Introduction

By Nancy Proctor

Today apps and smartphones probably come to mind first as the iconic, ground-breaking mobile platforms poised to transform the museum experience for all of us. But in fact mobile technologies have been part of the museum landscape since at least 1952 when what may have been the first audio tour was introduced at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam using radio broadcast technology.[1]

Audio tours are still the most common form of “self-guided” mobile experience at cultural sites. Arguably, they are also the oldest source of “augmented reality”(AR), enabling us to “overlay” the observed environment with interpretation and other content we hear. In this light there is a pleasurable echo to finding the Stedelijk once again leading the field in AR apps, discussed here in a chapter by Margriet Schavemaker, the museum’s head of collections and research. The Stedelijk example and museums’ long history of working with mobile technologies suggests that the foundational experiences and expertise required to deploy even the most cutting-edge of 21^st-century mobile technologies effectively lie at museums’ fingertips and well within their traditional purview. This introductory volume aims to help museums grasp some of the mobile skills and opportunities most immediately available to them.

Since the invention of the audio tour, the number and kind of mobile devices used by museums have proliferated. Other than audio tours loaned out on made-for-museum devices, podcasts are probably the most common mobile media being published by museums, alongside other kinds of downloadable content ranging from PDFs to eBooks and videos. In terms of personal mobile devices, the majority of the museum’s actual and potential audiences still use “dumbphones” that are limited to voice and text messaging. Hundreds if not thousands of museums have created audio tours for this low-cost platform in the past six years or so. What these forms of mobile media — the traditional audio tour, the cellphone tour, the podcast and similar downloadable content — have in common is that they are typically deployed in a broadcast delivery mode: primarily for one-way delivery of content from museum to consumer.

But with today’s new networked mobile devices — smartphones, tablet computers and Wi-Fi-enabled media players — two-way communication models are now easier and on the rise. Not just “narrowcast” audio tours but interactive mobile multimedia, including games, crowdsourcing activities, and social media, can be delivered via apps to the visitor’s own Internet-enabled phones and media players, instead of or to supplement devices provided on-site by the museum. The term “mobile” has come to encompass an ever-expanding field of platforms, players, and modes of audience engagement. Mobile today means both:

• Pocketable (phones, personal media players, gaming devices) and portable devices (tablets and eReaders);

• Smartphones that run apps and access the Internet, and older cellular phones that do nothing more than make voice calls and send text messages;

• Podcasts of audio and video content, and other downloadable content, including PDFs and eBooks;

• Mobile websites, optimized for the small screen and audiences on the go, and “desktop” websites, designed for large, fixed screens but which are increasingly visited by mobile devices; [2]

• BYOD (bring your own device) mobile experiences, designed for visitors’ personal devices, and traditional on-site device distribution for visitors who do not have or do not care to use their own phone or media player.

Mobile’s disruptive power comes from its unique ability to offer the individual intimate, immediate and ubiquitous access combined with an unprecedented power to connect people with communities and conversations in global, social networks: mobile is both private and public, personal and political. Understanding that the new mobile devices today are also geo-spatially aware computers capable of supporting research, communication and collaboration challenges us to “think beyond the audio tour” and our silo-like approaches to digital initiatives. It also inspires us to reinvent the museum’s relationship with its many publics by conceiving content and experiences that operate across platforms and disciplines, both inside the museum and beyond.

At the same time that the rise of mobile reshapes the museum’s thinking about its digital interfaces, it broadens access to the museum exponentially. Not only are more people able to connect with the museum through their mobile devices, but there is also the potential for them to personalize their museum experience whenever and wherever they like, integrating collections, exhibitions and other offerings into a much broader range of use-case scenarios than we have ever imagined. The museum can not only enter people’s homes and classrooms, but can also be part of their daily commutes, their international travel, their work and leisure activities as never before. How will museums understand and cater to this huge range of contexts and demands for cultural content?

Mobile is Social Media

As Koven Smith has argued[3], delivering what is fundamentally the same, narrow-cast audio tour experience to shiny new gadgets is unlikely to improve the take-up or penetration rates of mobile technology used by museum visitors: in other words, to better help the museum deliver on its educational and interpretive mission. Although in conflict with visitors’ self-reported usage of mobile interpretation in museums[4], the traditional audio tour reaches a sobering minority of the museum’s on-site audiences, whether the tour is provided on made-for-museum audio devices on-site, or accessed through visitors’ personal phones or media players. In the pages that follow, Kate Haley-Goldman helps us understand this phenomenon in the context of recent major studies of mobile adoption by museums and their visitors, and frames important new questions for future research to guide ongoing developments in the field.

Thinking beyond the audio tour model, Ed Rodley provides tips on how to integrate mobile into the overall museum experience design to create more authentic, compelling and higher quality mobile programs. Jane Burton tackles the new field of “serious mobile gaming” for museums, and Margriet Schavemaker demonstrates how augmented reality can explode the museum experience into new dimensions and territories for artists, curators and exhibition designers, as well as for museum audiences. No less revolutionary is the impact of new platforms on the centuries-old docent or museum guide format: Scott Sayre, Kris Wetterlund, Sheila McGuire and Ann Isaacson describe how iPads and similar tablet computers can transform the live-guided group tour into a multi-platform, multimedia experience.

Museums are also asking how well content designed with the on-site visit in mind can fulfill the needs of those audiences who will never be able to come to the museum in person. Allegra Burnette provides an introduction to cross-platform thinking that optimizes museums’ mobile apps for both the on-site visit and beyond. Similarly, Koven Smith’s essay on the “roll-out” of mobile programs shows how new marketing approaches can be integrated into mobile project design to reach target audiences more effectively — even if the app is not built or even commissioned by the museum.

Concerns about the impact of mobile programs have always been intertwined with financial and budgetary considerations for museums. Speaking from more than a decade of experience working both in-house and with mobile vendors, Peter Samis lays out all the elements of mobile content production and their business model considerations to help museums make the best choices in the expanding field of mobile products and services. Ted Forbes guides museums through the decision-process of “native vs. web app,” and Rob Stein offers a solution for “future-proofing” mobile tours to make them more compatible across the proliferating platforms and devices now available. My own essay on mobile business models examines the new revenue streams that have entered the museum field with new mobile platforms and players in the market, and suggests metrics appropriate to measuring the success of museums’ mobile businesses.

Whether audio tour, “un-tour,” [5] “de-tour,” or “para-tour,” the approaches to museum apps described in this volume aim to go beyond the “narrow-cast” visitor services model. These essays position mobile as an integral part of a web of platforms that connect communities of interest and facilitate conversations among our audiences as well as with the museum itself: mobile is social media. As an indispensible part of the 2.0 museum, mobile supports the key indices of the museum’s success vis-à-vis its core mission and responsibility to the public good:

• Relevance: the museum’s responsibility to make its collections, content and activities meaningful and accessible to the broadest possible audiences;

• Quality: the museum’s mission to collect, preserve and interpret the invaluable artifacts and key stories, ideas and concepts that represent human culture and creativity;

• Sustainability: the museum’s enduring obligation to deliver both quality and relevance to its audiences—forever.

The quality and relevance of the museum’s discourse are the preconditions for its sustainability, and enable “network effects” that grow audiences and foster self-perpetuating conversations about the museum’s collections, activities and messages. Mobile products and services do not yield these benefits on their own, but rather as an integral part of the eco-system of platforms that now make up the museum as “distributed network.” [6]

We hope these essays help strengthen the museum network and cultivate stronger connections among our colleagues as we collectively map the important new terrain of mobile in museums. Recognizing that the only constant in the mobile field is change, this publication is designed with expandability and updates in mind: the digital versions include interactive elements that the entire museum community can contribute to, including product design principles and FAQs. New essays will be added to reflect the changing body of knowledge in the mobile field, beginning with chapters on best practice in content development and collaborative production strategies from Sandy Goldberg and Alyson Webb, among others still being planned. Our strategy is to cast the net widely, tapping both veterans and new thinkers in the field, and to mine the museum community’s collective experience deeply, in order to yield the guidelines and examples that will enable us all to integrate mobile products and services most effectively and efficiently into the museum of the 21^st century.

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Notes

1. Loïc Tallon
2. A recent Pew Internet survey indicates that 40% of American adults already had access to the Internet from a mobile phone in 2010 (Smith, 2010). Gartner predicts that by 2013 mobile phones will overtake desktop computers as the most common method for accessing the Internet worldwide. (Gartner, 2010). A 2011 infographic from IBM suggests that the majority of Internet use will be from mobile devices by 2014. Sarah Kessler, IBM Infographic “Mobile by the Numbers” 23 March 2011
3. Smith, K., “The Future of Mobile Interpretation.” In J. Trant and D. Bearman (eds). Museums and the Web 2009: Proceedings. Toronto: Archives & Museum Informatics. Published March 31, 2009. Consulted October 25, 2010.
4. Petrie, M. and L. Tallon, “The Iphone Effect? Comparing Visitors’ and Museum Professionals’ Evolving Expectations of Mobile Interpretation Tools.” In J. Trant and D. Bearman (eds). Museums and the Web 2010: Proceedings. Toronto: Archives & Museum Informatics. Published March 31, 2010. Consulted October 25, 2010. http://www.archimuse.com/mw2010/papers/petrie/petrie.html
5. Notes from the “Un-tour Unconference” session, Museums and the Web 2010. Consulted 15 October 2010.
6. Proctor, N. “Mobile Social Media in the Museum as Distributed Network,” forthcoming in Interactive Museums, ed. MuseumID, London, 2011.

