Museums & Mobile in 2012 : Survey Results

MUSEUMS &!
MOBILE IN 2012 !
An analysis of the Museums & Mobile Survey 2012 responses!
!
!
Loïc Tallon, Pocket-Proof.!
Survey produced by Pocket-Proof & LearningTimes.!
February 2012

Tallon, Loïc. Museums & Mobile Survey 2012. (February 2012: Pocket-Proof & LearningTimes).

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Thank you to everyone who participated in the Museums & Mobile Survey 2012. This is the third year of the survey,
and once again the response to the survey has been overwhelming: we’re delighted to have had over 600 participants!

In this report you’ll find an analysis of all the main points from the survey. Also this year we’ve focused a little more on
two particular mobile strands we we think are of timely interest to the community.

•  The first is the type, cost and hardware platform of an institutions mobile experience. Our aim here is to help inform
decisions on whether an institution’s mobile experience be an in-gallery or out-of-gallery experience, be available
free or at additional cost, and be accessible on the users smartphone or on a museum provided device.

•  And the second is the relationships between an institution’s size, and the type, objectives and challenges of the
mobile experience they offer. We hope these analysis will advance existing discussions on the types of mobile
experiences that are most successful for differently resourced institutions.

We hope you find these analyses valuable.

Thank you for all the feedback we’ve received about the survey. Our aim is to keep the survey as universal and
straight forward as possible. Nonetheless it feels a little inevitable that as the definition of what constitutes a mobile
experience expands into apps and mobile web sites, and as institutions start to offer a range of different mobile
experiences, structuring a museum mobile survey so that it remain accessible, simple and informative becomes more
challenging. Your suggestions on how to overcome these challenge are always welcome, and we look forward to
watching the debate about what museums mean by ‘mobile’ evolve in the coming months.

And finally, a big thank you to all the team at LearningTimes and Pocket-Proof for their amazing hard work on this
project, without which this report would not be possible.

Good luck everyone with your mobile projects in 2012!

Loic Tallon.

Pocket-Proof.


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about
  What type & size of institutions responded to the 2012 Survey?
  & are there trends in the types or sizes of institutions using
mobile?


4

about
1.1
The Museum & Mobile Survey 2012 was launched in late-November 2011.
Responses to the survey were solicited through the Museums-Mobile.org email
subscribers, the LearningTimes newsletter, the MCG listserv, the MCN listserv, the
Culture24 newsletter, the Future for Museums Facebook group, and on Twitter via
the #mtogo hashtag.

1.2
By the time the survey closed in early-January 2012, we had received responses
from 615 individuals working within the ﬁeld of mobile, either in a museum or as a
vendor / researcher.

1.3
78% (480) of all respondents came from the USA, with 5% (33) from both the United
Kingdom and Canada. In total, responses to the survey were received from 24
countries.

1.4
Of the 554 survey respondents currently working in a museum: 177 worked in an
institution that currently offered a mobile experience.
•  165 worked in an institution that had plans to launch their ﬁrst mobile experience
in the next 12 months.
•  212 worked in an institution that was not currently using mobile, nor had plans to
do so.

(Figure 1)

1.5
Individuals working in a History Museums made up the largest proportion of
respondents from a museum (25% / 141 respondents). These were followed by Art
Museums / Galleries (20% / 113), Local Heritage Museums (10% / 53) and
Monuments / Historical Sites (8% / 46). (Figure 2)


5

about
1.6
Similar to 2011, survey respondents from an Art Museum / Gallery were more likely
to already be offering a mobile experience to their visitors than their counterparts in a
History Museum. Over half of all respondents from a History Museum reported that
their institution was not currently using mobile, nor had any plans to do so: the
equivalent ﬁgure from those working in an Art Museum was 20%. (Figure 3)

1.7
Over half of all respondents working in a museum reported an annual attendance of
under 50,000 visitors. One-in-ﬁve reported an annual attendance of over 250,000
visitors annually. (Figure 4)

1.8
There was close correlation between whether a respondent’s institution was
currently offering a mobile experience and the annual attendance of that institution,
with the ‘pivot’ point being at c.250,000 annual visitors, above which a majority of
respondents’ institutions offered a mobile experience. 55% of respondents from
institution with annual attendance of under 50,000 visitors were not currently offering
mobile nor had plans to. (Figure 5)


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Figure 1 // Proportion of survey respondents that currently offer a
mobile experience at their institution.


