The CMS Digital Exhibit and Story Pathways

Many museum Collections Management Systems (CMS) come with story-esque display tools. The existing CMS structure serves as a more traditional (for museums) storytelling platform. In its most basic form, the digital exhibit is an online gallery that pulls together object data and associated digital assets in a purposeful display.

Most digital exhibits have flexibility in how CMS content is included and provide areas for original content creation that pertains to the exhibit (aka the story). This post illustrates how storytelling infrastructure is present in a CMS digital exhibit and how you can shape the audience’s experience through your choice of story pathway.

The Story Path and the Museum CMS

The story path is the structure upon which the story content is built. In a digital exhibit, the story pathway is the digital pathway the audience takes as they travel through the exhibit. As discussed in a previous post on storytelling design—Translating Physical Museum Exhibits to the Digital Realm—there are two structural types of story paths:

• Linear Pathway: There is only one way to experience the story.
• Multiple Pathways: There are several ways to experience the story. While there is a sense of beginning, middle, and end, there is no wrong way to progress through the story.

The linear pathway is inherently more straightforward and does not require the complexity of multiple webpages or interlinking content. As multiple pathways require multiple interconnected webpages, the ability to create a multi-pathway digital exhibit depends on digital exhibit functionality.

This post will review each pathway type, how prescription or self-determination may play a role, and offer examples of each pathway type.

Prescribed Pathways vs. Self-determinant Pathways

Pathway structures have additional pathway characteristics. The common characteristic to determine is whether a pathway supports prescribed or self-determinant features. A Linear Pathway can be prescribed or self-determinant. Multiple pathways inherently possess a degree of self-determination as to which path is taken. However, the paths themselves can be suggested prescriptions.

Features of Each Pathway Type

The following section offers key features of each pathway type.

A prescriptive linear pathway is prescriptive if it:

• Does not offer alternate orders for how the content can be explored, or
• Offers the ability to jump to different areas of content—bypassing other content.

By contrast, a self-determinant pathway offers alternative ways to navigate the linear pathway while still completing the story in a linear fashion. This can be done by:

• Offering the pathway structure as a content menu with sub-menu options.

Multiple pathways, by their nature, are self-determinate as it would be impossible to enforce a prescriptive order. Features of this pathway type are:

• There are numerous points of entry into the story.
• There is a dropdown menu or similar way to enter as well as “hop around” within the story.
• There can be suggestions of prescribed pathways.
• There is no “right” amount of content to experience the story.

A pathway type should be determined early on in the story creation process, as it will help to dictate the type of storyline and content needed. If you are new to storytelling, the prescriptive linear pathway is the most straightforward pathway to pursue and may be the easiest to start with. However, for institutions looking to provide a more interactive experience, a CMS with advanced digital exhibit functionality—like Argus CMS—can support multiple pathways and dynamic storytelling.

Upcoming Inspiration for Your Digital Exhibit

Now that you have a sense of which pathway types are available to serve as a story structure, you can begin to more fully flesh out the story you wish to tell. In the next few posts, we will explore an example of each pathway type and offer further inspiration for how to present digital stories via a museum CMS.