References:

Gartner. (2010) “Gartner Highlights Key Predictions for IT Organizations and Users in 2010 and Beyond.” January 13, 2010. Consulted January 27, 2011.

Petrie, M. and L. Tallon, “The Iphone Effect? Comparing Visitors’ and Museum Professionals’ Evolving Expectations of Mobile Interpretation Tools.” In J. Trant and D. Bearman (eds). Museums and the Web 2010: Proceedings. Toronto: Archives & Museum Informatics. Published March 31, 2010. Consulted October 25, 2010.

Proctor, N. “Mobile Social Media in the Museum as Distributed Network,” forthcoming in Interactive Museums, ed. MuseumID, London, 2011.

Proctor, N. et al. Notes from the “Un-tour Unconference” session, Museums and the Web 2010. Consulted 15 October 2010.

Smith, A. (2010) “Pew Internet & American Life: Mobile Access 2010.” July 7, 2010. Consulted January 27, 2011.

Smith, K., “The Future of Mobile Interpretation.” In J. Trant and D. Bearman (eds). Museums and the Web 2009: Proceedings. Toronto: Archives & Museum Informatics. Published March 31, 2009. Consulted October 25, 2010.

Tallon, L. “Aboutthat 1952 SedelijkMuseumaudioguide, andacertainWillemSandburg,” Musematic, May 19, 2009. Consulted January 30, 2011.

Marketing The Freedom Tour: A Mobile App Case Study

By Dina Bailey, Richard Cooper and Jamie Glavic 

The National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, hereafter referred to as the Freedom Center, is a museum of conscience. It is an institution that challenges visitors to embrace their common humanity and realize the power an individual can have in advancing the cause of freedom for all people. The Freedom Center pursues this ambitious goal through stories. Storytelling, in fact, is an integral part of the Freedom Center’s mission:

We reveal stories about freedom’s heroes, from the era of the Underground Railroad to contemporary times, challenging and inspiring everyone to take courageous steps for freedom today.

The Freedom Center believes that stories have the power not only to educate, but to inspire. Stories humanize the historical perspective and bring history to life in ways facts alone cannot. The Freedom Center reveals these stories through exhibitions, programming, distance learning and tours. While storytelling has always been at the heart of the Freedom Center’s mission, for too long there was an important area in which storytelling was not reaching its full potential – the self-guided experience.

Much of the interactive, immersive storytelling that takes places within the Freedom Center happens on a guided tour with a trained docent or with historical first-person interpreters; however, the majority of these guided tours are usually reserved and scheduled by schools or pre-booked groups. (Table 1) Due to the limited number of trained docents available for guided tours beyond pre-booked groups, the majority of general visitor experiences at the Center are self-guided.

Table 1 – Breakdown of Freedom Center Attendance Figures 2008 – 2010. 

FYO	Public	Group	School
2008	35,136	10,399	51,048
2009	42,251	5,209	45,643
2010	35,808	8,649	43,943

In 2006, recognizing the storytelling gap in the self-guided tour, leadership at the Freedom Center developed a strategic initiative focused on providing a basic audio tour to enhance the organization’s ability to provide an inspiring interpretive experience. The Freedom Center staff worked to make this happen and quickly identified an outside vendor with which to work. The resulting audio tour device, launched less than a year later, consisted of a simple, hand-held numeric keypad featuring an adult tour and a children’s tour. The device had a small speaker and a plug-in for headphones. Visitors were provided with reusable, coded floor plan maps and numeric markers were placed throughout the exhibitions to reflect tour stop stations and direct this self-guided experience throughout the permanent galleries.

While Freedom Center visitors enjoyed the audio tour experience, several factors led the institution to re-examine its commitment to the initiative. In survey after survey, visitors expressed a desire for more content: tour maps disappeared or deteriorated much too quickly and were expensive to replace at such high quality; updates to the tour were labor intensive and costly; and, most significantly, the Freedom Center wanted to have more control over its content than was possible in the contract with the original audio tour provider.

At the beginning of 2009, Freedom Center staff became increasingly more focused on exploring alternative tour engagement methods and began a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis to determine what would be needed to create a more effective self-guided experience. (Table 2) While the cost to produce the original audio tour was manageable, the perceived benefits were lacking; the Freedom Center was given limited ability to repurpose tour content (in accordance with specifications in the contract) and it also proved cost – restrictive to create new content for the experience. The tour was only available through the provided keypad device and could not be accessed on other devices such as smartphones or via the web, meaning access to content was limited to on-site visitors. Finally, the keypad device did not have video capability, which Freedom Center leadership adamantly believed was a necessary element for the experience moving forward.

Table 2

	Strengths	Weaknesses	Opportunities	Threats
Audio Tour	Storytelling Experience	Cost vs. Benefit On-site access only Dated Numeric Keypad Updating content difficult	Enhance tour experience	Who really owns the content?
Mobile App Tour	Storytelling Experience Available on multiple devices & online Available offsite	Staff not familiar with app technology	Enhance tour experience First museum in the city to have app specific tour	Visitation? If tour is available online will people still visit?

In January 2009, after reviewing the SWOT analysis, the Freedom Center leadership put together a Visitor Experience team with staff from Interpretative Services, Exhibitions, Finance, Education and Marketing. Budget planning and usability projections (i.e. would the visitor use their own cell phones; would the Freedom Center only provide devices that operated the new tour on internal devices) led the team to decide that the next logical step forward in the self-guided tour experience would be the development of a mobile app.

Why create a mobile app? For several reasons, really – A mobile app would allow for visitors to experience the tour throughout the museum and beyond, for the integration of video features, for content updates to be made by staff (as needed), and for surveys to be conducted quickly and effectively. Making a mobile tour app available for self-guided visitors would create a storytelling experience with enhanced content that would be far more immersive and complex than the previous keypad tour.

In March 2009, the Freedom Center selected TourSphere to develop its new mobile app. This company provides a wide range of mobile app development services to museums, tourist destinations, parks, hotels, universities, and publishers and had recently won script writing and mobile app awards from the American Alliance of Museums (AAM) and the American Association for State and Local History (AASLH), a consideration that was highly influential in the vendor selection process. Though the Freedom Center has amazing stories, if there is not a powerful script to narrate the stories, the enhancement of the visitor experience through storytelling would simply not be a successful endeavor. In addition to the importance placed on content, the Freedom Center wanted to ensure control over its content, including access to update the app at any time and portability of the media. Additionally, the future possibility of a monthly price option of $399/month fit the projected budget. Perhaps most importantly, however, TourSphere encouraged creative collaboration with the Freedom Center. Staff could opt to create the tour content alone, or TourSphere could be contracted to produce the script, video and audio pieces needed. Since the Freedom Center staff had never handled an app development project before, the team elected for creative collaboration: the staff provided the historical content and TourSphere created a script and video elements with the understanding that the Freedom Center would have final approval at the end of each developmental phase.

Marketing the Mobile App

While the simple act of creating the app was a major step forward, strategically marketing it was equally as important. With the app development underway, The Freedom Tour project team focused on a marketing plan. The objective: make the Freedom Center’s mobile tour app the premier self-guided tour in the region. In order to do this, the project team outlined the following elements as they developed their marketing plan:

1. Overall project goals
2. Research
3. Audience
4. Marketing Message
5. Marketing Goals
6. Marketing Methods/Strategy
7. Measurement/Success

The Freedom Center included clear signage throughout the building to encourage visitors to use the mobile tour. This picture is from the ticket counter of the museum. This approach went against the normal “less” signage is better theory to help promote the mobile tour, but also to ensure the visitor was aware of the Freedom Center app.

Overall Project Goals

Why was it important to have a mobile app tour? What is in it for the visitor? What is in it for the Freedom Center? The overall project goals for The Freedom Tour were seemingly simple: enhance the visitor experience; make the visitor experience available to those who are unable to visit in-person; and use the app as a tool to spread the word about the Freedom Center and its mission. Additionally, as stated above, the app was expected to allow for the Freedom Center to update current content, create new content, and access visitor feedback through a user-friendly content management system. Most importantly, the Freedom Center would own the content on the app and would have the ability to repurpose as needed for workshops, lesson plans and other educational or promotional materials.

Research

The use of smart phones has grown exponentially since 2009, when the app was first conceived. [1]

Guided by mobile technology trends, studies and projections of the time, a mobile app seemed the next logical step in moving the tour experience forward. But, there were still questions to be answered. What would a mobile app “do” for the Freedom Center? How would those without smart phones be able to engage in the interactive tour experience? As part of the strategic process to market the app, the project team conducted interviews with several other institutions who had previously worked with (or were currently working with) TourSphere; of significance was the Edsel and Eleanor Ford House in Detroit, Michigan. The research phase also included conversations with TourSphere and other institutions regarding the operational cost and download charge for access to the app. Ultimately, the Freedom Center decided to make the App available for free. Although strongly debated on both sides, the staff came to the conclusion (based on interviews and research) that the app would not make a significant profit compared to the benefits of making the app free. This was with the understanding that in the future, the project team would most likely be asked to create another version that would be subscription/ fee based.

