Te Papa's Digital Principles

Owned by Adrian Kingston
Last updated: 26 Apr 2018
2 min read

What does success look like for Digital at Te Papa?


  • Our clear vision and broad principles are guiding us towards the vision. These are updated regularly, as digital is a fast-changing world.

  • We have built up skilled and experienced teams to deliver products using our Lean and Agile methodologies, guided by the Digital Product Development Framework (DPDF).

  • We are learning by doing - experimenting, prototyping, showcasing, testing and refining, until we have a usable product. We do this so we can discard unworkable ideas quickly and focus on the good ideas.

  • Digital and other Te Papa teams are working effectively together to deliver digital products.

  • We consider the particular requirements of audiences for digital products, as different from on-the-floor use

  • We create reusable products, where possible, rather than most things being one-offs for a particular exhibition.  This makes it easier to refresh (and maintain) products after their initial implementation.

  • We define success measures for our products and collect data and analyse it, to learn what works and what doesn’t, so we can improve.

  • We take professional development and continuous improvement seriously and make sure we build in the capacity for this in our plans.

  • Transparency is important.  We have great communication within the team, and beyond, so everyone knows what we’re doing and why.


Our Digital Principles

Put the audience at the centre

  •  Put our users/customers and their needs at the heart of what we do

Make it simple

  •  Enhance accessibility to museum content and experiences

 Make it relevant, personal and connected

  •  Connect right tools and right content to the right person
  •  Build connections to and relationships with our audiences
  •  Reflect Te Papa’s national and bicultural mandate

Innovate and iterate

  •  Aim for better; aim for delight
  •  Use approaches that encourage innovation, Lean & Agile  

 Use insights to inform decision making

  •  Leverage data, metrics, trends, benchmarks and user research
  •  Learn about our audiences through analytics and user research
  •  Listen to feedback
  •  Learn from our mistakes

 Build it sustainable and scalable

  •  Build the best ideas; build with reuse in mind
  •  Use standards and best practice, e.g. the Design Language System
  •  Ensure reuse wherever possible
  •  Choose the simplest, most responsible solution
  •  Test and validate using an MVP approach