The Improved Museum Experience
DATE OF COMPLETION: JANUARY 2021
This is a user research-focused project.
Duration: 3 months
Project
The Improved Museum Experience: A User-Centric Study of Museum-Goers’ Motivations, Obstacles, and Expectations
Team Members
Junjie Chen, Yung-Hsin Cheng, Zimeng Li, Shuyun (Susan) Huang, Wing Lam Tse, Tsz Hin (Jason) Yung
Overview
As museums have encountered challenges in recent years, such as reduced visitor numbers, the museum experience needs to be improved to stabilize current visitor volume and attract more people. In this study, we investigated museumgoers’ current visiting experiences and related pain points and suggested several improvements that museums could consequently make. We leveraged three user research methods including an online questionnaire, semi-structured interviews, and a think-aloud protocol. The research mainly focused on museum-goers’ motivations and expectations, the obstacles they faced, and the differences between traditional and interactive approaches that museums apply. Our research revealed that museum-goers’ motivations could be divided into two groups: before-visiting motivations and within-museum motivations. Although various obstacles have diminished museum-goers’ motivations, these can potentially be overcome if museums apply more interactive approaches and develop better navigation systems to make visitors feel more engaged.
Goals
1. To investigate what motivates museum-goers to visit museums.
2. To identify the most common obstacles faced by museum-goers.
3. To investigate the influence of interactive approaches applied by museums on museum-goers' overall visiting experience, in comparison to traditional approaches.
4. To discover ways that can potentially contribute to solving the most common obstacles museum-goers face.
Research Questions
1. What motivates museum-goers to visit museums?
2. What obstacles do museum-goers face inside and outside museums?
3. What expectations do museum-goers have for their visiting experience?
4. How do the experiences that traditional approaches versus interactive approaches bring to museum-goers differ?
Methods Summary
Methods:
Online Questionnaire - 75 respondents in total, 47 are eligible
Semi-structured Interview - 8 interviewees
Think-aloud Protocol - 8 participants
Participants Type: Museum-goers
The inclusion and exclusion criteria are the same for all three of our research methods. Specifically, the participant group includes people who self-define themselves as museumgoers and plan to visit more museums in the future.
Screening Questions (Yes / No):
1. Are you above 18?
2. Are you a museum-goer?
3. Have you worked in the museum industry?
4. Have you attended any degree of museum studies?
5. Have you been to a museum in the past?
6. Are you interested in going to museums in the future?
Pilot Testing: Before starting the research, we reached out to two participants and completed the pilot test to test the design of the selected research methods.
Method 1: Online Questionnaire
1. How often do you visit museums?
○ Less than once per year
○ 1- 2 visits per year
○ 3-5 visits per year
○ 6-10 visits per year
○ More than 10 visits per year
2. Who did you visit the museums with?
○ On my own
○ Family
○ Teachers
○ Colleagues
○ Friends
○ Other: please specify
3. Why did you visit the museums? (you can select more than one answer)
○ Enjoy a specific exhibition
○ Attend a specific workshop/session
○ Explore the museum
○ Education purpose
4. How much time do you usually spend visiting the museum?
○ Less than 1 hour ○ 1 - 2 hours
○ 2 - 3 hours ○ More than 3 hours
5. What are the factors you would consider when choosing museums to visit? (you can select more than one answer)
○ Reputation
○ Location
○ Recommendations from others
○ Special exhibits
○ Ticket price
○ Museum environment
○ Others: please specify
6. How much did each of the following factors contribute to your museum experiences? (1 - least important, 5 - most important)
___ Museum explanation system
___ Museum navigation system
___ Canteen, souvenirs
___ Staff services
___ Multi-media display
___ Exhibits’ quality
___ Ticket service
___ Traffic accessibility (i.e parking)
7. How much did each of the following aspects of the exhibition enhance your museum visiting experience of exhibits? (1 - least useful, 5 - most useful)
___ Text information (i.e. labels, descriptive panels)
___ Guide by audio-tour
___ Docent-led tour
___ QR codes (for more information)
___ Video installation
___ AR (augmented reality) interaction (with exhibits)
___ VR (virtual reality) interaction (with exhibits)
___ Physical interaction (with exhibits)
___ Touch screen technology
8. What are some of the obstacles you have faced during your past museum visits?
○ Poor explanation system about the exhibits
○ Poor navigation in the exhibition
○ High visitor flow
○ Museum environment (light, music, temperature, etc.)
9. Do you have anything else to add regarding your museum experiences?
Method 2:
Semi-structured Interview
1. What is your name?
2. How old are you?
3. What are some of your reasons for visiting museums?
4. What kind of museums do you visit the most? Why?
5. Do you know that some museums are applying more interactive approaches to their exhibitions? (If yes→Q6; If no→Q9)
6. Have you ever been to a museum with interactive exhibits? (If yes→Q7; If no→Q9)
7. How are the experiences different between traditional/interactive museum? Which one do you prefer? Why?
8. What do you think of the traditional museum experience?
9. Have you had any unpleasant museum experiences? If yes, can you tell me more about it?
(If the participant said No, ask him/ her: what about [some examples]?)
10. What are some aspects you think could make your visit more enjoyable? Why?
11. What activities and events would you like to participate more in the museums? Why?
12. Are there any certain types of museums you are not interested in? What actions do you think they could take to attract you?
Method 3:
Think-aloud Protocol
Product:
• https://www.louvre.fr/en/visites-en-ligne (VR Museum)
• https://artsandculture.google.com/ (Conceptual Museum)
Tasks:
1. Find something that interests you.
2. Find more information about the things you just found interesting.
3. Randomly choose a quick game on the website (Google Arts and Culture) to play.
4. Walk around in the museum with the 360° view feature (for no more than 15 minutes to make sure that the meetings will be completed within approximately 1 hour)
Follow-up questions:
1. What’s your overall impression of the two museums?
2. Which museum do you prefer to visit in real life? Why?
3. What did you like/dislike the most about the two museums?
4. I noticed you did [action]. Can you tell me why?
5. How do you think of the game? How does it affect your overall website experiences?
6. How do you think the virtual tour will affect your physical museum experience?
Results Summary
Motivations:
1. Ones that lead them to go to museums
2. Ones that encourage them to revisit or stay a longer time in the museums
Obstacles:
1. The poor environment issue: high visitor flow and the obscure interior design
2. The poor navigation system
3. The high-ticket price
Museum Approaches:
• Traditional - Less intriguing as there was only one-way communication (from museums to visitors)
• Interactive - Almost all the participants recruited in the three research methods believed interactive museums were more attractive and could leave stronger impressions
Solutions
1. Pinpoint Audience Groups
2. Navigation: Interaction, physical, and digitalization
3. Learning: Text information and interactive elements
4. Marketing