Cards feature a detail of William Merritt Chase’s portrait of Lydia Field Emmett, with instructions.

In preparation, we discussed our learnings from previous themed tours and established a few small but important goals for the structure and promotion of this engagement activity. Specifically, we wanted to manage visitor expectations by specifying the tour location and keeping that area clearly defined (just one floor, in this case); indicating in advance what the format would be (i.e., texting/chatting); and offering the user a prompt word to send as their first message.

Our palm card for this new tour includes all the above information, succinctly stated, as well as a detail of a favorite painting from our American Art collections. For card handout, we’re concentrating on the fifth floor. Cards are displayed in a rack near the elevator that visitors are taking to reach that floor. The cards are also placed at the ticket check-in kiosk for Pierre Cardin: Future Fashion, where Visitor Experience ticketing staff can hand them out and explain them. Our ASK Ambassadors are also promoting the tour activity as they circulate around the Museum, of course!

Once a visitor begins the tour, the ten stops encompass works in a range of media from different locations and time periods, from a Chiriqui gold pendant (circa 1000-1500) to Luigi Lucioni’s portrait of artist Paul Cadmus (1927). For each one, the ASK team offers a few interesting facts, sometimes touching on past trends in cosmetics and grooming as well as costume history.

These women’s pant-suits were as edgy in the 1930s as Cardin’s unisex designs would be in the 1960s.

We can also make occasional parallels between historical clothing, jewelry, and accessories and Cardin’s designs, to complement users’ visits to that exhibition or to inspire them to check it out in the future.

So far, we’ve had some positive user response. One visitor thanked us by writing, “This has been terrific, a great interactive tour. Definitely encouraged me to look closer, which I do like and tend to do.” We’ll be tracking visitor use and reactions throughout the run of this exhibition, to be shared at a later date!

This was the message on palm cards that our ASK Ambassadors distributed to Museum visitors throughout June. As a special engagement activity for Pride Month, visitors could take an ASK-guided tour of our galleries and learn more about gender and queer identity in art. 

The card featured a detail of a work by Amaryllis DeJesus Moleski, on view in the exhibition “Nobody Promised You Tomorrow.”

This tour could be taken as a complementary activity to the special exhibition Nobody Promised You Tomorrow: Art 50 Years After Stonewall or as a standalone activity. And, as with all our ASK engagement offerings, we kept things responsive and personalized —every visitor could set their own pace and tone.

Visitors could begin their experience in the Museum lobby at a painting by Kehinde Wiley.

As we envisioned it, this app-guided tour would include a few very popular works from our collections (like Kehinde Wiley’s Napoleon Crossing the Alps) as well as some lesser-known works. They could be works by artists who identified as LGBTQ+, portraits of LGBTQ+ individuals, or works that touched on broader themes of gender identity.

The ASK Team collaborated to select ten works of art with a range of dates and media, from Donald Moffett’s Lot 043017 (Multiflora, Radiant Blue) to a coffin in the Ancient Egyptian collection, from Aaron Ben-Shmuel’s stone bust of Walt Whitman to Deborah Kass’s neon wall-piece After Louise Bourgeois. They compiled information about these works into a reference document and they strategized about giving directions to help the visitor navigate from stop to stop.

Elizabeth of the ASK Team tracked these tours (which accounted for about 22% of our app traffic) throughout June , and she noticed an interesting split. Visitors who began engaging with us on the Museum’s first floor were more likely to invest in the total tour experience, following our cues to visit works on the third, fourth, and fifth floors of the Museum. They often spent more than a half-hour with us for this itinerary.

Special labels with Pride flag icons were placed beside the “tour stops.”

Meanwhile, other visitors encountered individual works with our ASK Pride Month labels in the galleries and sent questions about them. These visitors were usually satisfied with learning about that particular work and might move one more stop nearby when we invited them to continue chatting. However, they were less interested in experiencing the complete tour.

