naïve questioning is either exhibited or inhibited.

There were other features that came out in the discussion, features specifically related to the exhibition. These were represented in some of the clay shapes as well. A guide could also address these problems although they were not direct characteristics of the guide herself. For the participants the artist’s presence in the exhibition and the connection between the artist and the piece were relevant issues. Moreover, the participants highlighted the importance of having some touchable elements that could be explored in an exhibition. Finally, they added that sometimes they have an unconscious assumption that they are not able to move, so they avoid going and even trying. For representing this idea Kalle, used the metaphor of the threshold.

In the case of the second workshop the first regrouping of cards produced a thematic diagram. In this diagram we identified four groups. We also found pieces out of the context of the workshop, or not addressing the question asked.

A) Accessibility issues were divided into two sub-groups: the kinesthetic accessibility (relating to moving around, including the body actions in the exhibition) and the sensory accessibility. In the sub-group that related to kinesthetic accessibility they proposed as features of a good exhibition: absence of obstacles, possibility of movement even with wheelchair, motivation for body movements as hanging, swinging and touching and clarity of the exhibition’s route. In the sub-group of sensory accessibility touch and smell were highlighted as important factors in the enjoyment of an exhibition. B) Atmosphere and emotions. They pointed out that the whole atmosphere in the exhibition influences emotions. They suggest that the ideal atmosphere for a museum is cozy. Other topics such as shame, security and having enough energy for visiting the whole museum arose in the discussion.C) Concrete ideas such as having an exhibition that includes moments of relaxation and 2 Note: The English quotations referring to participants’ speech of this paper are all our translations from Finnish.

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moments of extreme experiences. D) Positive experiences in other museums such as the Natural Science Museums and the Provincial museums.

Secondly we did another regrouping of the cards (Figure 9). This time we had the relationship between the clay pieces and the oral descriptions in mind. We separated the cards between sensory and arbitrary features. Ware defines these concepts in the following way: “The word sensory represents symbols and aspects of visualizations that derive their expressive power from their ability to use the perceptual processing power of the brain without learning. (…) On the other hand, arbitrary defines aspects of representation that must be learned, because the representations have no perceptual basis.” (Ware 2004, 10). One example of a sensory piece is “Cat” and an example of an arbitrary piece is “Talking heads”. (Figure 4)

Figure 4. “Talking Heads”

In the case of the cube, the relation between the piece and the oral description works smoothly. Moreover, there are other meanings implied, but not explicitly shown like simplicity and easiness.

Within these two groups we found that some of the pieces have a personal and innovative way of associating the oral description with the pieces. See the case of “Funny and with personality”. (Figure 5)

Figure 5. “Funny and with personality”

In contrast, in others there was a direct connection as in the “Right hand”. (Figure 6)

Figure 6. “Right Hand”

Moreover there were some cases where there was no literal relation between the metaphor chosen and the description. This is the case of the “Horn of Wealth”, a piece that has certainly cultural connotations.

Figure 7. Diagram 2.

There are other cases in which pieces and meanings attached to them were not so straightforward. Some of them are used as metaphors, as in the case of the “Brush and palette”. Jouko said that the piece represents “the presence of the artist” in the exhibition.

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In the case of the second workshop most of the clay pieces were sensory material and within this group there is a majority of metaphors used as a way to present their ideas.

DISCUSSION Participants found that they could make the pieces easily and could express their ideas through them. They told us that in some cases the pieces appeared first and then they tried to connect it with the idea they had.

Some of the participants opened themselves up, presenting emotions. We would seldom have imagined such issues as loneliness, shame, position in the society, religion and spiritual issues to come up in groups of people that have not necessarily met before.

Material encourages people to talk, and works as an inspiration for thought. We have still some open questions that we would like to explore in the future: How thought and physical activity interact in these cases? How emotions become visible through molding, or working with materials?

Clay as medium was a good choice because it gave enough flexibility and made it possible to pass pieces around. In this way all the group members could touch them, enabling sharing and understanding. Passing around the pieces was only applied in the second workshop. This generated a lot of small side conversations within the group, since the person passing the piece was explaining the piece to the person receiving it.

The atmosphere was quite different since in the first workshop the participants were more engaged into a common discussion. In the second one there were constant side conversations. This might be due to the amount of the participants and the workshop’s program and atmosphere.

Participants were concerned to leave a piece, and make a valuable contribution but were not committed to listen to the rest of the group. This caused that some objects were overlapping in their meaning. This means that eventually there were two different objects standing for the same meaning. Even some objects were repeated, such as the boats or the men. That resulted in two objects representing the same but standing for different things.

Something that was particular for the second workshop was that there were some clay pieces and comments that were not at all connected to the question. We constantly asked the participants how do they connect their piece to the museum exhibition, and in some cases we did not get a clear answer.

In the case of the second workshop we also felt that there was lot of interesting insights that could not be undertaken in depth because of lack of time. We perceived the second workshop group as too big and heterogeneous. The participants had different age, background, visual impairment degree and other disabilities. How did their identity define their participation? We think that we need a long-term engagement with this group in order to understand their needs not only as visually impaired persons but as people

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with their own background and identity. These two workshops were not enough but they gave us some hints of the kind of dialogue that we wanted to have with this particular community. In the future the axis of this dialogue will challenge the perception of emotion and space for the visually impaired.

We realize that the way we collect material affects the results we obtain. Thus, it is necessary to reflect on the approach used for collecting material. The tasks presented to the participants were well defined but open-ended. In this way people could express themselves ingeniously. The categorization of the clay pieces forms the basis of this analysis. The approach was chosen for both the collection of research material and for analyzing it. These diagrams served to clarify our interpretations and enabled us to present them in certain order. On this topic Bertin has the opinion that graphics make visible the notions of discussion, reasoning and understanding. (Bertin 2000/2001, 11).

The material gathered is inspirational material that will be used in the next face of Äänijälki, when we plan to implement it in Ateneum. These are also outcomes gathered for the later design of suitable and accessible interventions in other museum spaces.

AcknowledgementsThanks to Lily Diaz-Kommonen that is always helping and encouraging us in our work. We want to especially thank all the participants of the workshop and the staff of Ateneum. Thanks to Arla Institute. Thanks to M. Luhtala and T. Laine who were in charge of the video documentation during the workshops.

Bibliography1- Arnheim, R. (1969). Visual thinking. University of California Press, Berkeley,

U.S. p.253.

2- Bertin, J. “Matrix theory of graphics”. Information Design Journal 10 (1) 5-19. John Benjamins Publishing Company. (2000/2001), p.11.

3- Beyer, H. and Holtzblatt, K. Contextual Design, Defining Customer-Centered Systems.. Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, San Fransisco, USA. (1998), p. 154.

4- Hultcrantz, J. and Ibrahim, A. “Contextual Workshops:User Participation in the Evaluation of Future Concepts”. In Proc. PDC 02. Binder, T., Gregory, J. and Wagner, I. (EDS). Mälmö, Sweden, (2002), p.344-348.

5- Salgado, M. and Kellokoski, A. “Äänijälki, Opening Dialogues for Visually Impaired Inclusion in Museums”. In Proc. of the International Workshop: “Rethinking Technology for Museums: Towards a New understanding of the User”, Limerick, Ireland. (2005), p. 10-17.

6- Taxén, G. “Introducing Participatory Design in Museums”. In Proc. PDC 04. Toronto, Canada, (2004), p. 204-213

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7-Ware, C. Information Visualization. Perception for design. Second Edition, Morgan Kaufmann. San Francisco, USA, (2004), p.10

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