The project team analyzed museums across the nation to study what they offered in terms of smart phone tours, rental of devices, and cost to download the app itself. In addition to the visitor-centered analysis, the project team also looked at the cost to the organization: specifically, the maintenance of the physical devices and the software as well as the technology support that would be required, long-term. Based on this research, the Freedom Center decided to purchase 300 iPods that would be available for the general public to check out on a daily basis.  This was a significant cost even with the support from the companies involved. [2]

Audience

One major concern that the project team had was visitation; how would a mobile app, portable anywhere and full of content, affect individuals actually stepping into the museum? The initial goal of the mobile app tour was to enhance the visitor experience, not replace it. Would offering the mobile tour on multiple platforms [3] (and online) drastically affect the Freedom Center’s on-site attendance? Another concern focused on the relevance of the app to multiple target audiences. Freedom Center audience demographics are wide-ranging and diverse. With over 40,000 school children served each year, in addition to the Baby Boomers, Millennials, families, educators, academics, tourists and sports fans (the institution is located between Great American Ball Park and Paul Brown Stadium), how could the organization possibly create an app that would appeal to all of these unique audiences, market it effectively, and, at the same time, not detract from the established on-site attendance?

So, how did we do it? By explicitly demonstrating the app’s relevance to our audiences so that they understood how to get the most out of the product: for example, by making the tour experience available online, educators would be able to explore the Freedom Center before their on-site visit. The Marketing, Interpretive Services and Education departments worked together to reach out to educators to introduce them to the app. Presentations were created to show educators how the app could be used for pre- and/ or post-lessons, students could download the app for research/ class projects, and both teachers and students could be encouraged to bring their families back to use the iPods on a more in-depth, self-guided tour. The project team worked cross-departmentally to created and facilitate similar outreach models with local social media advocates, news media and other professional contacts in order to generate a general community awareness and word-of-mouth campaign.

Training Guest Services staff on app tour usability was also critical. They were the front line and initial point-of-contact for many visitors who were seeing the app tour for the very first time. Key talking points were provided, as well as step-by-step instructions, and frequently asked questions. The Guest Services staff was also coached on how to remind and encourage visitors to complete the survey that was included in the app at the end of the tour. The questions on the survey helped to better the visitor experience as well as ensure that the Freedom Center’s mission was being successfully interpreted through the use of the app.

Marketing Message

The Freedom Center utilizes spaces within the building to promote the mobile app while visitors tour. This document is similar to ones that we placed on information desks, the ticket desk, in the evaluator, and exhibits throughout the museum.

Messaging would ultimately be at the heart of The Freedom Tour launch. The message needed to be strong enough to create buzz before the launch and yet last for a long time thereafter. The Freedom Tour was a financial investment and commitment, and was expected to be a part of the Freedom Center’s interpretive plan for years to come. In preparing for the mobile app, the Freedom Tour project team began drafting messaging that would tie the importance of the content housed within the walls of the museum to the fact that the Freedom Center was truly being innovative in the city of Cincinnati. The messaging was intended to reach beyond the “We’re the first to do this” message; instead, the Freedom Center wanted to say, “We’re the best at doing this.” After much deliberation, the team agreed on the following message track:

The struggle for freedom has changed the lives of millions, and it has generated courage and sacrifice in people who have become heroes simply because of their desire to make a difference in the world, both past and present. The new iPod app tour will enhance the visitor experience at the Freedom Center, and it very well could inspire a whole new generation of “Freedom Conductors” who can make a difference for the cause of freedom.

Marketing Goals

In order to measure the app’s success, it was critical to establish goals for its use.  We decided that our primary criteria were press coverage and use of the tour both on-site and as measured by downloads of the app. In addition to benchmarks in these areas from the Freedom Center’s past audio tour system, [4] we consulted TourSphere about their staff’s experience of metrics at other institutions.  We decided to set the marketing goals for The Freedom Tour as regional and national recognition for the development of the mobile app tour as measured by press and PR activity, 60% participation by walk-up visitor traffic in the museum, and at least 5,000 downloads the first year.

Marketing Messaging/Strategy

The Freedom Center included tour signs at each location of the mobile tour. The signs helped visitors to easily locate each stop.

Once the project team felt confident in the “who, what, where, when and how,” the time for implementing the marketing strategy began. The Freedom Center needed the buy-in and support of the local community in the initial launch of the tour. This would prove challenging initially because the majority of the Freedom Center’s visitor traffic comes from outside the local Interstate-275 loop.

At this point, a bit of serendipity occurred. The launch of The Freedom Tour, originally scheduled for the beginning of January 2011, was slightly delayed, due to last minute edits and content updates. This scheduling change turned out to be a great asset to the Freedom Center. The launch ended up happening in February 2011, which coincided with Black History Month – a great win for the museum because the institution generally receives its highest level of news coverage for the entire year between Martin Luther King Jr. Day and the end of Black History Month. The Marketing Department capitalized on this opportunity and used it to their utmost advantage. At the end of January 2011, TourSphere created a promotional video specifically for the Freedom Center to distribute as a teaser to local news outlets, to be placed on the organization’s website and to be promoted to various community stakeholders. The Freedom Center also scheduled a promotional site visit with a local, beloved news anchor the week the app tour launched. Shortly thereafter, local television station Fox 19′s Frank Marzullo helped the local publicity get off to a great start with three feature stories on February 9, 2011, regarding Black History Month programming (sponsored by PNC) and the launch of the Freedom Center’s new mobile app tour. As a result of all of this free publicity, The Freedom Center received a total of 9 minutes and 42 seconds of invaluable local on-air time.

Luckily, Cincinnati is one of the most socially connected cities in the country, [5] named Most Social City by Mashable in 2011, and the Freedom Center’s marketing department was well connected to the city’s social media community. In addition to excellent TV coverage, the Freedom Center reached out to local community bloggers and social networking advocates, inviting them to try The Freedom Tour app on the now institution-owned iPods, which were available at the front desk. After taking an app-led tour of the museum for an hour, the group participated in video recorded reaction sessions – all of which were overwhelming positive. The videos were uploaded to the Freedom Center’s YouTube channel and were used in the app’s social media campaign. Additionally, Apple selected the Freedom Center app as the official iTunes “App of the Week.” All of this was just during the “launch” month of February.

Phase I of the app tour marketing launch also included updates to the Freedom Center website and related collateral materials. The Marketing Department made The Freedom Tour a highly visible part of the website itself. The information about the tour was, and continues to be, a rotating banner image on the website homepage and is featured prominently on the Visit the Center page. Visuals of the iPods are part of the visitor guide, rack card and other collateral elements as Guest Services staff welcome visitors even before they tour the museum.

In the months following the launch, Phase II marketing was essential. The Marketing Department didn’t want the app to peak during Black History Month and have awareness slowly fade away. In the first phase of the launch, the tour was only available on Apple products; but, long-range plans had been established to increase platform availability in future phases. In March 2011, local newspaper staff of Cincinnati CityBeat named The Freedom Tour the “Best Museum Tour App” in its Best of Cincinnati 2011 issue. They said:

… the app for the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center might just be the best-built overall app available to city dwellers and visitors. The app provides a full-service tour of the museum dedicated to the dismal days of slavery and the uplifting rise out of them, but it isn’t just for casual perusing on your couch. The intuitive, user-friendly app is designed to be taken with you while you tour the museum, offering audio clips about all of the displays on exhibit.

The Freedom Center received several questions regarding availability of the app on Android and other devices. The project team was able to have conversations with many of those interested in having the app on other devices and could officially guarantee that an Android version was on the way.

In addition to visitors wanting the app on various devices, the very geographic location of the Freedom Center created buzz for the tour and allowed for ample marketing opportunity. As noted, The Freedom Center is located between Great American Ball Park (home of Cincinnati Reds baseball) and Paul Brown Stadium (home of Cincinnati Bengals football). The Freedom Center purchased advertising in the home game programs for both teams with an advertisement highlighting the new tour and offering $1.00 off of general admission for adults for those who had downloaded the tour. The advertising for the Cincinnati Reds (Spring – Fall), stated that the tour would soon be available on Android and other devices. The ad for the Cincinnati Bengals (Fall – Winter), would fall into Phase III of the mobile app launch.

In September 2011, the Marketing Department implemented Phase III, and The Freedom Tour became available on Android and Blackberry devices, as well as on the web. A press release was issued and soon staff began talking directly to other institutions about the Freedom Center’s experience with creating such a unique mobile app for the institution and its successful use both inside and outside of the museum. Freedom Center staff spoke with both large and small institutions across the nation and internationally, all of whom had varying budgets, and in the Spring of 2012, project staff presented at the online Museums & Mobile conference.

Throughout 2011, the Freedom Center included the mobile app imagery and information in nearly all of its advertising, from hotel guide books to exhibition brochures, and even included a QR code at the front desk of the museum for visitors to scan and download the app directly to their phones. The accessibility of the Freedom Center tour became a part of the brand of the institution: “Fan the Flame, download the app, be inspired, make change.” The app became a part of the visitor experience organically through a strategic marketing plan focused on community involvement that used local events and Freedom Center exhibitions to highlight the app’s ingenuity and accessibility.

What We Learned

Not surprisingly, the Freedom Center mobile app project team learned quite a lot from this multi-year process. First, the importance of the client/ vendor relationship cannot be understated. The greatest product in the world can be irreparably damaged if a solid partnership is not established and maintained throughout the length of a partnership. Furthermore, without a well thought out, strategically agreed upon contract that is forward thinking and appropriately malleable, the organization can hinder its own growth and its ability to meet its stated goals over the long term.

