I’d like to echo the thanks for your time and effort. I’m a technology-friendly artist new to the city and haven’t visited the museum yet, but have followed the blog posts and love what you are doing.

Rothstein is a frustrating audience but a typical one. An average-leveled technology user knows enough to expect advanced features, but not enough to understand or fully utilize what is already there.

The article is still useful. It opens with a great point: people love taking photos in museums (I, personally, love taking photos of people taking photos in museums). I see from the comments that QR isn’t viable… is image-matching? (Sorry if I missed this in other comments…) Codewise it’s not too hard, and you seem to have a well photographed archive. Visitor-generated image galleries could make the at-home web experience friendlier (and inspirational), too.

R’s comments on tagging are less useful. Broad tags find deeper connections. And the fact that you’ve distilled the interactivity to the two most loved and useful inventions of blogging and social networks (tagging and liking, respectively), shows you know what you’re doing.

So thanks, congrats, keep it up, and I look forward to visiting and trying all this fun stuff out soon.

Laura

One of the things that bothered me most about the review was that Rothstein got our in-gallery tagging mixed up with our online tagging (this is easy to see in what he points to) and that is unfortunate. Both of these applications are very different and there’s no question the benefit of our tagging system online which is both very successful and made our database increasingly better indexed. Gallery Tag! operates differently and needs to be played in-gallery (something you are advocating!). I notice you are commenting from USC, so I’m not sure if you’ve had the chance to try it in person? I will mention, during the mobile meetup we had good audience reaction to it and that’s what we wanted to see – average visitors coming to the museum and enjoying it. Of course, there’s always more that can be done, but it’s important to try one thing at a time and see how visitors are reacting to it.

Hi Blaire,

I’m sorry that we cannot provide units for checkout at this time. I mentioned this in an earlier blog post – right now we are in a highly experimental phase and we do require visitors to bring their own hardware. As much as we’d like to provide rental units, it comes down to a factor of cost for us. In the end, we decided to do the project anyway (all in-house, no budget) and then gauge demand for rental. So far, we’ve not seen many requests. I will say, this was also true of my visit to AMNH. They did have the budget and are providing units at the desk for rental, but the day I was there we took out unit 001 and that was the only unit checked out during our three hour visit. I asked the folks at the desk how much demand they had and they said not much. Should we ideally be providing units? Yes, no question – it makes for a better visitor experience overall, but I don’t think we should avoid a project if we can’t afford it – especially a project in early stages.

That being said, I think that the sheer concept of these apps hold great potential, and that some of the critical articles “missed the mark”. Rothstein’s article pointed out the flaws in the app, without acknowledging the positive aspects or the fact that the developers are trying to work out these issues, knowing full well that they do exist. Was he under the impression the developers thought the apps were perfect? As you mention, “it’s just not possible yet. While we do have a museum-wide wireless system, it was put in during 2004 and we don’t have the meshing technology required to triangulate signal.” Perhaps Rothstein doesn’t remember the controversy of a few months ago, as his company, the NYTimes decided that they will implement a pay wall in the future – assuming they can figure out how to do that successfully.

In a Museums and the Web (2009) article by Koven Smith, he makes reference to the demographic issues. While we, blog readers and writers, feel comfortable with technology, we must remember to ask ourselves who is going to use the technology, and at what museums? There are some museums in NYC in which the majority of the audience hovers around the age of 60, and these people can not figure out how to use a audioguide. Should we give them an iphone with apps? Surely not. And for this reason, AMNH and the Brooklyn Museum have apps aimed at their young audience, rather than the Frick Collection. And, as Smith points out, the technology is ahead of the designers, creating a lack of cohesion, at present time. Additionally, these devises can not be the most important part of the visitor experience, as the Doyles (Museum and the Web 2010) point out, “we have to remember that museums have no distinct competitive advantage as Web site content producers. The ultimate value of the museum lies in its physical presence, its collections, exhibits, visitors, staff, and community.”

The crux of this issue is not developing a better app, its how the museum’s structure will change in the next few years. The visitors services departments will have to communicate more with the education and media departments as visitors transition to more complicated devises, while still learning artistic content (perhaps now the visitors are focusing on technological learnablity rather than art). Visitor research will have to be redone, and the museum as a whole will change, just as it did many years ago when education took prominence over voyeuristic modes of display.

PS- Please, please, please make some iphones available to rent!

The article and your subsequent post are both useful to the museum professionals and visitors. Although I agree that Rothstein’s criticism was directed towards his own interests, his perspective raises some interesting points about the use of smartphone applications in museums today. As the patrons themselves are the ones using these apps at museums, Rothstein’s opinion does indeed show that the development of these apps will continue to be patron driven as you confirm in your post. I commend your commitment that further developments and improvements must prioritize creating the best visitor experience. Central to Rothstein’s critique was the demand for greater content. As patrons turn to these applications they are obviously showing an initiative to learn more outside of the information provided on the wall label. These mobile applications are the perfect place to house additional and exclusive content. Any of the supplementary content should aim to create a personal relationship between the object and the viewer. Perhaps future improvements can provide audio commentary about the work from the artists themselves (when possible) or short videos illustrating the work of art’s production or restoration process? Or maybe even references to similar works of art and book titles for further information?

I agree with Rothstein’s evaluation of the Gallery Tag game, where its current format seems to dumb down curatorial practice. However it is beneficial as a teaching tool for a younger audience. Perhaps the game could be modified to a timed gallery scavenger hunt for older audiences? Instead of a keyword, provide a cropped pixilated image of work of art that visitors have to correctly guess under a time limit. Additionally, why not provide timed gallery quizzes where art history buffs can compete against other visitors? In addition to bragging rights for winning these timed games, why not provide exclusive rewards, like discounts on membership or at the gift shop as an incentive for a top score? I believe that the overarching aim of these technologies should generate content you can only access within the museum. With the proliferation of resources available on the web, patrons can often default to viewing information from the comfort from their own home. Exciting mobile content has the chance to provide deeper educational information or fun museum games will compel visitors to personally and physically experience the objects of art at the museum. I hope these suggestions will in the future create a richer interaction in a patron’s visit.