What Do Audiences Want from a Public Art Gallery in the Digital Age?

This paper outlines the human-centred design approach taken to create a new analytical framework to understand audiences and establish themes, patterns and behaviours at MOSTYN, a public contemporary art gallery in Llandudno, North Wales. Wrexham Glyndwr University PhD student Clare Harding collaborated with Dr Adrian Gradinar, and Dr Mark Lochrie from Media Innovation Studio, University of Central Lancashire, to test the conceptual framework with the EDGE (Experiential Display to Generate Engagement) research project that secured Innovate UK and the Arts Council of Wales funding. EDGE applied a Human Centred Design process to MOSTYN, Wales’ foremost contemporary Art Gallery MOSTYN to investigate audience expectations of a public art gallery in the digital age. EDGE was designed to help MOSTYN define their purpose as a public art gallery in the face of rapidly developing, culturally competing technologies. Phase one of the project used design thinking and iterative processes to explore new and authentic ways in which MOSTYN can co-design their visitor experience with audiences. Phase two, from April 2019, will use findings to build a digital interface within the gallery to create an interactive exhibition of digital art. This will be accompanied by a six-month engagement programme to build links with new audiences and up-skill both the general public and regional artists. The scope and limitation of the research as identified so far are discussed with a focus on how human-centred design approaches were used to create a new analytical framework. The testing of lo-fi prototypes will be discussed within the gallery setting and the insights uncovered by deployment of the framework, tools and MOSTYN’s engagement programme with a critical review of the methodological approach used and findings to date