We also learned that developing a mobile app takes time with multiple players and multiple voices. While this may seem like an obvious conclusion, it is a benchmark we often had to remind ourselves of throughout the process and are grateful that we did. With this project, the Freedom Center utilized cross-departmental collaboration that had rarely been done before (and certainly not at that depth). There were numerous logistical requirements various departments that must be addressed in synchronization so that the organization may be prepared to handle challenges as they arise. For example, at the beginning of the app launch, the tour was so popular that it crashed several of the Wi-Fi servers in the museum. During the first few weekends of the launch, there were a variety of other technical glitches that had to not only be fixed temporarily, but righted permanently. Through many conversations, the Freedom Center’s IT Department determined that the museum’s Wi-Fi network simply could not handle the demands of 300 iPods pulling data simultaneously from the network, as the initial iteration of the app required. As a result, staff installed a native version of the software with full content installed directly onto the iPods. This native app would not require the high demands of the Wi-Fi network because it would not be pulling the main content over the network. Because of the Freedom Center’s successful relationship with TourSphere, a problem was turned into an opportunity rather than one version of the app, the Center had two from which to choose: the native version, with all content included, and a “lite” version, which was smaller, but required Wi-Fi to access most media content. These two options would subsequently allow the Freedom Center’s internal devices the flexibility to run the app if there were any weaknesses in Wi-Fi within the building.

Of course, every big project comes with challenges that are harder to solve. Setting preparation and technology issues aside, the Guest Services staff was not prepared for the high volume of daily use the iPod devices received in the first year alone, 90% of walk-up visitors opted for the mobile app tour compared to 58-60% for the earlier audio tour. Expectations – even goals – had been much lower in terms of individuals who would want to check out the iPods. This is a good problem to have, but one that the Freedom Center is still managing to this day.

Staff members were also not prepared for the level to which several visitors were determined to hack into the museum-supplied iPods to browse other content, both appropriate and inappropriate. While this only happened a handful of times, the Guest Services staff now regularly checks the devices to ensure that they haven’t been hacked or password protected by rogue visitors. In the most recent Apple iOS Update (iOS6), Apple has added a feature called “Guided Access mode” which lock devices into a single app. This should significantly cut down on the individuals who are able to enter other programs while on Freedom Center iPods and staff are eager to test the effectiveness of this feature.

Conclusion

Mobile apps are the wave of the future. Mobile apps are informative. Mobile apps are social. Mobile apps provide access on-the-go. Mobile apps are everywhere. According to Pew Internet, a project of the Pew Research Center, 83% of Americans own a cell phone and 45% of Americans have a smart phone. [6] The Freedom Center app far exceeded the institution’s visitor usage and download goals. The Freedom Tour has been downloaded over 40,000 times, [7] in 40 different countries, on 6 different continents. And, on average, 95% of Freedom Center on-site visitors select to take the provided iPod devices. The leadership views the use of mobile technology and apps as a crucial part of the institution’s interpretive plan, but still realizes that good interpretation will always be key: technology and apps should only be used as a vehicle to bring great stories to life.

While downloads have inevitably slowed down slightly since the launch of the app, the Freedom Center continues to brainstorm new ways to promote The Freedom Tour in conjunction with exhibitions, programming and educational marketing. The app has been updated several times to include interpretation for changing exhibitions and to reflect the standard updates made to the Freedom Center’s permanent galleries. It is the hope that future updates will continue to make the app more interactive by including activities for visitors to participate in, possibly adding a mobile game, crowd-sourcing opportunities or a visitor wiki. As the Freedom Center continues to lead mobile app innovation in the future, we hope that we challenge and inspire other institutions (both large and small) to take courageous steps and tell their stories in a new way!

End Notes

1. Quick, C. (2009, September 15). With Smartphone Adoption on the Rise, Opportunity for Marketers is Calling. Nielsen. Retrieved from http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/online_mobile/with-smartphone-adoption-on-the-rise-opportunity-for-marketers-is-calling/
2. For the number of daily visitors that the Freedom Center has, 300 iPods were deemed to be in the “safe” range for providing a quality visitor experience (i.e. having enough iPods available) while balancing insurance and maintenance costs.
3. As a mobile web app, the tour is supported by a wide range of platforms: Android, Blackberry, iPhones, tablets, and the mobile web.
4. The participation rate for the past audio tour system ranged between 58 to 60% for walk-up visitors.
5. Stark, C. (2011, June 28). Cincinnati Takes Most Social City Title for Mashable’s Social Media Day. Mashable. Retrieved from http://mashable.com/2011/06/28/cincinnati-most-social-mashable-smday/
6. Brenner, J. (2012, September 14). Commentary: Mobile. Pew Internet. Retrieved from http://pewinternet.org/Commentary/2012/February/Pew-Internet-Mobile.aspx
7. 40,303 Apple downloads and 461 Android downloads.

Enhancing Group Tours with the iPad: 2012 Updates and Discoveries

By Ann Isaacson, Laura Krueger, Sheila McGuire, Scott Sayre and Kris Wetterlund

See also the 2011 essay, Enhancing Group Tours with the iPad: A Case Study

Building a Community of iPad Users

One of the most rewarding outcomes of introducing iPads into the Minneapolis Institute of Art’s tour programs is the way in which guides are coming together to share content in formal and informal settings.

Inspired by the desire for specific images and videos for special exhibition tours, small groups of guides are collectively creating contextual material for their distinct tour needs. Each person in the group takes a topic or object to research and build content around. They then meet in person, email, or post information on the museum guide Web site forum to share their findings with each other and museum staff. The guides are also sharing how and when they are using the iPads and reflecting on successes and drawbacks while touring.

Generally, the guides most likely to organize these small iPad communities are those that have recently completed their training. The museum provided them access to iPads, instruction on how to use them, and encouragement to experiment with iPads from the start. A small group of these guides meets once a month outside of the museum to share content, information and presentation tips. Most guides now own their own iPads. In addition to sharing content, one member wrote that they are, “sharing the insights that we have all gained attempting to use this technology in a convenient, supportive environment.” Taking it yet another step, this group plans to further their technical skills by scheduling a follow-up session with instructors at the Apple store.

A few guides are exploring various methods to both share and manage content folios, such as the museum guide Web site forum mentioned earlier. Most guides prepare their tours at home and this method of sharing can provide them the opportunity to familiarize themselves with the content before their tours. The interest amongst guides to build, manage and share contextual resources is an exciting step towards expanding the use of iPads on museum tours.

An iPad of Their Own

The optimism surrounding the tour guides sharing content in an unprecedented scale has also ushered in the reality that many prefer to use their own iPads.  The “I am more comfortable using my own” phenomenon is understandable given an individual can organize content in the way that makes sense to her, on her own schedule, and, in many cases, with the assistance of trusted family or friends.  Although more tech savvy guides organize information on personal Web sites, most are adding photos on an as-needed, per-tour basis to the Photos app that came with the iPad. They can search for and locate an image on the Web, simply tap it a couple of times to add it to the Photos app in the order they want it, and easily access it during their tour without the anxiety of searching through the many dozens of folders on the iPads supplied by the museum. It makes sense.

Museum staff is taking steps to make using the on-site iPads easier for more volunteers. Recognizing that many people will gain confidence with the iPad only by having time to experiment and explore on their own time, the museum now allows the tour guides to check out the devices overnight. As more iPads are added to the fleet, the guides will be able to borrow them for extended periods of time. The hub computer is now in a more accessible area in the tour guide’s study to facilitate peer-to-peer learning and sharing.  A docking station will eliminate the onerous task of individually syncing all of the iPads. The hope is that these changes will make it easier for tour guides to add content to the shared iPads as well as their own.

Roving iPads

Interviews with tour guides showed that while they felt the iPad was useful for web-based research many felt that performing spur of the moment searches during their formal tours to be too complicated, disruptive, and time-consuming. However, the same guides were interested in exploring additional applications of the iPad to serve visitors’ learning needs and to answer their questions when looking beyond tours. Some of the tour guides expressed future interest in having museum volunteers with iPads positioned in the galleries to answer visitors’ questions. These roving guides could engage visitors in conversation and use the iPad to look up information relevant to the visitors’ questions. While the Minneapolis Institute of Arts currently does not have full-time gallery-based interpreters, the museum’s building-wide WiFi can provide limitless opportunities to experiment with this technique. The Columbus Museum of Art is exploring iPad use with their roaming docents who are in the museum galleries in the afternoons, answering questions, directing visitors, striking up casual conversations and telling stories.

A Post Tour Digital E-Souvenir

Many of the digital assets used on iPads by tour guides are generated by the museum for print publications and online access. And while many tour guides will mention that some or all of the resources they show in their tour can be found on the museum’s Web site, there is a great opportunity for providing a more formal summary/souvenir of the object and topics covered in a tour. Recent development in ebook publishing such as Apple’s iBook Author will provide new opportunities to produce free or low-cost e-souvenirs directly tying the resources related to a tour to an extended post-visit experience. Tour guides offering iPad enhanced tours could conclude the tour by showing a preview of a related e-souvenir book and either collecting email addresses or providing a URL where the publication can be accessed. These e-souvenirs offer a great deal of future potential as collectables and launching points to both online tour related content and other commercial electronic and print-based publications.