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Figure 2 // Survey respondents by type of institution vs. whether that
institution currently offers a mobile experience.


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Figure 3 // Survey respondents by whether that institution currently
offers a mobile experience vs. the type of institution.


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Figure 4 // Survey respondents by annual attendance vs. whether that


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Figure 5 // Proportional representation of survey respondents by
annual attendance vs. whether that institution currently offers a
mobile experience.


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type & platform
  What type of mobile experience are institutions offering?
  Are the mobile experiences free or a paid extra?
  Are visitors required to use their own hardware, and if so is this factor
related to the size of an institution?


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type & platform
2.1
63% of respondents from an institution that either offered a mobile experience, or
which were planning to do so, defined their mobile experience as an on-site / in-
gallery enhancement to the museum visit. However those institutions that were
planning their first mobile experience were more likely to be developing an off-site
experience compared to their counterparts in institutions that already offered a mobile
experience. (Figure 6)

2.2
Of those respondents from institutions currently offering a mobile experience, or which
were planning to do so, over 70% reported that the mobile experience was free to
visitors: just 10% reported that it was available at an additional cost. (Figure 7)

2.3
The majority of respondents from institutions that currently offered a mobile
experience provided the hardware for that experience to visitors, though half of these
also made that experience available to visitors via there own smartphone. A
significantly greater proportion of institutions that were planning their first mobile
experience were more likely to require visitors to use their own smartphone /
hardware. (Figure 8)

2.4
Whilst there was little discernable relationship between the type of mobile experience
and its cost to the visitor (Figure 9), a relationship was evident between the cost of the
mobile experience and whether visitors had to use their own hardware to access that
experience. (Figure 10)

2.5
There was little discernable relationship between the size of an institution and whether
that institution requires visitors to use their own smartphone / hardware to access its
mobile experience. (Figure 11)


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Figure 6 // Type of mobile experience by those institutions that
currently offer / have plans to offer a mobile experience.


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Figure 7 // Cost of the mobile experience by those institutions that
currently offer / have plans to offer a mobile experience.


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Figure 8 // Hardware platform of the mobile experience by those
institutions that currently offer / have plans to offer a mobile
experience.


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Figure 9 // Cost to the visitor to use the mobile experience vs. the
type of the mobile experience, (focused on institutions currently
offering a mobile experience only).


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Figure 10 // Cost to the visitor to use the mobile experience vs. the
hardware platform on which visitors access the mobile experience,
(focused on institutions currently offering a mobile experience only).


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Figure 11 // Proportional representation of annual attendance vs. the
hardware platform on which the visitor access the mobile experience,


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audience
  What type of audience are the mobile experiences targeted
towards?
  Is the target audience linked to whether a visitor uses their own
smartphone?


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audience
3.1
The top five terms used to describe the target audience of the mobile experience
currently offered by, or planned by, museums are:*
•  Tourists (55%)
•  Visitors to the institution (56%)
•  Adult visitors (55%)
•  All visitors (47%)
•  Those that like audio guides (41%)

3.2
Museum that are planning their first mobile experience are more inclined than those
institutions with an existing mobile experience to define their target audience in
relation to a visit to the institution.*

3.3
Those institutions that were planning to offer their first mobile experience were more
likely than those institutions already offering a mobile experience to identify the
following visitor groups as the target audience of their mobile experience:
•  School groups.*
•  Twitter & Facebook users.
•  Local community.
•  Those wanting a more playful experience.

3.4
Those institutions already offering a mobile experience were were more likely than
those institutions planning to offer their first mobile experience to identify the following
visitor groups as the target audience of their mobile experience:*
•  Those that like audio guides.
•  Adults.

* (Figure 12).


