Best practices of textile and clothing museum website development

The internet offers museums a variety of educational outlets. With the rising use of internet technologies in the everyday lives of millions of Americans museums are able to connect to a larger and more diverse audience. The internet itself, as well as internet technologies such as: podcasts and blogs have the potential to assist the collection in making its objects accessible, transferring knowledge of historic costume and textiles, increasing public awareness, and broadening its audience. This master\u27s thesis reviews the best practices used by museum professionals in the textiles and apparel discipline in an effort to better understand the Web and internet technologies to: disseminate information, present textiles and clothing collections and to enhance the virtual museum and collection experience. Eleven museum professionals of textile and clothing museums were interviewed to better understand the methods, procedures, factors of effective website design, and display preferences, and to understand the purpose and mission of a textile and clothing museum and collection website

Evaluating Placemaking Strategies in Old Cairo Public Squares, Moaz St. Plazas.

According to UN-Habitat (2015), “Public spaces are all places publicly owned or of public use, accessible and enjoyable by all for free and without profit motive” (p.1). The characteristics of public spaces mentioned in this definition, which are mainly public ownership of the place, enjoyability, and free accessibility by all, are pertinent to the uses of streets in general and pedestrian-friendly streets in specific. Public space is more than well-designed physical places. It is an arena for social interaction and active citizenship that can spark social and economic development and drive environmental sustainability. The design, provision, and maintenance of well-connected systems of public space are integral to achieving a safe and accessible city. However, cities must move beyond typically site-specific approaches to addressing public space if sustainable and longer-lasting benefits are to be achieved. Establishing and implementing a city-wide strategy that approaches a city as a multi-functional and connected urban system can ensure the best chances of proactively driving good urban development. This paper focuses on investigating the public spaces in Moez street, Cairo, and its dynamics in general and the walkable or pedestrian-friendly space in specific is one of the multidisciplinary topics that attract the attention of different scholars, practitioners, and policymakers in different disciplines, such as urban designers and city planners, environmentalists, public health specialists, and local administration including managers of public spaces. Hence, it was suggested in planning and public health literature that spaces can be so-called healthy, compact, efficient, and good for social interaction if they are designed and planned to be walkable environments

Slow Fashion: Developing a Conceptual Apparel Design Process

The purpose of this study is to explore the application of a pre-existing apparel design process model and design framework to the development of a conceptual slow fashion apparel design process and framework. A content analysis of slow design and slow fashion literature identified 38 themes related to specific design criteria, which were applied to design considerations from the Lamb & Kallal Functional, Expressive, and Aesthetic (FEA) model (1992). Additional design considerations were revealed due to the nature of the research topic and relationship to the stages in the applied design framework. For the Slow Fashion Apparel Design model five considerations were established: functional, expressive, aesthetic, designer, and other. The Slow Fashion Apparel Design Framework established six considerations associated with six stages of the apparel design process framework: material, quality, production, design, evaluation, and implementation. Design criteria were placed into each consideration category according to design theory and Lamb & Kallal’s model and framework. A sample of 71 textiles, apparel design, and merchandising professionals with membership in the International Textiles and Apparel Association completed a survey regarding the application of the design criteria found in the content analysis to the design considerations established using the FEA model. Apparel design participants from the sample who volunteered for a follow-up survey were interviewed regarding creative scholarship and apparel design processes. Analysis of survey and interview results revealed a differentiation in the application of design criteria within the design considerations established for the design process model and design framework. These differentiations were divided into required, highly recommended, and recommended design criteria. The Slow Fashion Apparel Design Process model had 17 design criteria across five considerations distributed into the three levels of importance. The Slow Fashion Apparel Design Framework had 14 design criteria across four considerations distributed into only required and recommended differentiations. It was revealed that evaluation and implementation consideration categories were not included in the design criteria within the Slow Fashion Apparel Design Framework. Further study is needed to seek explanations for this occurrence. Future research will include the application of this conceptual model to develop of a slow fashion apparel collection

The Business of Dark Tourism: The Management of Dark Tourism Visitor Sites and Attractions with Special Reference to Innovation

This study explores the management of visitor sites and attractions associated with death, disaster and suffering, commonly referred to in the literature as ‘dark tourism’. Although gaining increasing academic attention, the supply-side perspective of dark tourism is poorly understood with scarce empirical evidence relating to management operations and practices. This may be due to management operations and practices that are perceived to conflict with the sensitive themes of visitor sites associated with dark tourism. Particular consideration is given to the management concept of innovation identified as a significant gap for scholarly exploration. Qualitative semi-structured interviews were carried out with senior management at 23 sites and attractions across the United Kingdom associated with dark tourism. The findings reveal that, contrary to suggestions that dark tourism sites may be restrictive in management practices, a wide array of innovative activities and marketing practices are widely conducted and innovation was viewed as a stimuli for repeat visitation. Furthermore, management operations are viewed as facilitating important stories of trauma for present and future generations. Omission of these stories would belittle the tragic circumstances in which people associated with the sites had died or suffered. Moreover, managers at dark tourism sites acknowledged the ethical and moral tensions surrounding management practices at dark tourism sites. Indeed, the majority of managers adopted both highly ethical processes resulting in ethical innovations and complex consultation processes in order to mitigate any potential concerns from stakeholders. The ethical stance underpinning operations positions the phenomenon of dark tourism as a subset within the tourism sector, distinct from its counterparts. Recommendations include calls to widen the study to explore visitor perceptions of innovative measures undertaken by managers, and to focus on specific commercial aspects, such as retailing, within the business of dark tourism.ESR

