Facilitating museum learning experiences
By Laurin Ivetic
Whether it is working from home, increased mobile usage or else, the current pandemic has sped up digital transitions and continues to accelerate change in various sectors. Cultural institutions which were struggling with digital change can take the chance now to overcome that struggle and benefit from this accelerated change. Digital could bring users closer to art and culture from afar. Now more than ever.
Some museums are certainly aware of the educational properties of digital and its potential for exciting learning experiences by now but the majority of institutions still struggle to find an answer to exactly how to successfully do so.
Don’t start with yourself, start with the user
A common mistake is taking a microscopic look at the individual user touch points rather than taking a step back and trying to see the whole user journey. Museums need to look at the entire journey taken by users and need to get involved with the user’s point of view. This is where the digital user journey comes in as a means to restructure the whole experience and help orchestrate better, from end to end, across all touch points and channels. Often, the digital user journey is based on four phases (awareness, consideration, interaction and care), each phase containing different channels and touch points. Every channel and touch point contribute to the experience in individual ways and exactly that is the benefit of this approach. It could be key in helping to facilitate structuring digital learning experiences across various touch points to create a seamless user experience.
Though museums will vary in mission and value to its audience, user centricity will always be at the center of the digital user journey. Who is their visitor – who is their user? Who do they talk to and reach online? What would the audience perceive as a valuable digital learning experience? Being user-centric is essential when it comes to digital but such a digital user journey is only as effective as its implementation. Museums need to finetune each touch point and take advantage of them to implement the right touch points at the right time in order to fulfil the user’s needs.
“Did you see what they did?”
Knowing your audience is one thing, segmenting them is the next step. The most important thing is to know the user’s interest. Are they curious about a specific museum? Or are they actively looking for answers on a specific topic? There are surely more user types, but distinguishing users into curiosity-led and inquiry-led groups first can help in shaping the content for the first touch point that intends to grab the user’s attention.
A great example of creating awareness is to make the point of entry relevant to your user’s life. Offline presence, social media ads and Google ads (this also includes Google Maps!) and of course the museum website are all touch points that can be used in this first phase. The YouTube channel of the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, RijksTube, does a great job at creating links between their art and pop culture in the video series Is This Art?. The combination of imageability, interactivity and storytelling to create an accessible museum narrative is incredibly important in this phase already. It’s all about getting the “Did you see what they did?” to create as much awareness as possible.
“Is it really worth it?”
After having grabbed their attention, museums need to show that the initial interest is worth it. The second phase of the user journey is a paramount moment where the user considers whether to interact with a museum or not. The phase needs to focus on reinforcing the initial message and position the museum and the learning experience in a manner that emphasizes it as a toolbox for self-development so that users consider it to be of personal benefit. Museums can scale their initial message stories by using storytelling in the multi-channel environment of the digital user journey.
Information has to be provided in the most accessible manner possible through accessible experiences like a search engine on the museum website. The online presence of the museum needs to guide the user in this phase and make the case for the museum’s learning experience. Keeping the user engaged through gamification, MOOCs or possible co-creation and participation in creation of exhibitions can be a couple of ways to win them over. Promotion through social media with a focus on visual, or external partners can also increase the perceived value of an educational product.
Focus on imageability and interactivity
Digital can make interactive learning experiences from afar possible by creating new life around art. Museum professionals do agree on this as Chief Information Officer at the Cleveland Museum of Art, Jane Alexander, said it best, commenting: “The best use of digital is not to make you aware of the technology, but to make you aware of the art.” Through as much imageability, interactivity and transmedia storytelling as possible, museums create new life around art which simultaneously increases the educational value of their digital experience.
“The best use of digital is not to make you aware of the technology, but to make you aware of the art.”
As the touch points of the two previous phases create a build-up to the actual experience, the platform itself should be the pivotal moment of the user journey. Museums should focus on personalizing this digital museum experience as much as possible to make it interactive and entertaining to appeal to users on an emotional level. Building communities that encourage discussion around the learning experience can ultimately create network effects for museums that improve the experience.
The more museums focus on the art itself, the storytelling surrounding their art, its educational value and the possibilities of how it can affect the user, the bigger the learning effect will be.
Stay connected
Loyalty programs, especially digital ones, are still on the come-up but individual museums made tremendous progress in building, maintaining and growing online communities. Digital facilitates building museum communities in which users have the opportunity to connect to each other and share their interest with other users. Nurturing and fostering such participation helps to turn users into ambassadors that eventually gets museums that “Did you see what they did?”-reaction. Efforts like this increase the awareness, the reach but also the reputation, and thus the perceived value of a digital platform or product of a museum and stimulates new users to keep coming in.
Every phase of the user journey should offer educational value, teasing and carrying the users into the next phase with the goal to have them interact with the learning experience and keep them engaged with the museum content and have them come back. It is essential to provide users with as much information as possible at every touch point. It supports your educational mission as a whole more than you think. Especially at this time when everyone needs to stay at home, museums need to step in not only as educators but also as facilitators that help people to get away. Even if it is only remotely – the user’s mind is also a touch point.