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audience
3.5
In some cases, the relationship between the target audience was linked to the
hardware platform a visitor must use to access the mobile experience. For example:
•  Institutions were unlikely to target “Twitter and Facebook users” for an experience
only available on a hardware visitors must borrow from the institution.
•  For a target audience of “Those that like audio guides”, it was less likely that an
institution would make the mobile experience only accessible on a visitors own
hardware.
•  If the target audience was “those wanting a more in-depth experience,”
institutions were most likely to have the experience only available on a hardware
the visitor must borrow from the institution.

(Figure 13)

3.6
Those institutions that offered their mobile experience both on visitors’ own hardware
and on a hardware the visitor could borrow from the institution, were more likely to
have a broad-description / multi-category target audience than those institutions that
offered the mobile experience only on a visitors hardware or only on a hardware the
visitor could borrow from the institution. (Figure 13)


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Figure 12 // Target audience of the mobile experience of those
institutions that currently offer / have plans to offer mobile.


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Figure 13 // Target audience of the mobile experience of those
institutions that currently offer and have plans to offer mobile vs. the
hardware platform visitors use to access the mobile experience.


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objectives
  What are the objectives of your institution’s mobile experience?
  Are the objectives of the mobile experience linked to the type
of experience?


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objectives
4.1
Whether or not the institution currently offered a mobile experience, and / or was
planning to offer a mobile experience, institutions identified the same four points as
the primary objectives of their / a mobile experience. These were:
•  To provide additional interpretation information to visitors.
•  As part of institution’s experimentation in engaging visitors.
•  To provide a more interactive experience.
•  To raise the profile of the institution with new audiences.

(Figure 14-16)

4.2
Among the main differences in objectives for their / a mobile experience between
institutions that currently offered, were planning to offer, or were not planning to offer,
were:
•  Institutions that currently offered a mobile experience were the least likely to
identify revenue generation as an important objective of their mobile experience.
•  Conversely, institutions that did not currently offer, or plan to offer, a mobile
experience were the most likely to see revenue generation as an important
objective of an institution’s mobile experience.
•  Institutions that did not currently offer, or plan to offer, a mobile experience were
the least likely to see “to keep up with museum practices” and “as part of the
institutions experimentation in engaging visitors” as important objective of an
institution’s mobile experience.
•  And Vendors / Researchers were more likely than institutions to view “to raise the
profile of the institution”, “to satisfy visitor demand”, “to facilitate way-finding
through the site”, “to provide better access for visitors with special needs” and
“as a foreign language provision” as important objectives of an institution’s mobile
experience.

(Figure 17)


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objectives
4.3
For those institutions that currently offered, or were planning to offer, a mobile
experience that was an on-site / in-gallery enhancement to the visitor experience, the
objectives most likely to be “Very important” for their mobile experience were: *
•  To provide additional interpretation information to visitors. (75%)
•  As part of institution’s experimentation in engaging visitors. (70%)
•  To provide a more interactive experience. (62%)
•  To keep up with current museum practices. (45%)

4.4
For mobile experiences that were an off-site enhancement to a past of future visit to
the institution, the objectives most likely to be “Very important” were: *
•  To raise the proﬁle of the institution with new audiences. (61%)
•  To attract new visitors to the institution. (58%)

4.5
And for mobile experience that were an off-site stand-alone experience, the
objectives most likely to be “Very important” were: *
•  To raise the proﬁle of the institution with new audiences. (64%)
•  To attract new visitors to the institution. (59%)

* (Figure 18)


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objectives
4.6
There were differences in the “Very important” objectives of the mobile experience
currently offered, or planned, by an institution based on the hardware platform the
visitor used to access the mobile experience. Among the main differences were:
•  An institution that identiﬁed “to keep up with museum practice” as an objective of
their mobile experience was more likely to give the visitor the choice of accessing
the mobile experience on their own mobile platform or on a device they could
borrow from the institution.
•  Institution’s that positioned their mobile experience as part of their
experimentation in how to engage visitors were more likely to make that
experience accessible on a hardware owned by the visitor than on a hardware
they must borrow from the institution.
•  If speciﬁc funds had been made available for the mobile experience, it was
deemed more important that the institution provide a hardware which the visitor
may borrow to access the mobile experience.

