As part of a larger museum experience, mobile app content can help “visitors” think in new ways and engage with different perspectives. However, mobile apps should also meet “user” needs for easy and intuitive interaction. In this session from edUi 2013, Centralis' Tanya Treptow and Kathi Kaiser explored key ways for evaluating whether a museum app is meeting the needs of both users and visitors during a day at the museum.

1. User Experience
©Davison
Visitor Experience
©Instigation of Thought
A Holistic Approach for Understanding
and Improving Mobile Apps in Museums
Kathi Kaiser
kathi@centralis.com
Tanya Treptow
ttreptow@centralis.com

2. Hi from Centralis!
@kathikaiser
@Centralis_UX

3. A Museum App Scenario
©Ted Nguyen
©NY Daily News
©Portland Art Museum

4. A Common Experience…
2013 Annual Museums & Mobile Annual Survey
551 respondents from museums worldwide
66% currently offering mobile or planning to in next 12 months
Top three objectives for introducing a mobile experience:
To make accessible additional interpretive content
As part of institution’s experimentation in engaging visitors
To provide a more interactive experience
Employ
incremental
approaches!

5. What are common tools for feedback in museums?
Focus Groups
Visitor
Observation
Informal
Feedback
Surveys
Analytics

6. Iterative Design
Focus Groups
Observation
Informal Feedback
Surveys
Analytics
From Dana Mitroff Silvers, Design Thinking for Museums, designthinkingformuseums.net
Surveys

7. Research Strategy
You need to know what you are trying to achieve
before you can determine how to measure it.
1.
What’s the scope of
the experience?
2.
Who’s the
audience?
3.
What are the goals
for success?

8. What’s the scope?
User Experience
©Davison
Visitor Experience
©Instigation of Thought

9. “The Experience”
What the
visitor brings

10. “The Experience”
What the
visitor brings
What the
museum brings

11. You need to know what you are trying to achieve
before you can determine how to measure it.
1.
What’s the scope of
the experience?
2.
Who’s the
audience?
3.
What are the goals
for success?

12. What the Visitor Brings
Explorer
Facilitator
• Curiosity driven
• Socially motivated
• Expects to find something
to grab attention and fuel
learning
• Focused on enabling the
experience and learning of
others in their group
Experience Seeker
Professional/Hobbyist
• Perceive museum as an
important destination
• Feels a close tie between
museum and their passions
• Satisfaction from having
‘been there and done that’
• Typically motivated by
specific museum content
Recharger
Pilgrim
• Seeking a contemplative,
restorative experience
• Sense of duty, heritage,
and obligation
• Sees museum as refuge
from work-a-day world
• Visits to honor the memory
of group or memorial
Adapted from: Falk and Dierking, The Museum Experience Revisited, published 2013

13. You need to know what you are trying to achieve
before you can determine how to measure it.
1.
What’s the scope of
the experience?
2.
Who’s the
audience?
3.
What are the goals
for success?

14. What the Museum Brings
Top three objectives for introducing a mobile experience:
To make accessible additional interpretive content
As part of institution’s experimentation in engaging visitors
To provide a more interactive experience
Research has shown that technology that attempts to
be ‘all things to all visitors’ is likely to fail because the
visitors are overwhelmed by choice, much of which is
of little interest to them.
Ben Gammon and Alexandra Burch, ‘Chapter 3: Designing Mobile
Digital Experiences’, Digital Technologies and the Museum Experience

15. What the Museum Brings
Goal: Multisensory, multimodal learning…
©Street Museum NL

16. What the Museum Brings
Goal: Opportunities to explore and
construct models of real-world systems…
©Cleveland Museum of Art

17. What the Museum Brings
Goal: Active, playful, social opportunities…
©Cleveland Museum of Art

18. What the Museum Brings
Goal: Tools to help
visitors personally
customize their
visit…

19. So we have a sense of scope, audience, and goals
...But what to evaluate?
...And what kind of research process?!?

20. “The Experience”
What the
visitor brings
The Interaction
What the
museum brings

21. “The Experience”
What the
visitor brings
What the
museum brings
Task at
Hand
Physical
Manipulation
The Interaction
Environmental
Factors
Cognitive
Processing

22. Research Questions about The Interaction
Task at Hand
Environmental
Factors
Physical Manipulation
Cognitive Processing
• Can users comfortably hold the device while moving
through the gallery?
• Can they swipe/tap/scroll to find what they need?

23. Research Questions about The Interaction
Task at Hand
Environmental
Factors
Physical Manipulation
Cognitive Processing
• Do users see and understand screen elements?
• Is the language clear, familiar and unambiguous?

24. Research Questions about The Interaction
Task at Hand
Environmental
Factors
Physical Manipulation
Cognitive Processing
• Can users related the screen display to the gallery itself?
• What role do sound & lighting play?
• How does social interaction impact the app’s use, and vice versa?

25. Environmental Factors

26. Research Questions about The Interaction
Task at Hand
Environmental
Factors
Physical Manipulation
Cognitive Processing
• Can users accomplish important tasks easily?

27. Iterative Design
Focus Groups
Observation
Informal Feedback
Surveys
Iterative Usability Testing
Analytics
From Dana Mitroff Silvers, Design Thinking for Museums, designthinkingformuseums.net
Informal Feedback

28. So how is iterative usability testing done?
© James R. Brantley

29. Use small samples to diagnose issues, not measure them.
Nielsen, Jakob, and Landauer, Thomas K.: "A mathematical model of the finding of usability problems,"Proceedings of ACM
INTERCHI'93 Conference (Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 24-29 April 1993), pp. 206-213.

30. Test early and often with low-fidelity prototypes.
Logo
How to Use this App >
Tours by Collection >
Tours by Theme >
Tours by Time or Occasion >
Current Exhibitions >
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Map
Facilities

31. Create tasks that test your hypotheses.
• Do users know what a “collection” is?
— What’s the best way to see the
museum’s pieces from the Renaissance?
Logo
• Can they find a specific object?
— How would you find the famous Seurat
painting?
• Is the term “Facilities” clear?
— Where could you have lunch?
How to Use this App >
Tours by Collection >
Tours by Theme >
Tours by Time or Occasion >
Current Exhibitions >
Featured
Search
Map
Facilities

32. Observe, but also facilitate the sessions.

33. Watch those assumptions!
What do you see?
…if you’re two years old?

34. Capture video.
Spy gadgets!

35. Consider the end-to-end experience.

36. “The Experience”
What the
visitor brings
What the
museum brings
Task at
Hand
Physical
Manipulation
The Interaction
Environmental
Factors
Cognitive
Processing

37. Key Takeaways
• Museums are becoming interactive – this
phenomenon is here to stay
• Current research methods only tell part of the story
• Usability testing can bridge the gap by evaluating the
in-the-moment experience
• Improving the user experience of museum apps will
provide a better overall visitor experience

38. ©Davison
User Experience
Visitor Experience
©Instigation of Thought
Thanks!
Kathi Kaiser
kathi@centralis.com
Tanya Treptow
ttreptow@centralis.com