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  • Sporting Invention: Applying the IPOP Framework
4 women and 1 man contemplate a window wall covered with sheets of paper while another man points to one and discusses with the group. The papers are grouped under the titles Ideas and Experiences. Each letter-size paper has images and text that are too small to discern in the photo.

The Sporting Invention team decides which flash cards they should test with visitors, 8 August 2018. L to R: Tim Pula, Monica Smith, Jeffrey Brodie, Meg Maher, Megan Smith, Isabella Bruno. © 2018 Smithsonian Institution; photo by Eric S. Hintz

Sporting Invention: Applying the IPOP Framework

August 30, 2018 by Eric S. Hintz

The Sporting Invention exhibition team is using the IPOP framework to test which Ideas, People, Objects, and Physical experiences might resonate with visitors.

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By 2021-2022, our current exhibition, Places of Invention, will complete its run in the Lemelson Hall of Invention, and we have already started working on our next exhibition. Tentatively titled Sporting Invention, it will explore how inventions and new technologies shape how various constituents—incuding elite athletes, weekend warriors, and fans—engage in sport. The exhibition will challenge visitors to think about some interesting and provocative questions. For example, who invents new sports technologies and how do those innovations come to market? Do new inventions, like high-tech swimsuits, push the boundaries of human performance or undermine the competitive traditions of a given sport? How do technologies, like prosthetic legs or oversized tennis rackets, allow more people to participate in sports? How do innovations, like advanced baseball statistics or instant replay, enhance fans' enjoyment of sports?

Designing a new exhibition always presents a challenge: in a limited space, how do you decide which themes, stories, objects, and media elements should be included? It can be tempting to assume the authority of the expert curator, and say, essentially “Here’s what visitors need to know.” But that approach can come across as didactic; it does not respect the knowledge, experiences, and preferences our visitors bring with them into the museum. So it’s crucially important for any designer—of an exhibition, a consumer product, or a digital app—to step outside themselves and adopt a human-centered approach. To that end, the Lemelson Center is adopting the IPOP framework to help visitors guide our early thinking about Sporting Invention.

What is IPOP?

blog-hintz-eric-2018-08-31-ipoppeoplewhiteboard-2018-07-11-cerichintz-450-inline-edit.jpg

A large whiteboard is covered with blue writing. The left panel is labeled People and is a bulleted list of names, including Lance Armstrong, Serena and Venus Williams, and Tony Hawk, as well as non-specific labels such as fan, esports gamer, and pit crew. The right panel is only partially visible in the photo and cannot be read accurately.

The team brainstormed several ideas for the kinds of people—including athletes, inventors, umpires, fans, and cheaters—we might want to include in the exhibition, 11 July 2018. © 2018 Smithsonian Institution; photo by Eric S. Hintz

IPOP is an acronym and model of experience preference developed by Andy Pekarik and his colleagues at the office for Smithsonian Organization and Audience Research (SOAR). By drawing on a database of more than 15,000 visitor surveys, interviews, and observations, Pekarik has determined that the preferences of Smithsonian visitors can be distilled into four major categories. In varying degrees, visitors are attracted to content featuring

  • I: Ideas, e.g., concepts, definitions, facts, abstractions
  • P: People, i.e., biographies, memoirs, social interactions, affective/emotional stories
  • O: Objects, i.e., artifacts, aesthetics, craftsmanship, visual language
  • P: Physical experiences, i.e., sensations that involve movement, touch, sound, smell 

But IPOP is not just an observation about visitor preferences; it is also a blueprint for effective exhibition design. To create an engaging exhibition with broad appeal, the IPOP framework suggests that exhibition developers incorporate the four IPOP elements—ideas, people, objects, and physical experiences—in near equilibrium. 

Applying IPOP to Sporting Invention

With these ideas in mind, the Sporting Invention team has been applying the IPOP framework to begin fleshing out what the exhibition might look like. Our challenge was to develop a deck of 48 cards—showing 12 ideas, 12 people, 12 objects, and 12 physical experiences—that might be included in Sporting Invention. While we still have big crowds during the summer busy season, we’ll ask visitors to sort the cards and tell us which ones they find appealing or relevant.

inventors-cade-robert-gatorade-centertainmentdesigner-450-inline-edit.jpg

Black-and-white head-and-shoulders photo of Robert Cade, wearing a jacket and tie. He holds a large can up to the camera. The can is labeled, “Stokely Van Camp’s Finest Gatorade for Active People.”