(Figure 19)


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Figure 14 // Objectives of their institution’s mobile experience, as
seen by those institutions that currently offer a mobile experience.


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Figure 15 // Objectives of their institution’s planned mobile
experience, as seen by those institutions that no not currently offer a
mobile experience, but have plans to do so in the next 12 months.


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Figure 16 // Objectives of an institution’s mobile experience as seen
by those institutions that currently do not offer a mobile experience,
nor have any plans to do so.


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Figure 17 // Objectives deemed “Very Important” by all survey
respondents vs. whether their institution currently offers a mobile
experience.


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Figure 18 // Objectives deemed “Very Important” of the mobile
experience of those institutions that currently offer and have plans to
offer mobile vs. the type of mobile experience.


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Figure 19 // Objectives deemed “Very Important” of the mobile experience
of those institutions that currently offer and have plans to offer mobile vs.
the hardware platform visitors use to access the mobile experience.


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no mobile
  Of those institutions that don’t use mobile, and have no plans
to, why not?


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no mobile
5.1
Of those institutions that neither currently offer a mobile experience, nor have plans to
do so, the most popular response to ‘why not?’ related to the maintenance of the
experience as opposed to its implementation. (Figure 20)

5.2
Of the 21% of responses that felt that the reason their institution did not use mobile
was not covered by the options provided, a selection of the responses were as
follows:

“I actually want to say ‘All of the above’. Our Director just does not see mobile
apps as being relevant.”
“Our location does not have good mobile reception. We're kind of in a ‘no
service’ pocket.”
“We are inexperienced in the ﬁeld, both in determining its value and in
implementing it.”
“All of the above.”
“Board at this time feels being open is enough.”
“Both too expensive and insufﬁcient staff to operate/maintain.”
“We attempted an audio tour that did not see to be utilized.”
“I want to but only have time to do so much.”
“Almost all of the above.”


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Figure 20 // Reason for not offering a mobile experience by those
institutions that currently do not offer a mobile experience, nor have
any plans to do so.


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challenges
  What is the greatest challenge in developing and delivering a
mobile experience?
  How are these challenges linked to the type of experience an
institution chooses to develop?


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challenges
6.1
Institutions that did not currently offer, or were planning to offer, a mobile experience
perceived the challenges of developing and operating a mobile experience to
significantly greater than either an institution that currently offered a mobile experience,
or an institution that was planning to offer their first mobile experience. (Figure 21)

6.2
The three aspects of developing and operating a mobile experience that were identified
as most challenging by those institutions that currently offered a mobile experience
were:
•  Keeping the experience up-to-date.
•  Encouraging take-up of the mobile experience.
•  Production of the content.

(Figure 22)

6.3
Institutions that were planning their first mobile experience, and institutions that did not
currently offer, or were planning to offer a mobile experience, identified the same
aspects of developing and operating a mobile experience as most challenging. These
were:
•  Cost of sustaining the mobile experience.
•  Cost of maintaining the mobile experience.
•  Keeping the experience up-to-date.

(Figure 22)

6.4
Overall, the aspect of developing and delivering a mobile experience that was identified
as most challenging by all institutions was “keeping the experience up-to-
date.” (Figure 22). This aligns with the reason given for not offering a mobile
experience given by those institutions that did not currently offer, or were planning to
offer a mobile experience, i.e. insufficient staff to operate / maintain the experience.
(See 5.1)


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challenges
6.5
“Encouraging people to take the mobile experience” was the only aspect of
developing and operating a mobile experience that institutions who did not currently
offer a mobile experience perceived to be less challenging than those institutions that
currently did offer a mobile experience. (Figure 21)

6.6
The other aspect more readily identiﬁed as a big challenge by institutions that
currently offered mobile than by institutions that did not, was “production of the
content.” (Figure 22)

6.7
Among institutions that currently offered a mobile experience, there were differences
in the main challenges those institutions faced in developing and operating a mobile
experience based on the type of mobile experience they were offering. Among the
main differences were:
•  Institutions that offered an off-site enhancement to a future or past visit to the
institution were more likely to identify both the design and technical development
of the mobile experience as very challenging.
•  The cost of implementing and sustaining a mobile experience was considered to
be a greater challenge for an in-gallery mobile experience than for an off-site
mobile experience.
•  Ensuring the mobile experience supported the mission of the institution was
deemed a greater challenge for off-site experiences than for on-site experiences.

