Methodology Phase 1: Strategic Design.

1.1 Theme and Genre.

Any multimedia heritage development has a theme - the historical object with which it is concerned. The idea of a 'historical object' is very flexible: it might be some single artifact, or a place with historical associations; or it might be something more abstract, such as the culture of a region, or a period in art history. In order for a heritage site to be successful it must, however, have an identifiable theme; this gives the site direction and purpose, and also helps an audience to identify the kind of experience which they are enjoy.

Some examples of the themes of 'real space' sites:

• 'country house' sites typically are themed around the house, its occupants over different times and the possessions that they have left behind;
• museums are often themed around some aspect of human experience or some specialist study, e.g. the Imperial War Museum, the Pitt-Rivers anthropological museum;
• it is common to find houses that were occupied by famous people used to display their aspects of their life and work, e.g. the Jenner museum, Darwin's house;
• themes might be quite abstract, for example a shop in Edinburgh in the mid-1990's was turned into a shrine to Kurt Cobain entitled 'the Museum of Despair'.

In addition to having an identified theme, a heritage site will belong to some genre, it will have a recognisable form to which the public has become accustomed. In real space it is easy to identify a large number of heritage site genres: art museum, national museum, heritage experience, living museum, ancient building, ancient site, town trail, historic landscape trail, etc. These can be broken down into more specific sub-genres. Similar categories can apply to virtual heritage - most of the above have 'virtual equivalents'. As indicated previously, each genre of heritage site has its own set of exhibition styles and codes, for example:

• a modern art museum has stark, clean spaces and its signage is recognisably modern (minimal, san serif fonts, etc.) ... usually the site itself has intriguing properties (Tate Modern, the Guggenheim);
• a national museum or historic national art collection (in this country at least) tends to be classical and imposing, as if it were communicating the power of the state ... pillars and wood-panelling are likely to feature;
• a heritage experience site (Jorvik, the Oxford Experience, a Day at the Wells, etc.) dresses up the past as an animatronic display for a generation used to media spectacles ... light shows, sound, etc. are likely to feature.

A multimedia designer must understand and respect these styles and codes, and design a multimedia experience that is based on the expectations of a public used to these ways of communicating - even if the intention is to invert or subvert these codes.

1.2 Relationship with Audience.

As with any heritage experience, a multimedia heritage development aims to strike a certain relationship, or set of relationships, with an audience. Again, these are difficult to bring within the scope of a rational taxonomy; but we can approach the idea of relationship with a set of constrasts and examples. Heritage experiences may set out to educate or entertain, they may play on sentiment or aim to inpsire awe, they may cater for aspirations and a desire for self-improvement or provide an undemanding spectacle, they may play on nostalgia or be aggressively modern and critical, they may try and construct a sense of national or regional identity or be impartial and cosmopolitan in outlook, etc. Some heritage experiences may even do most of these, or do different things for different sectors of their audience. The relationship with the audience of the multimedia experience under development is, again, best established with reference to a set of well-chosen comparisons.

In addition to establishing the relationship with an audience, the designer should try and characterise the intended audience of the site. There are many possibilities; at the extremes the site might aim to be capture a mass audience (such as that of the Tower of London, or Madame Tussaud's), or it might aim for a small, specialised audience (such as the Design Museum). An audience might be segmented on many different bases: age, cultural interests, geographical location, etc.

1.3 Intended Function.

A multimedia heritage development will, probably, be undertaken for very different reasons from the development of a heritage site in real space. Typical functions for a multimedia heritage development include:

• a multimedia kiosk located in a heritage site in real space;
• the whole, or part, of a web site linked with a heritage site in real space;
• a virtual heritage experience sold on a cd-rom at some heritage site in real space (or marketed from that site);
• a stand-alone heritage experience placed on the web;
• a stand-alone heritage experience sold on a cd-rom;
• etc.

The function of a multimedia heritage development should be clearly identified. This should include some consideration of why people might come to your site/experience, what other heritage sites/offerings it relates to, and what kind of activities or patterns of behaviour visiting your site might be integrated with.