MCN 2026

Meet other MCN attendees with some speed networking! A facilitator will guide attendees through a series of breakout conversations. Share with fellow attendees where you're from, what you're curious about, and more—just be quick!

As generative AI and emerging “vibe coding” workflows rapidly lower technical barriers, museum professionals with varying levels of software development expertise can expand experimentation with visual methods of data inquiry using creative coding, data visualization, and interactive storytelling. This session explores how artist-centered technologies—particularly the long-running open-source creative coding platform Processing—can help museums uncover new insights, reveal hidden relationships in collections data, and prototype new forms of public engagement.

Bringing together perspectives from the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, New Mexico Highlands University, and the Processing Foundation, panelists will discuss how creative coding, open-source tools, and AI-assisted workflows can expand experimentation. Through practical examples and case studies, the session will examine how museums can begin working with these tools, evaluate appropriate technologies and AI models, collaborate effectively with developers, and thoughtfully transition from prototype to production. Panelists will also reflect on how these lowered barriers may expand participation in open-source creative technology communities, enabling a wider range of museum professionals, artists, and educators to experiment, contribute, and shape emerging digital practices. The session will also highlight emerging support structures, including mentorship and grant opportunities from the Processing Foundation, that can help sustain creative coding initiatives over time.

At a moment when trust in digital information systems is increasingly fractured, creative coding offers museums new ways to make interpretation, process, and inquiry more visible. Panelists will explore how these approaches can support long-term relevance and trust by encouraging transparency, experimentation, and broader participation in shaping digital cultural experiences.

Museums are among the most trusted institutions in our world, but do our digital interfaces earn or erode that trust? Long-lived digital products such as online collections, educational resources, and online exhibitions represent significant investments and access points for museums. Ensuring that these products are easy and enjoyable to use is central to maintaining public trust and institutional longevity. In other words, trust is a UX issue.

This session explores the origin, structure, and impact of the Smithsonian’s User Experience (UX) Lab, a pan-institutional program designed to embed user research into everyday digital decision-making. Launched by the Office of Digital and Innovation as an internal service offering, the UX Lab partners with museums, libraries, and research units to conduct usability studies that generate actionable findings and build a more user-centered culture across a complex organization. 

The presentation will highlight several UX Lab studies, including one focused on the National Museum of American History’s online collections catalog and related discovery experiences. Attendees will learn how key audiences such as researchers, educators, and history enthusiasts interact with museums online, where their expectations break down, and what that reveals about long-term risks and design opportunities for improving digital collections platforms.

The session concludes with practical takeaways from across the 18 UX Lab studies conducted so far that any museum—regardless of size, budget, or technical maturity—can apply to improve digital experiences and support their mission for the long haul.

How does a cultural institution position itself as the definitive educational authority on a historical subject — not just today, but for a new generation to come? The generation that lived through World War II and the Truman presidency — that fought in the Pacific, rationed food on the home front, listened to Truman's voice on the radio, and cast ballots in 1948 — is nearly gone. Within a decade, the living memory of these events will be gone. What remains will be collections, documents, oral histories, photographs, and the digital records and experiences institutions build right now to carry these critical histories forward.

This session presents two history museums navigating that transition in real time: the National World War II Museum and the Truman Library Institute. Both are engaged in long-term digital strategy work explicitly designed to answer the same question from different angles: how do you build digital experiences that preserve the weight and truth of history for audiences who have no personal connection to it and who are growing up in an often-chaotic information environment?

The answer both institutions are working toward is not nostalgia. It is education and storytelling. In both cases, that ambition has produced concrete, purpose-built digital foundations designed to meet the next generation where they are.

At the Truman Library Institute, that means a new web presence which intends to surpass the official federal (.gov) site in depth and usability, also doubling down on credibility at a tenuous moment in history, paired with a quote-based AI-driven chatbot, a tool that allows students and general audiences to engage directly with Truman’s words, decisions, and legacy through a conversational interface grounded entirely in the historical record. 

At the National World War II Museum, that means a sustained investment in purpose-built digital architecture: an authoritative infrastructure designed to establish the Museum as the trusted anchor for WWII education and storytelling online. In an era when students are as likely to encounter AI-generated summaries or algorithmically surfaced partial histories as they are to find rigorous scholarship, the Museum’s digital strategy is oriented toward a clear goal: becoming the place where diverse audiences can reliably find research-driven, editorially vetted, and perspectives-inclusive accounts of World War II’s full scope and complexity.

Both institutions reflect the same underlying conviction: that the best response to a fractured information environment is not to retreat from digital engagement, but to build better, more trustworthy digital experiences and to plan for their longevity. The session will trace how each institution arrived at its approach through deep stakeholder engagement, user research, phased implementation, and a sustained commitment to organizational alignment, and then open the floor for discussion of what this work means for the broader museum field.

More than a decade ago, Research Quest was recognized at NMC as a “Best of Show” prototype—an ambitious digital learning experience designed to connect students with real museum collections and scientific data. Ten years later, it has been developed into 15 distinct learning modules in use today by hundreds of educators and thousands of learners across the United States. What does it take for a digital experience not just to launch successfully, but to endure—and continue to earn trust over time?

This session offers a longitudinal case study of Research Quest’s evolution, examining the design decisions, trade-offs, and core commitments that allowed the platform to adapt across shifting technologies, audiences, and expectations without losing its integrity. As digital ecosystems accelerate and trust in information sources becomes increasingly fragile, designing for longevity requires more than innovation—it demands clarity about what should remain constant.

Drawing on close collaboration between the fields of design and the learning sciences, we will explore how foundational principles—such as centering authentic contexts, supporting inquiry-based engagement, and making scientific processes visible—have shaped both user experience and long-term credibility of the content. We will share examples of how scaffolding was refined over time to better support learners exercise data agency as they interprete complex data, understand uncertainty, and engage in evidence-based reasoning – supporting how to think not what to think.

Participants will examine what changed (platforms, interfaces, distribution models) and what did not (commitments to authenticity, learner agency, and scientific integrity), and consider how these decisions contributed to sustained use and trust. The session will also surface tensions between innovation and stability, and the realities of maintaining and evolving a digital product within institutional constraints.

As museums and cultural organizations navigate rapidly changing technological landscapes—including AI-generated content and shifting expectations around authority—this session offers a grounded perspective on designing systems that endure. Participants will leave with practical frameworks for building digital experiences that can evolve over time while maintaining credibility, relevance, and trust.