(Figure 23)


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Figure 21 // Challenges deemed “Very Challenging” for developing &
operating a mobile experience vs. whether that institution currently
offers a mobile experience.


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Figure 22 // Ranked view of challenges deemed “Very Challenging”
for developing & operating a mobile experience vs. whether that


42

Figure 23 // Ranked view of challenges deemed “Very Challenging” for
developing & operating a mobile experience vs. the type of mobile experience,


43

take-up
  Is the challenge of encouraging visitors to take-up the mobile
experience linked to cost?
  Is the challenge linked to whether the visitor can access the
mobile experience on their own smartphone?


44

distribution
7.1
Among institutions that currently offer a mobile experience, encouraging visitors to
take the mobile experience was deemed less challenging by institutions who made
the experience available free-of-charge than by institutions that charged extra for the
mobile experience. Nonetheless, it was ranked respectively as the greatest and
second-greatest challenge of developing and operating a mobile experience by each
type of institution. (Figure 24)

7.2
Whether the experience was available only on a hardware that the visitor borrowed
from the institution, or was also available on a visitors own hardware did not have a
signiﬁcant effect on the challenge institutions faced in encouraging visitors to use the
mobile experience. (Figure 24)


45

Figure 24 // Challenge of encouraging a visitor to take a mobile
experience vs. 1) the cost to the visitor to use mobile experience, and
2) the hardware platform visitors use to access the mobile experience.


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future
  Where will museum mobile be in two years time?
  Do museums that currently offer a mobile experience see the
future differently to those that do not currently use mobile?
  And how does the size of an institution affect its vision for the
future?


47

future
8.1
Despite variation in those aspects of mobile which an institution has already
implemented, institutions that already offer a mobile experience and institutions that
are planning to offer a mobile experience have a similar vision of what their institution
will and will not have implemented, within the ﬁeld of mobile, in the next two years.
(Figures 25-26)

8.2
The three aspects relating to mobile which institutions that currently offer a mobile
experience, and institutions that are planning to offer mobile experience, are most
likely to have implemented within the next two years are:
•  Increased in-house content production for mobile.
•  A strategy for mobile at the institution.
•  Development of a web site optimised for mobile.

(Figures 25-26)

8.3
Institutions which currently offer a mobile experience and institutions that are
planning their ﬁrst mobile experience envision it as more likely that they will have a
web site optimised for mobile than a smartphone application within the next two
years. (Figures 27)

8.4
Relationships exist between an institutions vision of where they will be with mobile in
two years time, and the annual attendance (or size?) of their institution. These
include:
•  The aspect of mobile for which there is the greatest variance in relation to the
institution’s annual attendance, is whether the institution will install a free public
Wi-Fi network within the next two years.
•  The increased production of content in-house content production appears to
have little correlation to annual attendance of an institution.

(Figure 28)


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Figure 25 // Future / next two years of mobile experiences at
institutions that currently offer a mobile experience.


49

Figure 26 // Future / next two years of mobile experiences at
institutions that do not currently offer a mobile experience, but have
plans to do so in the next 12 months.


50

Figure 27 // Features of mobile experiences that are “Already
Implemented” or “Will Deﬁnitely Implement” in the next two years vs.
whether that institution currently offers a mobile experience.


51

Figure 28 // Features of mobile experiences that are “Already Implemented” or
“Will Deﬁnitely Implement” in the next two at institutions that currently offer, or
have plans to offer, a mobile experience vs. the annual attendance of the institution.


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favorite!
mobile exp.?
  What is your favorite museum mobile experience of 2011?