More Museums Adopt iPad Tours

Since this article was first published a number of other museums have adopted iPads as multimedia touring devices. While the guides at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts have been sharing tips, techniques and content around their use of iPads, the Museum of Modern Art’s in gallery educators have followed suit. MoMA staff posts challenges for their gallery educators each month, and one month recently the educators were challenged to use iPads on tours and share their results via a blog on MoMA’s internal educator network. The discussion confirmed findings by MIA tour guides that one of the most powerful features of the iPad is the ability to zoom into images. MoMA educators discussed a successful game in which details of painting were shown on the iPad, and the tour group guessed which part of the painting was shown based on close examination of the painting in the gallery. Other successes included showing works of art related to MoMA’s but that were not in MoMA’s collection. Gallery educators also confirmed that the speaker on the iPad 2 was adequate for groups in MoMA’s galleries.

The Kalamazoo Institute of Arts education department purchased iPads for use with visually impaired visitors. The museum provides touch art tours of 3D objects for individuals with visual impairments but wanted to expand the tours to include paintings and works on paper. The iPads allow visitors with visual impairments to zoom in on details while the docent is providing a verbal description of the work. The museum’s advisory committee includes many experts in the field of low vision and blindness studies who recommended iPads.  Pearl Rosen Golden, an Access Consultant, concurred with Kalamazoo’s ideas, pointing out that even labels and text panels can be increased to a comfortable viewing size for visually impaired visitors, and screen light intensity can be controlled. In the future, Rosen Golden imagines, museums will provide tour images that can be downloaded and visually impaired visitors can come prepared with their own iPads ready for the tour, ushering in a new world of access for the visually impaired visitor.

Mobile Product Development Principles

By Nancy Proctor

• Mobile products should be accessible and used to enable access to experiences and resources for people of all abilities.

• Mobile projects should expand and create new opportunities for engagement, not seek to reproduce existing ones on mobile devices.

• Mobile should be understood as social media and projects should leverage its ability to create conversations, communities, and collaborations both alone and in combination with other platforms.

• Wherever possible, a mobile website should be at the core of every mobile application project to enable multi-platform accessibility.

• Digital content should be conceived for cross-platform use and re-use according to mobile content standards with quality metadata.

• Avoid writing new and/or dedicated code, or using proprietary or dedicated systems.

• Make code, tools, best practices and other learnings from mobile projects freely available to others to reuse.

• For quality and consistency of user experience, mobile initiatives should use standard interfaces.

• Embed metrics and analytic tools in every mobile product, and include audience research and product evaluation in every mobile project to inform iterative development and ensure quality.

• Every mobile project or product must include a commercial or other plan for its sustainability and maintenance

Enhancing Group Tours with the iPad: A Case Study

By Ann Isaacson, Sheila McGuire, Scott Sayre and Kris Wetterlund

See also Enhancing Group Tours with the iPad: 2012 Updates and Discoveries

Introduction
The Minneapolis Institute of Arts is an encyclopedic art museum with a permanent collection of around 80,000 objects. Currently, 385 volunteer tour guides in the museum’s Department of Museum Guide Programs interpret these collections for over 140,000 visitors annually, helping fulfill the museum’s mission to make the collection accessible to the community.

Digital media has been a long-time friend of the early-adopting Minneapolis Institute of Arts and its visitors. It started with the installation of gallery-based kiosks in the early 90s, then an early handheld tour in 1997 (using Apple’s Newton), cell phone tours in 2001, and a tour app in 2010 (Sayre, 1993, 2005, 2007). While all of these technologies were designed with the visitor in mind, the museum’s innovative tour guides have found ways over the years of incorporating components of these programs into their tours. For example, tour guides frequently gather their groups around gallery kiosks to show videos.

Interest in media integration was rekindled during a 2008 Symposium session on integrating digital media into tours. Tour guides passed around an iPhone playing a video of artist Dale Chihuly creating a chandelier identical to one in the lobby at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. The tour guides were “ignited,” remembers one participant, about the possibilities of presenting dynamic media literally in the palm of their hands. Contrary to popular trends, the tour guides’ excitement was not about handheld technology itself, but the potential of presenting portable media on tours to enhance visitors’ understanding of works of art.

Following up on the potential of this experience, Wetterlund and Sayre began to explore the possibility of mobile social computing, in particular the human-guide-mediated experience (Sayre, Wetterlund, 2008). After reading their article on social computing, the MIA contacted Sayre and Wetterlund about the integration of portable media in their tour guide program. The museum understood what visitor research has shown: the majority of visitors come to the museum in groups (Draper, 1984) (Sachatello-Sawyer et al., 2002). The announcement and release of Apple’s iPad was timely in the delivery of a user-friendly solution.

Research
With the right computer in place, a research project was developed to explore the feasibility of enhancing group tours with a range of rich media delivered via a single iPad, used as a group presentation device. The project defined three primary areas to explore.

Response:

• Visitor response
• Tour Guide response
• Museum educator response
• Museum-wide response

Obstacles:

• Political and psychological obstacles
• Physical obstacles
• Technical obstacles

Logistics:

•  Training needs
•  Material preparation and organization
•  Most effective materials
•  Hardware management

Instruments
The research team developed three instruments to assist in the collection of data:

1. Observer checklist and comment document
2. Pre-training survey
3. Post-training survey

Project Phases
The project research was divided into five phases:

1. Media and App Selection
2. Trial Tours and Observation
3. Resulting Strategies
4. Tour Guide Training
5. Survey Results

1. Media and App Selection
Early on in the process, the educators sent an e-mail inquiry to all of the museum’s volunteers. This yielded an abundance of creative ideas about enhancing tours with multimedia, and a healthy dose of concern that the technology might distract from the artworks. The most popular responses included a desire to have world maps, music, pictures and diagrams, and videos of art processes, dance, artists, etc. The team collected a range of media set up on a PC to serve as a hub device from which all of the iPads could be synchronized.

The team also investigated apps for organizing, navigating and presenting the various assets on the iPad itself. In the end there was no one app that could manage all forms of media. The team settled on managing audio and video as playlists within the iPod app, images in the Photos app, and the Safari and Google Maps apps for bookmarked locations. Important aspects of an iPad file management app for tour guides include:

1. Integration and linear (swiping) presentation of all forms of media, in both landscape and portrait mode.
2. Integration with iPads’ onboard media assets managed on the computer to which the iPads are synced.
3. Ability to organize assets on the iPad based on tour type, subject or tour guide.
4. Light table and search capabilities.
5. Ability to create multiple shortcut “aliases” to the same onboard media asset in two more locations, so that the assets themselves do not need to be duplicated.
6. Ability to add metadata to media so it can be easily queried.

2. Trial Tours and Observation
Several tour guides volunteered to try the iPad with tour groups, accompanied by a staff evaluator who used the observation checklist to record events on 20 tours. The tool was designed to gauge the effectiveness of the iPad based on the engagement of the visitors. The observation tool assessed:

• the portability and presentation strategies for the iPad;
• whether the tour guide was able to successfully navigate the different types of content on the iPad;
• whether the content selected for presentation was integrated appropriately into the topic of the tour;
• whether the quality of the content (audio, video, etc.) was adequate for the tour group;
• whether all visitors on the tour were fully engaged with the iPad content when it was presented.

Portability of the iPad was not an issue. In some cases, the iPad was a relief, as it took the place of larger, bulkier props.

In all cases, the tour guides successfully navigated the content on the iPad, easily locating different types of pre-loaded content, easily adjusting the image brightness and volume. The screen size, brightness, audio level and quality, and video and image quality were rated excellent to good.

Most important, all of the museum visitors were engaged during the iPad portion of the tour. All visitors indicated understanding how the iPad content related to the tour content, and all thought it added to their understanding of the works of art. Visitors responded to short videos illustrating artistic processes or techniques with an audible “ah ha!”

3. Resulting Strategies
The initial rounds of in-gallery testing yielded a number of useful strategies. Like any gallery prop, digital media should be used judiciously to avoid making it the focal point of the tour. For example, while facilitating a discussion on a Lakota beaded dress, a video demonstration of beading technique could be introduced: “Now that you’ve had a chance to see the fine detail on this Lakota dress, let me show you a video demonstrating how those perfect rows of beads are sewn onto the hide.” Explaining any kind of prop, traditional or multimedia, by cluing visitors on what they are about to see and explaining what they are likely to get out of the prop is good educational practice.

Holding the iPad so that the screen faces away from the visitors while searching for information relieves them of the burden of having to watch while the tour guide taps around the screen. A thoughtful, open-ended question can momentarily turn the focus away from the mechanics of locating information on the iPad.

Displaying media on the iPad about shoulder to chest high seems most effective. When not in use, darkening the screen avoids diverting attention away from the tour presentation. Video or audio is best kept short, between 30 to 60 seconds. While the iPad’s speakers are remarkably good, hearing audio or video in a crowded gallery can be problematic, especially for larger groups. Tour groups at the MIA typically range from 10 to 15 people. MIA tour guides solved this problem with larger groups by turning the sound off and narrating the video themselves.

4. Tour Guide Training
To take advantage of Apple expertise and hardware, a training for MIA tour guides was offered at a local Apple store to introduce the iPad as a hardware device, and help the tour guides understand how to navigate the interface. The Apple business team was excited to learn about the MIA project, and over 50 tour guides attended these sessions.

The next training sessions were held at the MIA. Nearly 100 tour guides and Apple Store business team employees attended these sessions, where the goal was to make it clear how to access content organized on the iPad, and to model the strategies discovered in the trial tours for presenting multimedia on the iPad.

In addition, tour guides went over the procedure for scheduling and checking out the iPads from the office, as well as the docking procedure when the iPads are not being used.

