Case Study: chART, the museum exploration guide
A concept iOS app for museum navigation and art education.
The challenge
| Rethink the way museum-goers navigate physical space and access information about the art around them.
Though going to the museum is meant to be a delightful adventure, there are aspects of the experience that ultimately turn an outing into an ordeal. An overabundance of art, expansive maze-like spaces, unhelpful maps, traffic flow issues, prescriptive tours, and uninformative wall text detract from the typical museum-goer’s visit.
How might we facilitate an engaging, informational museum experience for visitors that encourages exploration and agency, while also respecting their time?
Research:
The Process, Part I:
To understand the current landscape of New York cultural institutions, several museum websites were compared for available features and overall digital presence. Additionally, amusement and tourism apps were examined to study how guests’ engagement with real-life locations were enhanced by digital interfaces, to identify what features might be beneficial to the museum experience.
Takeaways:
Though museums have begun digitizing their collections over the past decade, overall digital presences require vast improvement, particularly transitioning from virtual space into the physical space. Most lack companion apps, often relying on user-downloaded pdfs for map navigation.
Like museums, amusement apps include basic information (maps, attraction information, guide times, and ticketing). However, other utilities, such as advanced filtering, amenity locating, and mobile ordering, also exist to enhance the guest experience..
Proposed Partner:
The Museums Council of New York City is an association of New York’s 108 major cultural institutions, whose purpose is “preserving, studying, interpreting, and exhibiting objects and specimens of educational and cultural value.”
With chART, New York City’s 8.3 million residents and 66 million tourists have a more approachable way to visit and interact with the city’s diverse museums. chART provides an all-in-one database of New York’s cultural institutions, granting everyone access to millions of pieces of art, science, flora, and fauna.
The Process, Part II:
User interviews were performed to understand how people currently engage with museums, to discover particular areas for improvement.
Key Quotes:
“Museums are getting better about focusing more on visitors and less on the objects in their collections. Before, it was ‘I’m a museum. My job is to safeguard, take care of, and explain these objects.’ Now, that has moved more towards a focus on the public and what the public needs.”
“If there’s so little information available, it makes me less engaged in the artwork.”
“I usually like to visit every exhibit and look at every piece. But then the time I spend looking at each piece decreases the longer I’m there and I get tired of standing.”
“The format of an exhibition is very different from a book or something that’s completely linear. If you have a room with paintings or sculptures or whatever, based on your own interests, intuition, or connections you’re drawing, you’re able to move through it how you want to move through it.”
Interview Insights:
• Visitors generally know the art and exhibits they want to visit.
• Visitors allocate short amounts of time to museums.
• Visitors use maps, but find they lack helpful features.
• Visitors want more information about the artwork they’re interested in.
• Visitors prefer the agency and flexibility of self-guided experiences.
Target Audience:
This is Jane, a virtual representation of chART’s target audience — a patron of the arts who wishes she could visit museums more often, for longer periods of time. Her frustrations suggest that time constraints and building size make it difficult for shorter trips. She will be the target of future design decisions.
A museum shouldn’t have emotional lows, but because of size and lack of consistent way-finding, Jane often spends too much time off-course. While it’s great that she’s discovering art along the way, she doesn’t learn enough from the limited information provided. Clear growth opportunities exist in the navigation and information-sharing aspects of the museum experience.
Synthesizing key research takeaways with initial project goals, these principles were composed to act as design philosophies:
Design:
Introducing chART, a self-guided tour generator and information app, adaptable to any museum or cultural institution. This iOS-first app eases the museum-going experience for first-timers and art enthusiasts alike, creating user-curated journeys with pre-planned routes and time estimates to maximize every visitor’s personal effort and schedule.
Additionally, individuals can save artwork and exhibitions across cultural institutions, tailoring recommendations based on these interests. With chART, the museum-goer can dismiss the annoying facets of the museum experience and focus on what matters most, exploration and delight.
High-Fidelity Mockups:
Application Map:
Usability Testing:
Product testing occurred across two rounds (mid-fidelity design, high-fidelity design).
Scenarios / Tasks
You’re in New York City and want to visit the world-famous Museum of Modern Art. Join chART, set up your profile, and find out information about your desired museum.
Now that you know MoMA is open today, you want to make sure you can see all your favorite artwork. Use the app to generate and review a possible self-guided tour.
Your tour has some great destinations, but you only have two hours to make it through. You realize some of the art is out of the way. Refocus your tour to art that’s closer together, to bring it down under your two-hour time limit.
You’re enjoying a classic painting and you want to learn more about it on your way home. Find your current room and bookmark Starry Night for later reading.
All test participants agreed that the concept and functionality of chART would be useful in navigating museums.
Future Timeline:
The value of chART:
• Creating personalized, unforgettable cultural experiences.
• Taking the guesswork out of packed schedules.
• More artwork information at the fingertip.
• Navigation guidance to avoid the frustrations of massive institutions.
• Building excitement, curiosity, and wonder before, during, and after a visit.