53

and finally... Out of all the museum mobile experiences you have
taken in the past 12 months, which is your favorite?!
Yes, Currently using mobile. (A selection) "

911 memorial. Real sense of place. | A historic area in a Houston, TX park. Several restored houses were arranged
in a beautiful setting, on the outdoor signage was a number to call on your own cell phone. It was easy and added
additional information about the houses and their history, it did not repeat the information provided on the signage. |
AB EX NY iPad app by MoMA - because it's beautifully executed, has a seamless UX, and makes use of the mobile
device's specific functionalities in meaningful ways (web access, multimedia, interactive map) | Antenna audio tour
for Birth of Impressionism exhibit which traveled from the Musee d'Orsay. It added so much more information to the
experience (I went to the exhibit 3 times and listed to the audio all three times) and was much easier than crowding
around the paintings to read the labels which were in a much too small typeface (in order to minimize their presence?)
| Audio guides. | Augmented Reality - the visual expereince of the then & nows are cool! | Augusta Canal National
Heritage Area. Augmented Reality is not perfect technology yet, but is exactly along the lines of what we hope to do
in 2012 -- has great potential for our site in seeing the layers of history that are no longer visible -- in doing so, we
hope to more strongly reinforce the historical importance of our site to the South Carolina Lowcountry and to the
nation. | CNAPn application for iPhone. | Have not experienced any. | Hmm... in last 12 months. Prolly LeafSnap |
| Indianapolis Museum of Art TAP Tour of the Tara Donovan exhibition. | Just Add Art - Bonnefantenmuseum:
simple, user-centric, fun, unique | Montreal Museum of Fine Arts musical audio tour for Tiffany exhibition | Ours, it
was fun to get our feet wet with the technology | Sadly I have had little time to go outside of work to anywhere with
new mobile experiences in the past year and prefer personal contact to find out information. I have in the past
enjoyed way finding apps at larger institutions. | smartphones | TATE trumps. I have not tried it on site, but it seems
that this app really take in consideration the use of smartphones, not only used as a digitalized catalogue. But uses
the technologies capability for interaction in a playful way | website and app. talesofthings--lets you comment on
museum artifacts Website and app. Search the collections of the Victoria & Albert museum--awesome to see what
they have.


54

No mobile, but have plans to. (A selection) "

Augmented reality guide at the National Railroad Museum in Green Bay, WI | Augmented Reality walking tours
fascinate me, and I have used AR apps that were games or interactive advertisements, but I have not been able to
experience an on-site AR tour. I would LOVE to take the Museum of London Street Museum tour one day, which I
have only read about online. Second to that, QR codes with additional online content are always nice when I'm in
other museums. | Canadian War Museum... it allowed us to see something that we could emulate, and it's
shortcomings showed us many places that we could improve upon for our own application. | Have never tried one.
That kind of technology is new to me. | Haven't taken one to be honest | Historypin. It works, it's relevant, it's
smooth. | I have enjoyed the experience at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. I didn't have to pick up the audio tour -
just relied on my telephone. The content was well-written. | I have not had the opportunity to do so. | I haven't
experienced a museum mobile experience in the past 12 months because I live in a small community in New Mexico.
We have a large, historic New Deal Art Collection and an historic Courthouse where the collection should be housed.
Developing a museum-mobile experience for tourists, residents and schools seems ideal for our needs. | I haven't
taken a museum mobile experience in the past 12 months. | Met Museum Guitar application -- good use of the
properties of the medium in an accessible and engaging way. | MOMA | MoMA Ab Ex, for its content, aesthetic,
creativity and diverse sets of knowledge | Pittsburgh Pennsylvania Black History Museum. Very educational, but
short enough to make the visit doable within a limited time block; animated characters engaging and provided
authenticity to understanding the history. | Sadly, none. Not one mobile experience I've personally had felt like it
really connected me with the museum. | Tate trumps - kept me occupied, entertaining, learned about my own art
preferences and offered the facility to interact with other users. And simple - not bogged down with hard to learn
functionality. | The dinosaur app from the American Museum of Natural History, because it is engaging and
educational. | Western Heritage Center, Billings, because it provides additional interesting factual information not
otherwise at hand. | Whitney Museum retrospective on Kara Walker.


