One of the questions we’ve had since the beginning of the project was if ASK is appropriate for a mounted kiosk of some kind. We originally thought of this in terms of accessibility—providing kiosks for those who didn’t have smartphones. Most people have smartphones nowadays, and since we now offer texting in addition the app, those that do not have smartphones can text us. We have had a few people with flip phones use the texting option. However, we still wondered if providing a kiosk would encourage ASK use; that if people had a good experience on the kiosk, they might use ASK on their own device. So we decided to test this in our Luce Visible Storage▪Study Center.
Luce has five iPad kiosks for visitors to search the collection online since none of the works have any information beyond an accession number. We loaded ASK on 4 of the 5 iPads (the fifth was being used for a survey) and tried it for a week. During that time we had 14 chats come into the dashboard and learned some important things in the process:
We are working with HFC, our contract developers, to create a special version of the app that has the features we need to be able to install it on a stationary kiosk. We will give it another go. Fingers crossed!
Sara Devine joined the Brooklyn Museum as Manager of Interpretive Materials in 2011 and is now Director of Visitor Experience & Engagement. A vocal visitor advocate, her expertise lies in crafting accessible and engaging visitor experiences and reaching audiences across platforms. She works with curators, designers, educators, technologists, and editors on all aspects of visitor experience and engagement. Sara is also a visiting assistant professor and curriculum coordinator at Pratt Institute’s School of Information for their graduate program in Museums and Digital Culture. She was previously Senior Content Developer and Project Manager at Hilferty, a museum planning and design firm in Ohio, where she developed comprehensive interpretive master plans and exhibitions for a wide variety of museums. She has also worked at Assistant Curator, Special Exhibition at Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello and as a Curatorial Assistant at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History.
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