5. Survey Results
An online pre-training survey was distributed to all tour guides interested in iPad tour training. The survey collected information about the tour guides’ experience with the museum, technology, and their preconceptions about using the iPad in public tours.

Key findings showed (N = 97)

• The majority of the respondents had over 10 years experience as guides.
• 47% had previously integrated gallery media content into their tours.
• 74% considered themselves to be experienced computer users (69% PC).
• 30% owned smartphones.
• 62% had never used an iPad.
• 20% had attended the previous iPad device training, and 80% felt it was helpful.
• 90% who attended the iPad device training were interested in using the iPad in tours, with the remaining 10% unsure.
• Preconceived advantages of using the iPad in tours
  • Images/Zooming: 47%, Looking up information: 18%, Video: 16%, Maps: 13%, Music/Sound: 8%
• Preconceived concerns related to using the iPad in tours
  • Overuse/distracting: 37%, Nervous/Performance: 37%, Image too small for large groups: 16%, Gallery noise: 3%

An online survey was conducted approximately 30 days after the iPad tour training. Post training survey participants (N = 49) were correlated against pre-survey participants according to their email addresses, resulting in a total of 38 (10% of the total volunteer group) who participated in both surveys.

Key findings showed (N = 38)

• 66% had used an iPad since training.
• 8% had purchased an iPad since training.
• 24% planned to buy an iPad.
• 21% (8) had given one or more tours using the iPad.
• 63% of those who attended the tour training were planning on using the iPad in their tours, with another 34% unsure.
• 91% of the trainees who attended both the iPad device and iPad tour training were planning on using the iPad in their tours.
• 26% felt they could benefit from more training, with 42% unsure.
  • Suggestions included mentoring, practice sessions, tour guide group presentations
• 39% felt they could benefit from more support, with 34% unsure.
  • Suggestions included loading and locating content, work process and identifying gallery objects with additional content.
• Preconceived concerns related to using the iPad in tours:
  • Overuse/distracting: 21%, Image too small for large groups: 21%, Nervous/performance:16%, Taking too much time: 8%, Gallery noise: 5%, Fragility/breaking: 5%

The key conclusion from the surveys was the effectiveness of combining the iPad device training with the iPad tour training. Tour guides who participated in both training sessions demonstrated a much greater degree of confidence in using the device and integrating it in their tours.

Discoveries
The iPad tour project has encouraged staff throughout to think of new content to integrate into the program. MIA photo services staff suggested additional “hidden” details to include, and MIA curators brainstormed an array of exciting possibilities. They also look forward to using the iPad to share whole print series, complete ledger books, and other resources that cannot be viewed in the galleries.

The PC hub computer has become a community repository for content as staff and tour guides are able to contribute music, videos, and photos. Everyone using the iPads has access to the materials contributed by their colleagues. Also, the volunteers who are excited about the media that can be integrated into tours with the iPad are the most powerful advocates for getting their peers engaged in the process. The media content on the iPads has inspired tour guides to include objects on their tours that that they would not have considered before.

Another welcome outgrowth of this initiative is that visitors become active participants in the creation of the digital stories being told during the tour. For example, on a recent tour a visitor made a connection between a terracotta portrait head from the Ife Kingdom and the ancient Egyptian queen Nefertiti, but was unable to relate the two chronologically. A search on the iPad put Nefertiti’s dates and images at the tour guide’s fingertips, contributing a whole other level of user-inspired content to the discussion and validating the visitor’s contribution.

In the early planning for this project, the team was most excited about the possibilities for video on the iPad. In practice, however, pictures on the iPad prove the most powerful. Visitors are delighted when a small object encased in Plexiglas in a dark gallery appears on the iPad, and the tour guide zooms in to show the details.

Photographs of things that are not possible to see in the galleries are also riveting for visitors. Detailed photos of the engine of a car when the hood is closed in the gallery, an embroidered chest with all of its drawers open, or the underside of a vessel all have visitors studying both the object on view and the iPad intently.

Challenges
For a decade and a half, tour guides have expressed concerns that the museum might want to replace them with technology. But in the end, especially with the integration of technology into their tours, tour guides are assured that people want human interaction. Far more visitors interact with tour guides annually than take advantage of audio tours. Peter Samis has it right when he describes humans as the “ultimate interactive device,” context sensitive, and responsive to questions in real time. (2007)

Some of the challenges the project team encountered are more obvious: iPads are expensive, many volunteers are inexperienced with or fearful of the technology, and managing a lot of media files can be cumbersome and intimidating, especially in front of a group. The greatest technical challenge on tours has been the volume of the iPad when the galleries are full or the group is very large. A case with built-in speakers would be an ideal solution.

The Future
Challenges aside, the enthusiastic response from all of the stakeholders has set a course for continuation and expansion of the iPad program at the MIA. The MIA is currently using Apple products in its tour guide programming, but other tablet computers are coming to market that will likely offer similar potential and perhaps even more possibilities.

New hardware features like the iPad2’s cameras will make it possible to experiment with bringing voices outside of the museum into tours in real time. In the future, tour guides might engage visitors in conversations with artists in their studios, or with children in museums in other parts of the country. The cameras can also be used to capture QR codes from museum labels to help tour guides quickly access related content.

New technology like Apple’s Airplay allows tour guides to send media stored on an iPhone or iPad wirelessly to a larger dedicated or multipurpose monitor or projector connected to AppleTV for group presentation. New apps for better managing, organizing and presenting all forms of media content on the iPad continue to be released and assessed. Recent prospects include Best Album, which provides tools for organizing, cataloging, searching images, video and audio within personalized albums.

And finally, once existing media has been mined for its potential, the logical next step for museums is to undertake the production of new media assets specifically for use in iPad-enhanced tours.

Interpretive techniques are expanded when considering the potential of presenting multimedia on tours. Hopefully other museums will embrace these opportunities and help foster a new era in museum tour experiences.

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References

Draper, L. (1984). Friendship and the museum experience: The interrelationship of social ties and learning. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of California, Berkeley.

Samis, P. (2007), “New Technologies as a Part of a Comprehensive Interpretive Plan” in The Digital Museum: A Think Guide, Din, Herminia and Phyllis Hecht, eds., Washington, DC: The AAM Press, American Association of Museums, 2007.

Sayre, S. & Wetterlund, K. (2008) ”The Social Life of Technology for Museum Visitors,” Visual Art Research Journal, Pennsylvania State University.

Sayre, S. & Dowden, R. (2007), “The Whole World in Their Hands: The Promise and Peril of Visitor Provided Mobile Devices” in The Digital Museum: A Think Guide, Din, Herminia and Phyllis Hecht, eds., Washington, DC: The AAM Press, American Association of Museums, 2007.

Sayre, S. (2005), “Multimedia that Matters: Gallery-based Technology and the Museum Visitor,” First Monday, Peer-Reviewed Journal on the Internet 10, #5

Sayre, S. (1993). “The Evolution of Interactive Interpretive Media: A Report on Discovery and Progress at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts” in Diane Lees, ed., Museums and Interactive Multimedia: Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference of the MDA and the Second International Conference on Hypermedia and Interactivity in Museums, Museum Documentation Association and Archives and Museum Informatics.

Sachatello-Sawyer, B., Fellenz, R., Burton, H., Gittings-Carlson, L., Lewis-Mahony, J., & Woolbaugh, W. Adult Museum Programs: Designing Meaningful Experiences. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press, 2002.

Mobile Experience Design: What’s Your Roll-Out Strategy?

By Koven Smith

Rapid advancements in smartphone technology of the last few years have changed the nature of mobile experiences in museums utterly. Where tour-based audio guides were once the only type of mobile experience available to museum visitors, we are currently witnessing an explosion in the types of experiences from which visitors might choose. Augmented reality games, crowd-sourced content creation, or even experiences not designed to occur inside the museum at all are just a few of the new ways that museums are beginning to explore to enhance either a physical or virtual visit.

These new opportunities mean that museums must now take a more nuanced approach to how their mobile experiences are introduced to the public. In the past, the expense of providing mobile experiences to visitors (typically via audio) meant that those experiences needed to appeal to the broadest possible audience in order to make them cost-effective. This broad appeal was reflected in the brute-force marketing strategies employed by museums to encourage uptake: handing out mobile guides to visitors, advertising the guides with large signs at the entrance, and often providing mobile guides as a premium benefit of membership.

However, development of mobile applications and mobile web sites as replacement for dedicated devices as the primary means of delivering mobile experiences — and the concomitant reduction in production costs — means that mobile experiences in museums no longer need to be designed for a museum’s entire audience in order to be cost-effective. Many of these new types of mobile experiences are often aimed at a particular niche audience, whether scholars, gamers, children, or social butterflies. Each of these niche audiences requires its own type of solicitation, both via the design of the mobile application itself as well as the marketing campaign used to introduce it. Museums must therefore design the strategy by which a mobile experience is “rolled out” to the public as carefully as it designs the mobile experience itself. The goal of a successful mobile roll-out strategy should not be to reach more users, but rather to reach more of the right users.

Reaching the right users involves reflecting the needs of a given target group in the design of the application, but also in the ways the target group is approached to participate. Mobile applications designed for a small subset of a museum’s public shouldn’t be marketed to every single person who walks in the door, any more than an application designed for use by the “average” visitor should be marketed exclusively to the gaming community. A museum’s roll-out and marketing strategy should act as a signal to visitors indicating what type of experience they should expect; visitors should then be able to better self-select the kinds of experiences that are right for them. What follows is a discussion of three typical roll-out strategies for mobile experiences in museums, with a discussion of how the target audience, application design, and marketing strategy affect one another. These strategies should serve as solid starting points for any museum contemplating how to introduce its visitors to a new mobile experience.