55

No mobile, and no plans to. (A selection) "

(N/A I'm one of those people who doesn't do tours when I'm a visitor!) | curators tour at DeYoung Museum |
Desert Museum in Phoenix, AZ. Enjoyed the descriptions and information of the various plants. | first time
experience | Gallery specific/initiated audio guides. | have not had any museum mobile experiences | Have not
had one in past 12 months. | Have not had one. | I don't think I have taken any. Or if I have, it obviously wasn't
memorable. ( I don't have a "smart" phone, just an old fashioned cell phone that calls and takes messages. Not
even a camera. My museum pays for it.) | I don't think I've had any museum mobile experiences, quite frankly.
Most of the museums in my neck of the woods (CT) haven't developed mobile apps. They're on facebook and
twitter, but that's about it. | I have not attended a mobile experience in the past 24 months | I have not done in
past 12 months | I have not experienced any. | I have not used a museum moblie experience. | I haven't used any
mobile experiences in a museum ever. Usually I have looked around with printed maps (or just wandered). In a few
cases I have used a human tour guide or the like. | I really liked the phone app for the City Hall Park exhibit of Sol
LeWitt sculpture. | I recently downloaded three Civil War Trust apps for the iPhone (Gettysburg Battle App,
Fredericksburg Battle App, and Bull Run Battle App), mostly out of curiosity. Although not exactly museum-specific, I
found them to be informative even though I have not visited any of those sites. However, I haven't recently download
many museum-related apps. | Indiana Historical Society Interesting interactives and connections with people. | n/a
| NA | none taken | SFMOMA Podcasts | St. Augustine FL Lighthouse | The Summer Palace Beijing had a
mobile tour which was geo location based. It took the burden off the user to key in numbers or stops. | To be
perfectly honest, I have never had a museum mobile experience. Despite being 31 - an age that readily accepts new
technological innovations and experiences - I very much dislike them. I find the idea/experience of being 'plugged in'
very lonely despite the obvious arguments otherwise. My attention span is too short to support it and I find that I get
a better personal experience (as well as personally interesting, learning more, making better connections, etc.) if I am
able to follow my own initiative and see the museum as I am interested in it.


56

Vendors & Researchers. (A selection) "

Catellan-Guggenheim. Liked the visual trigger for ascertaining more info. | Diego Rivera iPad app at the Detroit
Institute of Arts. It is the perfect way to provide interpretation for a confined and unusual exhibit. The usability and
design of the interactive made it a pleasant and engaging experience. | Dinosaurs! | | Have not had such an
experience in past 12 months. | Have not had that experience -- still have a "dumb phone"! | Have not taken any in
12months. | Haven't really seen any interactive truly mobile experiences here. | honestly can't pull one out
specifically right nowl... | I really don't know... Maybe Museum of Londons Streetmuseum app? because it is
location based and links the past to the present and makes it relevant for the viewer?? | Just Add Art! One of the
simplest, yet coolest, educational experiences I've ever seen in this market. | LEAFSNAP. It uses the technical
powers of the mobile devices to create a new experience, different from that of the museum visit. It finds a way to
connect the public with the content in an exciting and pleasing way. Besides it is beautifully designed. | None. I
haven't come across something that would be more then typing and listening. | Prototype 'Macbeth the King'
transmedia service taking people into the landscape and ending in a museum visit | QR codes at Fundacion Joan
Miro (Barcelona) linked to wikipedia articles, done by the community and check by the museum curators |
Smithsonian African Art Museum, Artists in Dialogue. | Smithsonian is the only one I have had contact recently. They
are sometimes dificult to locate the specific research item but they have great people in the system that get back to
you with suggestions if not the actual information you are looking for. | The AMNH's integration of scanning of on-
site QR codes/images with their exhibit on space exploration was an absolute delight for people of all ages. The
execution was brilliant because the collecting of all of the images results in a "reward" which must be collected back
at one's own computer. | The Andy Warhol Museum has really been on the cutting edge of aps that not only take
place within the museum, but continue to connect the museum and its mission outside the walls of the museum.
They've done a fantastic job of keeping the content relevant to their audiences (which are a tough one to crack--
generally young and generally very tech savvy. They can smell a bad tech experience a mile away!)


