About The Museum

The Petrie is one of London's smallest museums. Nestled within UCL, small but perfectly formed, it contains a fascinating array of ancient Egyptian artefacts. It also held one of my all-time favourite events last year - Sci-Fi and Ancient Egypt. I think it's the only time I've wandered round a museum reading about the inspiration for StarGate while listening to The Pyramids of Mars play in the background. Let's just say, I'm predisposed to love this museum.

When I heard about their Digital Technology Open Day, I couldn't resist going along to see what they'd done with QR codes.

The iPad

As you enter the museum, there's an interactive display powered by an iPad. From chatting to the staff, I understand that for the duration of this trial there's just the one iPad - which is fixed to a stand. The larger Grant Museum apparently has several dotted around it.

The iPad allows a user without a smartphone to leave messages about an artefact. They can also read more about it than would normally be contained on a label. Finally, there's a QR code to scan in to see more.

Here's a video of me playing with the iPad. Sadly, the network connection wasn't working - so I wasn't able to demo all the features.

With a bit more interactivity - some videos perhaps - it could be great. Using FaceTime to see messages people had left about the artefact could be a really innovative use of the technology.

The QRator Codes

The QRator Codes are liberally scattered around the museum. They're located by specific objects and have a little picture on them if you are unsure as to which object they relate. As I've previously discussed, the codes can be scanned by a normal phone - but they take you to a non-mobile site. However, scanning with the iPhone or Android app gives a much better mobile experience.

The emphasis is definitely on getting people to share their experiences of the object. But it's also a good way to get some extra information about an object.

Occasionally, the only information is a link to an external website.

WordPress QR Codes

As well as the the QRator codes - there are a second set of codes within the museum. These point to the museum's guest curator's blogs. What a great experience! Using WordPress they've produced a mobile-friendly site which can be accessed with any phone.

Screenshot of the website

(Minor) Criticisms

Overall, the Petrie Museum and Tales of Things have made a pretty good use of QR codes. I would like to venture half a dozen suggestions for minor improvements.

Glare

The bane of any QR code is lighting glare - making it hard for visitors to scan the codes. Laminating the page, or placing the code behind glass adds to the problem. It might be worth printing on matt paper and keeping the codes outside the glass.

Size of URL

The Tales of Things codes are nice and compact. The WordPress codes are rather larger. In terms of scanability, it's worth using a shorter URL. Either through using a service like Bit.ly or with a WordPress plugin.

Radio Coverage

The problem with anything requiring Internet access is... well... you need Internet coverage. Vodafone just about managed to supply an EDGE signal, but it was none too speedy. All the more reason for mobile formatted services. I didn't check for the presence of free WiFi - and I didn't see any signs that there was any available.

App

I found the app a little unresponsive at times. That may have been due to poor network coverage. The UI didn't change as I rotated my phone, which was a minor annoyance - it also didn't remember the tags I had scanned throughout the day. So, now I'm back home, I've no way of going back over what I've seen. On a more serious note, quitting the app left my GPS scanning and draining my battery - for some reason the app wants to know the user's location. I was a little underwhelmed with the iPad. I didn't see anything that couldn't have been done by a regular touchscreen running a browser. There is a certain "cool factor" which no doubt attracts funding - and as commodity hardware, it may well be cheaper than a bespoke system. To me, it felt a little under used. This is a trial and, no doubt, it will get more features in time.

Language

All the information is in English. Talking to the staff, the Petrie Museum do have some articles in Arabic, but they're not part of this trial.

Overall

It's really encouraging to see trials like this taking place in British museums. I am really impressed with what the staff at the Petrie Museum have achieved - many cases had a QR code on or near them. The WordPress blogs are a great way to get people engaged with the people behind the museum. WordPress is ideally suited to this - quick and cheap to deploy, mobile friendly, and easy to use. The Tales of Things is a great concept. There's obviously a lot of potential in getting people talking and tweeting about the objects they discover. But I feel it's slightly limited at the moment with its Android and iPhone restriction.

I look forward to seeing the results of the trials. It looks like 2011 is going to be a big year for QR codes.

Now it looks like sticking QR codes onto museum exhibits is the next big thing!

QRpedia is the venture I'm involved it, but I've recently become aware of Edinburgh Museum's Tales of Things project and the QRator project of UCL.

Now, obviously, I'm biased towards QRpedia - but I wanted to jot down some quick thoughts on where I think QRator and Tales of Things may be going wrong.

Firstly, I'm enormously impressed with the scope of both projects. I don't mean to denigrate them - I just want to point out how they could be made better.

Tales of Things

ToT has several deeply cool aspects. The ability to watch video and the ability to contribute UGC are two of the highlights. But it does, to my mind, have three serious deficiencies.

Firstly, it requires a proprietary app which only works on Android or iPhone. Got a BlackBerry, Nokia, or Windows Phone? Tough!

The app itself is fairly well thought out - but it's nothing which couldn't be done on a mobile website.

Which leads me on to the second flaw. What if you can't install the app? Scanning the code with any other phone leads the visitor to a non-mobile site! To make matters worse, the video is presented in Flash which means it's inaccessible to most phones and will be hard to stream unless you've got excellent mobile coverage.

Although there is a mobile internet signal in the gallery, it may be best to download and install the code reader before you visit the museum.

Tales of a Changing Nation Website

Finally, although they want people to comment on the exhibits, there's a rather strong barrier to entry.

You'll also need to register a username and password at www.talesofthings.com in order to submit your comments and memories.

Tales of a Changing Nation Website

Which means, I guess, either do it at home or find a free computer somewhere in the museum. Would it really have been so hard to create a mobile friendly sign up process?

QRator

I'll be popping off to the Petrie Museum this weekend to play with their QR code installation. I'm not sure how or if it's tied in to Tales of Things - they're often mentioned together. One thing that strikes me is that it seems to revolves around having iPads located around the museum.

Buying a huge number of iPads feels like it's an expensive extravagance. Yes, it shows off the exhibit nicely - but is it any better or cheaper than the touchscreen displays museums have had for years? Is there a risk that the iPads might go "wandering off". Can the codes be scanned by normal phones?

All questions I hope to answer tomorrow!

QRpedia

Of course, it's unfair of me to criticise QRator and Tales of Thing without subjecting QRpedia to the same treatment. QRpedia has a number of deficiencies which we hope to address after our initial trials.

• No social media integration. There's currently no way to "like" an object on Facebook or share it on Twitter.
• No video or sound. The Wikipedia page for The Beatles has lots of audio clips - but there are none on the mobile version. In general, there seem to be very few videos on Wikipedia and, because they are OGG formatted, rarely play on mobile.
• No commenting or other interaction.
• Museums can't create their own page - they are reliant on Wikipedia.
• What to do about the iPad and other tablets? Currently QRpedia only shows the mobile version. Should tablets get taken to the full version? Or are tablet users happy to save the data charges and / or click on to the full versions themselves?

Internet Coverage

I've cheekily singled out Edinburgh Museum for potentially having poor coverage - in reality, it's a problem in many museums. Most were designed before the ascendency of the mobile phone and, as a consequence, often struggle with 3G reception. Even when they do have signal, it's expensive for visitors from overseas to roam onto a network and download data.

One solution is free WiFi throughout a museum. Obviously, that's an expense and has to be carefully managed to avoid abuse - but it would solve a problem common to all three approaches.

Overall

Despite my grumblings, I'm really excited to see more QR codes appear in museums. Anything which connects people to education is a great achievement. I just want to make sure that the solutions which are deployed work well for everyone - no matter how expensive their phone.