Scenario 1: Broad Appeal

Target Audience: In a “broad appeal” scenario, the museum is marketing its mobile experience to every single visitor who enters the building. A mass-market roll-out scenario is designed to reach the largest number of potential users, typically from a wide array of demographic backgrounds. In this scenario, the visit to the museum drives use of the mobile application; the average user has probably not arrived at the museum already aware that a mobile experience is available to him or her, necessitating a wider-reaching information/marketing campaign. The typical result of this kind of campaign is a relatively passive type of engagement from a large number of users.

Design: If a mobile application is to be marketed to the masses in this way, it must be truly usable by those masses. The application should be highly fault-tolerant and forgiving of mistakes on the part of the visitor, not dependent on the user’s familiarity with other technologies or services in order to participate in the experience (“sign in with your Twitter account” would be a poor way to kick off the experience, for example), and not contingent on the user’s familiarity with specialized language or jargon. Because the user engagement in this type of scenario is likely to be low, the threshold to content consumption should also be low.

Strategy: Because this type of experience is designed for most (if not all) visitors to the museum, the roll-out of the experience should reflect this more “populist” nature. It should be impossible for any visitor to exit the building without knowing that there is a mobile experience available to him or her. The most straightforward way to encourage adoption is simply to rent or loan the visitor a device with the application pre-loaded on it. Prominent signage and other kinds of promotional materials (e.g., bookmarks reminding visitors to rent a tour, or offering a discount) at the entrances and in dwell spaces will also help to saturate the physical space with the awareness that the mobile experience is available.

In instances where giving a device to the visitor may not be possible, the museum must make the application available for download to users’ own devices. Making an application available in this way is not as straightforward as it might seem. First, signage must be available — at every location that the visitor might use the application — directing the visitor how to download the application to his or her personal device. Many users may not download the application at the front door, so it is important to have additional signs prompting download throughout the building, in locations where content is available. The nature of this signage should also reflect the nature of the application design. If the application is primarily aimed at researchers, scholars, or students, for instance, a broad appeal campaign may not be appropriate: the museum cannot create a broadly targeted information campaign for an application that will be difficult for all but a small minority of its visitors to use. A large sign saying “Download our mobile app!” is a not-so-subtle message to the user that the app will be easy to use, and will not require much from the visitor.

Scenario 2: Stealth

Target Audience: A “stealth” roll-out means that the museum has decided to market its mobile experience to a niche group without an overt information campaign. The expectation is that this group will be a subset of the museum’s total visitor profile, but that this smaller group will be far more actively engaged with the mobile experience than the “average” visitor. With a stealth campaign, users of the mobile application should already be aware of the application before a visit is made, if the application itself did not in fact prompt a visit.

Design: A “stealth” campaign is an appropriate means of marketing when discovery, exploration, and mystery are primary components of the application design. While the application shouldn’t necessarily be difficult to use, the act of figuring out how the application works should be a key part of its appeal. Because a stealth campaign is targeted at a smaller audience, the application should have an appeal tailored to the audience being targeted. An application designed to be a broad introduction to the museum’s collection, for instance, wouldn’t necessarily benefit from being rolled out in this manner.

Strategy: In a stealth campaign, the marketing of the mobile application is itself part of the total experience. The primary goal is a highly engaged user community, so the roll-out campaign should be designed to promote a high level of curiosity at the outset. There are a number of strategies a museum might employ in pursuit of this goal. A straightforward strategy might be to identify potential “influencers” in the museum’s community, and give those influencers a personal introduction to the application, with the expectation that these users will provoke others to use the application as well.

Another possibility would be to take a cue from alternate reality campaigns, and attempt to promote a sense of mystery around the application. In this scenario, the museum might use signage, but in a more oblique way than in a broad appeal campaign. The museum might embed “clues” that would prompt a visitor to download the application to his or her phone or to take additional actions. Clues could even be embedded in materials designed to be consumed outside of the museum, such as print materials or the museum’s web site. An effective stealth campaign should guarantee user interest and engagement long before the application itself is actually downloaded.

Scenario 3: Third-Party

The recent explosion in the number of museums making collections content available via APIs (“application programming interface”) has created a third viable scenario for museums: an application designed by a third party, completely outside the museum’s purview and control. Strategizing for both design and marketing of a mobile experience developed in this way is challenging, but not impossible. A museum in fact has the ability to influence both the design and introduction of a mobile experience, even when developed largely without that museum’s input. The target audience of this type of experience is variable, depending on the museum’s goals.

Design: Again, in this scenario the museum is looking for means by which it can influence the development of a mobile experience more than overtly control that development. Here, a museum might look at multiple types of content to make publicly available. A museum making its information available via an API might create a separate “mobile-ready” API that prioritizes the types of information the museum would like to see in a mobile device. Delivering data in this way helps to ensure that the mobile application developed by an outside developer will still focus on the kind of information that is important to the museum. A museum might also publish a list of locations within the building, with particular content attached to each, or a database of artists within the collection, or a geotagged list of artist birth/work locations. Museums might make any number of content types available that would encourage developers to create applications that travel outside of the normal “tour” format.

Strategy: A third-party mobile experience represents a unique challenge for museums from a roll-out and marketing standpoint. Because the museum may not know that an application is being developed until it is already publicly available, it is difficult to schedule its roll-out into a broader marketing strategy or schedule. In this scenario, what the museum should be looking to do is to provide incentives to potential mobile developers to work within the museum’s ideal framework. There are a number of ways a museum might do this. It might simply indicate a willingness to promote an application in its galleries or on its website if the application is developed according to certain standards. It might also be willing to provide physical infrastructure for certain types of applications (AR or gaming applications, for example). While doing this, it is critical that the museum keep in mind how to create brand differentiation between its own “official” applications and those developed by the community, inserting appropriate language into “terms of service” agreements and the like.

Conclusion

A diversity of mobile experience types demands a parallel diversity of marketing approaches. It is clear that museums need to begin making far more deliberate choices about how their mobile experiences are rolled out to the public. Making the right choice will help to ensure that the right visitors are paired with the right types of experiences. Whether the museum wishes to reach its visitors outside the building, via a game-style approach, or inside with a mobile tour, the roll-out strategy should be carefully considered at each and every stage of development.

So Many Devices, So Many Options: An Introduction to Cross-Platform Thinking

By Allegra Burnette

Traditionally we are trained to think that form follows function: first you decide the content and purpose of what you are designing, building or creating, and then you shape the form around that. But in many ways, mobile projects are the reverse — the function of your app is often led by the form factor of the device itself. A tablet, for example, offers a different kind of experience than a smartphone, and that difference can shape the app you develop.

Smartphones are inherently portable, enabling us to slip a vast array of content, activities, and resources into our pockets or bags and take them wherever we go, pulling them out when we need to look up something or find out where we are. They are therefore ideally suited for things like audio tours in the museum, finding out the location of a museum and the next event or film showing, and looking up an art term while standing in front of a work of art. Going beyond the one-way communication of a traditional audio tour, mobile phones enable two-way communication between the museum and its visitors, as well as visitors with other visitors.

Tablets, while also portable, are (at least currently) typically much less about a literal on-the-move experience — even Apple’s ads when the iPad came out last year showed someone with the device propped against his knees, leisurely perusing an app or browsing the Web. People use tablets while traveling on planes, trains, and in automobiles. They use them to read magazines, play games, and watch a movie. A tablet can be viewed by several people at once more easily than a phone can. But at the same time, the tablet format creates a more intimate personal space between user and device than a laptop or desktop computer does: we are interacting directly with the screen rather than through a separate keyboard or mouse, and we are often holding it rather than facing it.

At The Museum of Modern Art we prioritized the iPhone as our first platform for mobile development because iPhone users were the largest mobile audience of our website. (While Android was second largest at the time we set our priorities, the iPad overtook the Android audience shortly after it first came out in the spring of 2010, and remains the second largest at the time of writing.) In order to make the best use of our resources and to streamline development and ongoing maintenance, we developed an app that was a hybrid of a native app and a mobile site. Creating this hybrid app rather than just a mobile site gave us access to broader distribution through the Apple App Store. This also gave us the opportunity to create features like MoMA Snaps, a branded postcard activity, which would not have been possible through a browser version alone. But at the same time, it allowed us to develop a structural base that could be adapted for an Android app and the mobile version of our website, MoMA.org.

The MoMA iPhone app that we developed was meant as both an in-museum and an offsite experience. Like many museums currently developing mobile apps, we wanted to include our audio tour content. But we were not intending to replace or supplement the current in-museum audio devices with iPods loaded with the app (due to the quantity needed, as well as distribution, security, and maintenance issues). Instead, our intention was to offer the app for people who wanted to access the content through their own devices when in the museum. We included the entire calendar of events and exhibitions and access to all of the online collection with the intention that people would also use the app to plan a visit or learn about works of art beyond the walls of the museum.