In 1965, University of Florida physician Dr. James Robert Cade developed “Gatorade,” the first sports drink scientifically formulated to meet the specific nutritional needs of athletes. Courtesy of the Cade Museum and Entertainment Designer

How did we come up with the 48 flash cards?  First, our exhibition team brainstormed and filled our conference room whiteboard with a super-set of 20-25 potential exhibition elements in each of the four IPOP categories. 

Then our intrepid colleague, Meg Maher, tracked down representative images for these concepts that would translate easily to a flash card. For example, in the People category, Meg found an image of Dr. James Robert Cade, a University of Florida physician who invented the familiar Gatorade sports drink to help athletes recover from dehydration. And in the Object category, Meg found an image of Arthur Ashe’s aluminum and fiberglass tennis racket; invented by Howard Head, the new racket was lighter and had a larger "sweet spot" than traditional wooden rackets.

Meg papered the Lemelson Center conference room with nearly 100 images. Each team member was asked to put a check mark next to his or her top 12 images in each of the four IPOP categories. After engaging in some spirited discussions, we reached consensus on the final set of 48 Sporting Invention flash cards to show visitors.

Here’s a sampling of our selections in each of the IPOP categories:

  • I: Ideas: Invention and technology make sports safer; Inventions and technologies that remove human error in officiating are good for sports
  • P: People: Frank Jobe, pioneer of “Tommy John” reconstructive elbow surgery; Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s NASCAR pit crew
  • O: Objects: Breezer 1, the first mountain bike; the Spalding-Evenflo microfiber synthetic basketball (rejected by NBA players after 3 months in 2006)
  • P: Physical experiences: allow visitors to touch different varieties of artificial turf; “You Make the Call” to test human eyes against the Hawk-Eye video officiating system

artifacts-racket-tennis-head-howard-ashe-arthur-si-95-5507-8-750-inline-edit.jpg

A silver metal tennis racket with a brown leather-wrapped handle sits on a cobalt blue background. The racket bears the logo of Head tennis rackets on the head and shaft, and the rim reads, “Arthur Ashe Competition.”

Arthur Ashe used this Head tennis racket to win at Wimbledon in 1975. Catalog No. 1991.0178.01, Division of Culture and the Arts, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian photo 95-5507-8

Beginning the week of Aug 20, the team will take a few sets of these flash cards onto the museum floor to engage visitors directly (“Hi! Would you like to help us develop our next exhibition?”). We’ll briefly describe Sporting Invention, show visitors the 48 IPOP flash cards, and ask them to sort the cards into two piles—their likes and dislikes. We'll then ask visitors to select the one card they believe is most important or relevant. After talking to a few dozen visitors, we should have a pretty good sense of which ideas, people, objects, and physical experiences will resonate in our future exhibit. If you’ll be in the museum during the next few weeks, please stop by and see us in front of the Lemelson Hall of Invention in 1West. Or leave us a comment below: considering IPOP, what kinds of ideas, people, objects, and physical experiences would you like to see in Sporting Invention?

SOURCES: 

  • Bloom, Benjamin. “The Smithsonian’s IPOP Exhibition Framework: Lessons for a Human-Centered Content Approach,” DigitalGov, 8 December 2016, https://digital.gov/2016/12/08/the-smithsonians-ipop-exhibition-framework-lessons-for-a-human-centered-content-approach/ 
  • Pekarik, Andrew J. “What is IPOP?” Smithsonian Organization and Audience Research, 6 August 2015, https://www.si.edu/Content/opanda/docs/IPOP/IPOP%20short%20description%20150806.pdf. 
  • Pekarik, Andrew J, J.B. Schreiber, N. Hanemann, K. Richmond, and B. Mogel. “IPOP: ATheory of Experience Preference,” Curator: The Museum Journal 57, no. 1 (2014): 5-27. 

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