Designing Visitor Experiences
with Mobile Platforms in
Museums.
Loïc Tallon
IT University of Copenhagen,
17th September, 2009

Why use a audio / handheld guide in a museum?
Leads to questions of:
- How one should interact with an exhibit in a
museum
- What is a museum experience
- How can we measure a successful interaction.

Two parts to designing a mobile experience:
1. There is the content / the visitor interaction.
Obviously this is important. Bad content = bad
experience
2. But also there is how the visitor accesses the
content / interaction.
Excellent content visitors can’t access = pointless
This presentation though focuses primarily on the former

Remember the visitor’s perspective:
“Why in the devil is there an handheld guide, and
why should I take it?”

So how did they start?:
Why did museum’s actually invent them?

1950s
Philips Radio Tour – Stedelijk
Museum, Holland, 1952.

1950s
Philips Radio Tour – Stedelijk
Museum, Holland, 1952.

1950s
News Footage Stedelijk Museum, 1952

1950s
Guide-a-Phone – American Museum
of Natural History, NY, 1954.
LecTour – National Gallery of Art,
Washington DC, 1958.

1950s
Soundtrek – American Museum of
Natural History, NY, 1961.

1960s
“In Europe, the virtues of the radio were recognised long
ago. The Louvre in Paris has installed it and most of the
major cities in Italy are using it. To pick out, in bold relief,
each historic site.
Britain, with its stolid belief that a visit to a museum of art
should be an act of penitence, has not followed suit.
[…]
The new system will bring history alive. At the same time it
will do away with bulky, costly and usually unreadable
programmes. And finally it will, by its sheer ingenuity, tell
the visitor that the City cares about his interest, and
wants to make his stay an interesting one”
Evening Standard - 6/4/62

1960s
Granadafon – Manchester City Art
Gallery, 1961.
Modern-o-Phone – Science Museum,
London, 1961.

1960s
“Overwhelming approval and appreciation of our efforts to
make the museum objects more interesting and
meaningful to people with no particular interest in the
subject. Would like to see the idea developed and
extended to all museums.”
Ministry of Works, 1961
“Tests have merely shown that 9 out of 10 visitors are very
enthusiastic about the idea, but I repeat that so would
they be if we offered free drinks in the gallery. This
proves nothing.”
Dr. Ward, Director of the Science Museum. November 1960.

1970s
Acoustiguide – National Gallery of Art,
Washington DC, 1967

1980s
The tape is practical, but visitors
have to follow a set route.

1980s

1980s

1980s

1980s
“In front of you know is one of Monet’s
famous Cathedral series, unless of
course you tool a left at the Assyrian
wall reliefs instead of a right and are
now facing a utility closet.”

1990 Add Digital (Direct/Random Access)
Advantages:
Access any information directly at any time.
No moving parts… eventually with MP3 players
Greater audio storage potential
Result:
Opened the opportunity for permanent collections to be put
on an audio tour.
Weakness?:
Diminishing the educational potential
(How important is this?)

2000 Anything is possible…
And with digital technologies, today it seems anything is
possible.
Unlike in the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s, the technology is more
capable than museums require.
And when anything is possible, we have to start asking,
what is desirable?

And that leads to the question today with
museums & technology: Who is wagging who?
Beware geeks bearing gifts…

Future Lab / Louvre DNP, Tokyo, Japan
Image ©Photo DNP

Future Lab / Louvre DNP, Tokyo, Japan
Image © Photo DNP

Future Lab / Louvre DNP, Tokyo, Japan
Image ©Photo DNP

Future Lab / Louvre DNP, Tokyo, Japan
Image ©Photo DNP

Favorite / Memorable audio guides

Be aware that audio on its own is v.powerful

Audioguide advert, 1980

Who makes the audio content?…

Who makes the audio content?…
Smart Mobs @ MoMA, 2004

And how is the audio packaged?

Why use a screen?

Ubiquitous Art Tour, @ Galleria,
Tokyo, Japan
Object Identification

Navigation
Ubiquitous Art Tour, @ Galleria,
Tokyo, Japan

Content

Content Navigation

Interactivity?…

Interactivity?…

Now:
Pod Casts
Mobile Phone tours
IPod Touch applications

What’s changed and what’s new?
- the design context / and the designer team’s objectives?
- the technology / what is possible?
- the visitor’s expectations inside museum?

And what are the next ‘stages’:
• Using visitor’s own platforms / technologies.
• Social networking functionality in a museum.
• Let visitors create and share their own content.
• Adapt content, and content delivery, so as it meets
each visitor’s personal interests & learning
preferences.
• Make the internet accessible inside the museum: no
Information filter.

loic@pocket-proof.com