While the iPhone app (and the later Android and mobile versions) was a more general view of MoMA and its collection, the iPad app we developed for the Abstract Expressionist New York (AB EX NY) exhibition was an exploration in creating an experience specifically for a tablet device around a single exhibition. We chose not to do a tablet version of the mobile phone app immediately because we felt the form factor necessitated a different approach to the content. This initial tablet project gave us a chance to explore focused ideas on how we could present works in our collection, which in turn might later inform broader, tablet-based projects that we may develop in the future.

Several ideas we explored in the tablet format would have been less effective or not possible in a phone-based app including. For example, a split screen layout, which allows textual information to appear adjacent to a work of art. It is very difficult to combine text and art onscreen in a meaningful way on a phone — your focus is either on one or the other (which is in part why video and audio are particularly effective on a smartphone).

The home screen of the iPad app was a scrollable view of the works that were featured in the program, with the images shown loosely in scale with each other. This selection, combined with the “gallery” browse views, creates a different experience than the typical, more list-based phone app.

While these are certainly not all of the different layout considerations between a tablet and a phone app, they do hint at the larger issue at hand: How do we create compelling experiences for the different device form factors with the limited resources available to museums and in the rapidly changing face of technology? The sand is shifting so much right now that there is not currently a clear answer, but being strategic and thoughtful about how you approach the various platforms (tablet versus phone) and formats (app versus Web), while staying true to the content and your own capabilities (or those of a trusted consultant), is at least a start.

While the AB EX NY iPad app was intended to promote the exhibition, its related publication, and MoMA’s collection, we very specifically intended it to be an experience that took place outside of the exhibition, whether that meant people used it before or after a visit, or even if they never came to the museum at all. We even used images inspired by the Apple campaign of someone using the app in a non-museum space to reinforce that idea. Even though the app includes the content from the audio tour, it really didn’t occur to us that people might try to use it within the museum as a mobile app, until we read this in a review:

You may find the experience of lugging an iPad around the exhibit distracting; I certainly did at times, for no other reason than all the attention it attracted. But if you think about this as a piece of software, free to be downloaded onto any iPad anywhere with an Internet connection, then it dawns on you: a kid in Idaho, two time zones and two thousand from the MoMA, can experience this content as easily as a youngster from the Bronx.

This was a valuable lesson: no matter how we design these apps and no matter how carefully we tailor them to a particular platform, the known unknown is how and where people are going to use their mobile devices. Anecdotally, we have noticed that in the museum, people are using both phones and tablets, with phones making more of an appearance in the galleries and tablets used more in the interstitial spaces. But if we offer the same program on both phones and tablets, would visitors switch between devices based on where they are, or are they more device-consistent within the space of the museum? At this point, only more observation and testing will reveal the answer to that.

If we look at the number of mobile phone apps versus tablet apps in the Apple App Store and Android Market, we see far more of the former than the latter. While this is in part due to the fact that tablets are newer to the market and comprise a smaller share of the mobile device landscape in general, it may also be due to the different experience of using a tablet and the different requirements, including interface design, needed to develop those experiences. And while “function follows form” may be in large part the way we’ve started developing mobile museum apps, as tablets start to come out in varying sizes and phones screens get larger, the differences between a phone versus a tablet experience is likely to become blurred. Add to that the various ways that people use mobile devices, and there are more overlaps between smartphones and tablets. Careful planning and evolving development solutions should help clear a path through the morass as we move past our mobile beginnings to a multiplatform future.

Playful Apps

By Jane Burton

There are hundreds of thousands of apps for smartphone consumers to choose from, and most of them are games. Games make up 70 to 80 percent of all apps downloaded. The latest reports say that 26 million people spend at least 25 minutes every day playing games on their phones [Flurry Analytics, Feb 2011]. The incredible amount of innovation in smartphone mobile gaming is showing us how to create content that people really want to spend time with. The question museums and galleries need to answer is whether there is room in this marketplace for “serious games,” games that offer more than just pure entertainment.

The potential to bring significant ideas to life within the framework of game-play is something that has been brilliantly expressed in the work of Jane McGonigal, author of Reality is Broken, and by UK television’s Channel 4 Education team, who have put gaming at the heart of their content offering to young audiences. But little of the research and innovation around “serious games” has focused on the rapidly growing area of apps.

One of the most successful games produced by a museum is Launchball, from The Science Museum, London, which was first developed in 2007 to be played on kiosks in gallery and online. Designed for children ages of 8 to 14, the game requires you to guide a ball through a series of fiendish challenges, using fans, magnets and Tesla Coils to help you as you learn basic scientific principles along the way. The online version proved so popular, gaining 5.3 million players, that in 2009 the Science Museum re-launched it as a paid-for app. So far the app has been downloaded 7,842 times, enough to pay for its development and return a modest profit, says the museum. This is an achievement, given that the same game can still be played for free online. Nonetheless, the disparity in the figures is a striking reminder of the reach of the web compared to any given app store, and of the power of free content.

Another great “playful” offering, though not strictly a game, is the MEanderthal app from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, which transforms your photo into the face of an early human. You upload a photo of your face, then choose which human species you’d like to become as you morph back in time. There is a serious point behind the fun: “We think it’s really important for people to make emotional connections to our ancestors,” commented Briana Pobiner, a paleoanthropologist at the Smithsonian. “It’s an important way to break down that barrier between things we think are so different or so ‘other.’”

At Tate, we’re interested in finding out if app gaming mechanisms can be applied to an art context. We have produced one game so far, and have two more in development. Launched in 2010, Tate Trumps is a digital card game you play with the art on display at Tate Modern. Visitors can download the game for free to an iPod Touch or iPhone, roam the galleries, choose seven high-scoring artworks, and then play a fast-paced and strategic game of Trumps. There are three different modes (Battle, Mood, or Collector) and you can play on your own or with your friends or family. In Battle mode, you need to ask yourself the question, “If this artwork came to life, how good would it be in a fight?” In Mood mode, you’re looking for artworks you think are menacing, exhilarating or absurd. Or, if you wish you had a gallery of your own, try Collector mode, and find pictures that are famous, recently produced or practical to house.

Tate Trumps is unashamedly light-hearted, but at its core promotes the acts of discovery and looking — key to any art experience — whilst encouraging people to form their own opinions. Being a multi-player game, it also acknowledges the fact that gallery-going, for many, is a social activity, shared amongst friends.
Tate Trumps was deliberately designed to be played only at Tate Modern in order to encourage a direct encounter with artworks. But of course app stores are global marketplaces, and we hadn’t reckoned on the frustration that not being able to play would engender in the majority of people who wouldn’t be coming to the gallery in the near future.

For our next game, currently in development, the brief was to come up with something that could be played anywhere, without visiting the museum, but with bonus content for those who can make it to Tate Modern. Shake your phone and the “Magic Tate Ball” will curate a piece of artwork that relates specifically to that unique moment in time. Pass it round the pub or check it on the train to find out which artworks fit the DNA of your daily life. In auto-mode, the application will use the iPhone’s sensors (microphone and GPS), along with other feeds like weather and time, to deduce the most appropriate artwork for the given criteria. In manual mode, the user can ask the Magic Tate Ball to generate ideas on themes: Inspire me; Shock me; Give me a Talking Point.

The third game we are developing pushes further into pure gaming territory. The challenge we’ve set ourselves is to take a simple, addictive form of gameplay along the lines of Doodle Jump and bring art into the mix, imparting meaningful information without getting in the way of the action.

The jury is still out on how successful games like these will be in terms of introducing new audiences to Tate’s Collection, and we will be evaluating them later this year. But in the meantime, here are a few things we’ve learnt along the way:

Know Your Audience.
It’s easy to assume that mobile gamers are teenage kids. Wrong. Forget the acne generation, unless you’re talking about console platforms like Xbox or the PS3. The typical gamer downloading games through app stores (and really, we’re still talking about iTunes, though Android is beginning to build a market share) is female, between 18 and 49, and well educated. A recent report published by Flurry, a San Francisco-based smartphone analytics firm, said: “Studying the U.S. mobile social gamer, we note that she earns over 50 percent more than the average American, is more than twice as likely to have earned a college bachelor’s degree, and is more likely to be white or Asian.” The number of men playing isn’t far behind, though: 47 percent of app-based gamers are male, compared to 53 percent female. In fact, the profile for these gamers is strikingly similar to the profile of many museum visitors, which suggests that app gamers may very well be open to cultural content delivered in this form.

However, this demographic will widen as Smartphones become more affordable and therefore more common over the next two years. If you want to use mobile games to reach a teen audience, start planning, but maybe not developing just yet, and look beyond the iPhone platform.

Make it Free.
With hundreds of thousands of apps available for mobile consumers to choose from, it’s a tough market, and most publishers are moving towards free apps. Some are supported by sponsorship, or possibly, if you’ve got a really hot property, by “freemium,” whereby you get the basic app free, but people pay for the fancier version. Anyone who has played “Angry Birds” will recognize this model. But only the most optimistic developer from the cultural sector would imagine they are going to make much money from a game.

Think about Discoverability.
Submitting your game into an app store is a bit like dropping thousands of dollars down a well. There’s an initial splash, which dwindles to a ripple, then silence. The iTunes app store is a busy place, and it’s hard to get noticed amongst the crowd. Getting noticed is known in the digital world as “discovery,” and there are myriad social networks and recommendation sites springing up that aim to make app discovery easier for consumers. Some of the sites are listed here. But the sands are ever shifting, and there are no sure-fire solutions. Being early to market in one of the less crowded app stores looking to rival iTunes is beginning to look like a smart move.

Jane Burton, head of content and creative director, Tate, London.