#08.1. interview insights

Interviewee B

24, F, Student/ Former Museum Employee

B enjoys visiting museums and visits them once or twice every month. She noted that she was a “fine arts” person and hence her favourite museum is the National Gallery. She lists the Nam June Paik and the Chua Mia Tee exhibitions as some of her favourite exhibitions. During the interview, she spoke very enthusiastically about her experiences.

Interviewee B’s favourite exhibitions (photos via Interviewee B)

Having previously worked at a museum, she has shared some of her experiences with how the exhibitions were curated and changed to fit a wider target audience. She notes that this change has caused some exhibitions to lose their depth and expresses frustration about the situation.

Based on the interview as a whole, I split her answers into two categories highlighting her pain points with regard to her museum experiences and the potential opportunities that can be used in the development of the product.

Pain points with regards to her museum experience:

1. She mentions how she tends to spend a lot of time admiring the details of each artwork and taking an even longer time to capture the right photo of it.
2. She notes that she can only visit the exhibitions she's interested in due to time constraints. Sometimes she goes back to see the ones she misses out on but not all the time because it is kind of far from home so she tends not to revisit them.
3. She believes that interactive experiences are really a double-edged sword. On one hand, they can be really fun but on the other hand, you really see the worst of humanity (referring to large crowds, rowdy children and loud tourists).
4. Also, she thinks that for the sake of reaching this wider audience, many museums dumb down their exhibitions to cater to children as well and sometimes it confiscates the essence of the whole thing.
5. She notes that she has used the National Gallery Explorer but felt that it was a bit clunky so she deleted it. In addition, museum visiting is kind of a once in a blue moon thing. Despite considering herself to be a frequent museum-goer, she doesn’t find any use in it other than the one or two times it was used in the biennale exhibition. Furthermore, there wasn't any incentive that encouraged you to keep it.

Sketch Aquarium (photo via teamLab)

Potential opportunities for future products.

1. Usually visits them for both inspiration and education but for education mostly. Insight would be the most accurate word to describe it.
2. She does take photos of the exhibitions, capturing both the artwork and information, showing priority to the artwork. She usually only takes photos of the information if she’s really interested in the piece or if the information explains more about the concept behind the art style and artistic decisions made by the artists.
3. Unless the piece is really witty or outstanding, she doesn’t post it on social media. She usually keeps the photos for personal reference.
4. The most memorable interactive experience would be the sketch aquarium in the Art Science Museum where you can design a sea creature template, scan it and watch it appear on the big screen. She claims that she enjoys it not only because it’s interactive but also because of how participative it is. She likes that aspect of it because it’s personal and gives her creative freedom.
5. “When there are interactive exhibitions you have to be very clear on who your target audience is. I know that for the sake of profit, people would want a wider range of audiences but then you end up deceiving many people. For example, Future World was marketed to look so sleek and calming on the brochures but when you enter it, it’s just packed with children and families and it's not calming at all.”
6. She explains that she does retain some of the information she reads about but it’s less of the tangible information and more of the insights she gains.
7. She explains that she thinks what can ease the learning experience in museums like the Art Science Museum, is how profit shouldn't be the main driving force. This is because the whole experience of taking it (the exhibition) in is ruined especially if the crowd and children are allowed to do whatever they want. The exhibitions may be interactive but they shouldn't be abused.
8. Having app would help her save a lot of space on her phone and it would be good to see the artworks in HD. Hence, she thinks it would be very useful.
9. The product would be even more engaging if it could have more general information on the art movements that the museums focus on (for e.g. the National Gallery is more focused on south-east Asian art and artists as well as contemporary south-east Asian art.). If there were just short information pages explaining what we need to know it would be useful. The National Gallery did something great with this free guide that helped her understand the exhibitions more and she thought it was pretty good.

The National Gallery’s free guide (photo via me)