Assessment of plastics in the National Trust: a case study at Mr Straw's House

The National Trust is a charity that cares for over 300 publically accessible historic buildings and their contents across England, Wales and Northern Ireland. There have been few previous studies on preservation of plastics within National Trust collections, which form a significant part of the more modern collections of objects. This paper describes the design of an assessment system which was successfully trialled at Mr Straws House, a National Trust property in Worksop, UK. This system can now be used for future plastic surveys at other National Trust properties. In addition, the survey gave valuable information about the state of the collection, demonstrating that the plastics that are deteriorating are those that are known to be vulnerable, namely cellulose nitrate/acetate, PVC and rubber. Verifying this knowledge of the most vulnerable plastics enables us to recommend to properties across National Trust that these types should be seen as a priority for correct storage and in-depth recording

Costume and “the copy” : defining authenticity in the analogue original, the reproduction, and the digital garment within the museum and archive

textA comparative examination of the original and reproduction Gone With the Wind costumes at the Harry Ransom Center is at the heart of this study, which proposes to trace the relationship between the analogue original costume, the replica garment, and the digital image reproduction. A discussion of definitions of authenticity and “the original” within such areas as conservation, film studies, and audience perception explores the questions: what is the role of the reproduction, and can it challenge the authority and “aura” of the original? This inquiry illustrates that authenticity is negotiated; it is not always fixed in a clear line ranging from “the real thing” on one side to “the copy” on the other. The study concludes with examining digital image reproductions of costume. The online digital database record can potentially reveal more than a face-to-face encounter with the object in a gallery space, illuminating the biography and history of the garment, changes in curatorial decisions and exhibition practice, and the experience of tactility and embodiment.Informatio

Avaliação heurística de usabilidade em museus virtuais de moda baseados na web

Este artigo teve como objeto de pesquisa a avaliação de acervos digitais de museus de Moda baseados na web. Foi apresentada primeiramente uma contextualização dos museus no mundo virtual, identificando os tipos de sites museológicos existentes e os conceitos gerais de usabilidade. Em seguida, através de um estudo comparativo das heurísticas e recomendações de usabilidade de Nielsen, Bastien & Scapin, e Jordan, foram identificadas as mais adequadas para aplicação neste tipo de acervo, principalmente no que se refere à interação do usuário e ao estímulo de processos cognitivos para estabelecer estes espaços virtuais como locais de aprendizado, sem depender do espaço físico. Optou-se pelas heurísticas de Nielsen, que foram então aplicadas em uma avaliação da interface do site do Australian Dress Register, vinculado ao Powerhouse Museum Science + Design. Os resultados preliminares permitiram identificar as recomendações de usabilidade mais propícias para avaliar a estrutura e organização de sites de acervos digitais de museus de Moda

An aesthetic for sustainable interactions in product-service systems?

Copyright @ 2012 Greenleaf PublishingEco-efficient Product-Service System (PSS) innovations represent a promising approach to sustainability. However the application of this concept is still very limited because its implementation and diffusion is hindered by several barriers (cultural, corporate and regulative ones). The paper investigates the barriers that affect the attractiveness and acceptation of eco-efficient PSS alternatives, and opens the debate on the aesthetic of eco-efficient PSS, and the way in which aesthetic could enhance some specific inner qualities of this kinds of innovations. Integrating insights from semiotics, the paper outlines some first research hypothesis on how the aesthetic elements of an eco-efficient PSS could facilitate user attraction, acceptation and satisfaction

USING BI-LANGUAGE FOR MUSEUM WEBSITE

Museum is a place or institution which collects, organizes, displays, protects and preserves the national heritage, promotes the history and culture as well as delivers knowledge to public. Many museums in Malaysia has developed website which some museum already have English version as well as Malay version. However some museums do not even has their own website. Multiple language website for museum is becoming important since it has a lot of benefit such as support learning context for society since museum provide knowledge so website for museum will be as medium for people to get general information such as working hour, activities, location and so on and the website also provide information which considered as a main purpose that people want to visit museum, it is the information about galleries and collection. Apart from that, using multiple language in website increases trust of visitor, being as a base for accessing information by wider group of visitor and so on. In developing website for this project, joomla version 2.5 is chosen as a tool and story board is used as a place for design layout of website. The project aims to develop bi-language include English and Malay version for museum geologi muzium located in Ipoh, Perak state. This project also aims to study the effective of having bi or multiple languages for museum‟s website