[Nhcoll-l] Visitor Attention as a Design Constraint in Digital Collections [SEC=OFFICIAL]

[Haff, Tonya (NCMI, Black Mountain)]

OFFICIAL

Hey thank you all for this conversation, it is absolutely fantastic and much needed. I really appreciate the resources!

Cheers,

Tonya


------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr Tonya Haff
Senior Collection Manager
Australian National Wildlife Collection
National Research Collections Australia, CSIRO
Canberra, ACT 2602 Australia
+61(0)419569109



From: Nhcoll-l <nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu> On Behalf Of Thor Martin Jensen
Sent: Friday, 7 November 2025 12:57 AM
To: Callomon,Paul <prc44 at drexel.edu>
Cc: nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu
Subject: Re: [Nhcoll-l] Visitor Attention as a Design Constraint in Digital Collections

Some people who received this message don't often get email from thormj at gmail.com<mailto:thormj at gmail.com>. Learn why this is important<https://aka.ms/LearnAboutSenderIdentification>
Thank you - I'll see if I can find it. I found an old NPR interview with Carr about the book that's making me rethink the entire framing.

What strikes me is Carr's point that solitary, prolonged concentration is "an aberration in the great sweep of intellectual history" - it only emerged with printed books. Museums are asking for that same aberration: sustained, focused attention on objects.

But we're building technology that returns visitors to what Carr calls our "natural state of distractedness." Apps that interrupt. Screens that fragment. Interfaces optimized for skimming.

The challenge should never be to make museums more digital. It's preserving and supporting (including with digital tools) that "aberration" of deep attention that makes museum encounters meaningful.

Appreciate the recommendation.

Sincerely / Med Venlig Hilsen



Thor Martin Baerug

https://walkietalk.ie/


On Thu, Nov 6, 2025 at 2:39 PM Callomon,Paul <prc44 at drexel.edu<mailto:prc44 at drexel.edu>> wrote:
I recommend reading “The Shallows: How the Internet is changing the way we read, think and remember” by Nicholas Carr.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shallows_(book)

Paul Callomon
Collection Manager, Malacology and General Invertebrates
________________________________
Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University, Philadelphia
callomon at ansp.org<mailto:callomon at ansp.org> Tel 215-405-5096 - Fax 215-299-1170
President of the American Malacological Society for 2027
[cid:image001.jpg at 01DC4FC8.FA5A55F0][cid:image002.jpg at 01DC4FC8.FA5A55F0]

From: Nhcoll-l <nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu<mailto:nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu>> On Behalf Of Thor Martin Jensen
Sent: Thursday, November 6, 2025 8:36 AM
To: nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu<mailto:nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu>
Subject: [Nhcoll-l] Visitor Attention as a Design Constraint in Digital Collections


External.

Dear colleagues,

There's a viral photo of visitors on their phones in the Louvre's Grande Galerie that's sparked the usual "phones are ruining museums" discourse. But I think it actually illustrates a fundamental design problem in how we've approached digital interpretation.

After two decades building digital technology products, I've come to believe we miscalculated the core problem. It was never about access to information - it was about attention as a finite resource.

I've written about this tension and what it means for how we think about visitor technology: https://thormartinbaerug.com/2025/11/05/how-were-building-museum-technology-that-gets-out-of-the-way/

The argument centers on why audio-first approaches preserve visual attention in ways that screen-based interpretation cannot, and why the "technology that disappears" principle matters more than feature richness.

Would be interested in perspectives from colleagues working in collections with diverse audiences and interpretation needs.

Sincerely / Med Venlig Hilsen



Thor Martin Baerug

https://walkietalk.ie/



-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.yale.edu/pipermail/nhcoll-l/attachments/20251106/c4f805bf/attachment.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image001.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 81755 bytes
Desc: image001.jpg
URL: <http://mailman.yale.edu/pipermail/nhcoll-l/attachments/20251106/c4f805bf/attachment.jpg>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image002.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 18658 bytes
Desc: image002.jpg
URL: <http://mailman.yale.edu/pipermail/nhcoll-l/attachments/20251106/c4f805bf/attachment-0001.jpg>