Ellie King

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AHRC Doctoral Researcher

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Email: ellie.king@oum.ox.ac.uk
Twitter: EllietheKing

Research summary

Ellie’s project is in collaboration with the Oxford Museum of Natural History and Warwick Manufacturing Group at the University of Warwick and primarily researches how exhibition design and evaluation processes can be better conceptualised and improved to make for a richer visitor experience in museums. The project seeks to apply principles, models and methods from other sectors such as engineering and product experience design in order to make for a better efficient and effective exhibition practice within UK museums.

In her work, Ellie aims to capture the complexity of museum learning and translate this into tangible design and evaluation practices in order to create exhibitions where the museum visitor is at the centre of thinking and practice. By developing processes which capture visitor opinions through evaluation more tangibly, her research seeks to systematise iterative design processes where project learning is carried forward into new developments both within institutions and across the sector as a whole.

CV

Ellie is a historian by background, having studied at the University of Warwick for both her BA and MA degrees in history and later Early Modern history. Ellie is excited and intrigued by the interdisciplinary nature of the project, which draws on disciplines such as design and technology, engineering, and statistics, as well as history and heritage. After completing her MA, Ellie was a Student Officer at Warwick Students’ Union, supporting and representing postgraduate students in the development of their education at Warwick. It was during this time that she began to learn many of the skills needed for this project. This, combined with her part-time employment in the heritage sector, provided a good basis to take on this project and tackle the learning curve needed for its success.