57

Glad you continue to do this survey; great benchmarking tool! Thank you! | I liked the design of the survey! Specially
the banners and how readable was the text (I have a little impaired vision). | I'd suggest you start the next survey
with a brief description of what you mean by "mobile". Lots of people are using it to describe different types of tours,
apps, audio tours, ipods, tablets etc while other consider it to only be smartphone tours. I'm not sure how wide of a
deﬁnition you intended. | In the future, I think it would be a good idea to structure this assuming that institutions
have more than one mobile offering. I'd include questions about tablets as well. | In your survey, the choices were
"Very challenging," "Quite challenging." and not challenging. Truthfully, "very and "quite" are similar modiﬁers, and
meant the same thing to me. I would have liked to see "somewhat challenging" as the middle choice - as it covers
more middle ground than "quite challenging." Just a suggestion. | Part of this survey did not cover our situation.
We have no full-time employees - every curator, technician and support staff member is a volunteer. | Please give
me feedback on the results of your survey. | Survey was too speculative. | Thanks for including me in this survey. |
Thanks for your work! | Thanks you for your continued work on this survey and contributions to the world of
museums. | The survey presupposes more knowledge than we have on the topic. I found answering the questions
was not entirely simple | This is an incredibly useful annual initiative. Thank you. | Very useful and timely research!
Excited to see the results. | Very useful survey. Well-placed questions; not too long, etc. | We had fun participating
in the conference this year. Looking forward to it growing. | Would be interesting to know what platforms cultural
organisations are supporting in smartphone and tablet apps: is the bias towards iOS really disappearing?


58

Hashtag: #mmonline
Email: loic@pocket-proof.com

Please cite paper as:

Tallon, Loïc. Museums & Mobile in 2012: An analysis of the Museums &
Mobile Survey 2012 Responses. (February 2012: Pocket-Proof &
LearningTimes), published at http://www.museums-mobile.org/survey

ABOUT POCKET-PROOF
ABOUT LEARNING TIMES

Pocket-Proof is a leading knowledge center / thought leader in LearningTimes is a global leader in creating innovative,
mobile experiences for museums. Pocket-Proof assists interactive online learning programs. LearningTimes produces
museums internationally in the planning, design and live online conferences, webcasts, podcasts, and educational
development of experiences that meet the needs and programs for more than 400 organizations and associations in
preferences of their visitors through new mobile technologies. the technology, publishing, museum, library, K-20 education,
Clients include MFA Boston, Whitney Museum of American government, training and non-proﬁt sectors. LearningTimes is
Art, National Museums Scotland, National Museum Wales, headquartered in New York with ofﬁces in San Francisco,
Louis Vuitton Cultural Centre & National Museum of Qatar.
London, Calgary and Philadelphia.


59

SAVE THE DATE // May 9, 2012

On May 9, 2012, join museum colleagues from around the world for
Museums & Mobile IV Online Conference

Speakers include:
•  Charlotte Sexton, Head of New Media, National Gallery, UK.
•  David Klevan, Senior Digital Engagement Strategist, United States Holocaust Memorial
Museum, USA.
•  Elizabeth Margulies, Assistant Director, Family Programs, MOMA, USA.
•  Charlie Keitch, Formal Learning Ofﬁcer, National Maritime Museum, UK.
•  Jane Findlay, Digital Participation Ofﬁcer, National Maritime Museum, UK.
•  Sheila McGuire, Manager of Learning Resources, Minneapolis Institute of the Arts, USA.
•  Richard C. Cooper, Manager of Interpretive Services, National Underground Railroad Freedom
Center, USA.
•  Shelley Mannion, Digital Learning Programs Manager, The British Museum, UK.
•  Dan Davis, Multimedia Producer, National Museum of the American Indian, USA.
•  Eric Longo, Longo Consulting, USA.
•  Nancy Proctor, Head of Mobile Strategy, Smithsonian Institute, USA.

And remember, it all takes place online so you can attend from the comfort of your own desk. No
travel necessary!

Register Today! (early bird pricing ends April 25th): http://www.museums-mobile.org


60

Museums & Mobile in 2012 : Survey Results

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