Developing New Approaches to Museum Storytelling
Exploring how short-form digital storytelling can help people connect more deeply with museum objects and the stories behind them.
The Little Wild Ones is undertaking a research and development project with museums across Essex and beyond, exploring how storytelling, animation and digital media can create meaningful visitor experiences that are practical for regional museums.
The project combines museum interviews, site visits, existing research and a practical pilot to develop and test a repeatable approach to digital storytelling.
Supported by the Essex Creative Industries Project Development Fund.
The Question We're Exploring
Can short-form digital storytelling help people connect
more deeply with museum objects?
We're exploring whether short, focused narratives can help visitors move beyond simply understanding what an object is, towards discovering the people, events and stories connected to it.
The challenge is to do this in a way that is engaging, accessible, practical and achievable for regional museums.
Why This Matters
Museums are full of objects with remarkable stories, but those stories are not always easy to uncover or communicate within the limits of a physical display.
At the same time, the way people consume information is changing. Short-form digital media has shown how quickly a story can capture attention and encourage someone to keep watching.
This project explores what museums can learn from those storytelling principles, without turning museum interpretation into social media, and how they might be used to create deeper connections with collections.
What We Do
We use storytelling, design and digital media to help organisations communicate, engage and connect with their audiences.
What We're Doing
The project combines research, observation and practical testing.
We're:
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Speaking with museums about their experiences, challenges and ambitions for digital interpretation.
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Visiting museums to observe how stories, objects and digital media are currently presented.
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Reviewing existing research into visitor behaviour, storytelling, attention, learning and engagement.
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Developing a practical methodology for choosing objects, uncovering stories and shaping short-form digital experiences.
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Testing that approach through a real museum pilot.
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Evaluating what works, what doesn't and what can be improved.
The findings will directly shape the approach we develop and share.
The Pilot
The research will lead to a practical pilot with an Essex museum, putting the ideas and evidence gathered through the project into practice.
We'll select an object with strong storytelling potential, develop a short-form digital story around it, and test how visitors respond.
The pilot will help us understand what works in a real museum environment, and what needs to change before the approach can be applied more widely.
Follow the Project
This is an ongoing research project.
Over the coming months, we'll be sharing what we're learning from museum conversations, site visits, existing research and the development of the pilot.
We'll document the ideas that emerge, what we test and what we learn along the way.
Project Support
This project is supported by the Essex Creative Industries Project Development Fund, helping us research, develop and test new approaches to digital storytelling for museums.
With thanks to Essex County Council for supporting the project.