The ASK Team also received a few requests from visitors who were ready to go even further. For example, when one visitor asked whether they could see anything by LGBTQ+ artists in the new special exhibition Rembrandt to Picasso: Five Centuries of European Works on Paper, we added a drawing by Rosa Bonheur to our list.

It’s been two years since we first tailored an ASK activity to a specific show or event, during Georgia O’Keeffe: Living Modern, and we continue to learn from each iteration. Next up? An engagement option related to the special exhibition Pierre Cardin: Future Fashion. More about that soon!

1. Are ASK users first-time or returning museum visitors?
2. Are ASK users avid museum goers?
3. What kind of experience are users having?
4. Are the users participating in the Frida Kahlo ASK activities?
5. Are the ASK users using the app in Spanish?

The students determined a survey was best, which the ASK team sent via a link as part of the chat. This was more challenging than we thought because figuring out the timing for when to send the survey link proved difficult. You don’t want to share it first-thing, before anyone’s engaged, but finding the end of the conversation can be tough; some users just stop texting. The team had to play with timing a bit and I’m not sure we ever found the perfect moment. 

As with the Kahlo visitor study, we offered an incentive for completion: every 25th respondent got free tickets to Frida Kahlo. We ended up switching that incentive to free Kahlo Dance Party tickets since most users during this time had already seen the exhibition. In the end, we netted 115 responses over 6 weeks. As with the Kahlo evaluation, the results I’m sharing here include some of their interpretation of the data (reviewed by me) as well as some of my own analysis. 

Let’s break down the results. 

Are ASK users first-time or returning museum visitors?

Respondents were almost 50/50 split, with just slightly more repeat visitors. A caveat here though, is that we make this question time-bound, i.e. “within the last year,” so we don’t know if visitors meant life-time visits or something else.

Are ASK users avid art museum goers?

Yes! A majority (72%) visit art museums three plus times in a typical year (this question was timebound). Only 7% of respondents noted it was their first visit to any art museum, while almost 40% visit 6+ times a year.

What kind of experience are users having?

As indicated in the past through positive app store reviews, I’m happy to say we continue to provide a good experience for users. Over 98% of respondents would recommend the app to a friend. The most popular reasons given for this answer included descriptions that could be coded as “fun,” “informative,” and “helpful.” 

Are the users participating in the Frida Kahlo ASK activities?

Yes. Roughly a third (34%) of respondents checked the scavenger hunt as a way they used ASK, while 19% used the Kahlo themed cards.  Interestingly, although this question was a “check all,” a slight majority (57%) only checked on option. It’s possible this could be attributed to users have one main reason for using the app, though it could also be people simply filling out the survey quickly without stopping to think critically about all the ways they used it. Users tend to rely heavily on photos in chats, so the fact that only 22% check that use suggests it’s wise to take these responses with a grain of salt. 

Are the ASK users using the app in Spanish?

Unfortunately, the dashboard doesn’t track this for us automatically, so the way the students chose to get at this was to determine users’ preferred language. It doesn’t quite answer the question, but helps unpack user preferences. Over 80% of respondents (93) listed English and only 2 people listed Spanish. We do know, however, from the Kahlo visitor study that a little over a third of visitors interviewed used the Spanish language materials. Perhaps the lack of synergy between studies means Spanish-speakers aren’t using the app, despite invitations in Spanish to do so. More data would have been required to be really sure.

So, what does it all mean?

We learned a few things from the study. First, our assumption that more first-time visitors would use the app for the Kahlo activities—mostly because we felt like it was an easy way into exploring a new place—was correct. Those least likely to use the scavenger hunt in particular were the users who had visited us the most. 

Second, it’s nice to know most people have a good experience with us, no matter how they use ASK. A few comments include: 

The ask app totally enhanced my museum going experience. Typically I can find usage of phones in the galleries to be pretty distracting, but this app advances the experience. It’s great to have my questions answered in a friendly way- and by a person!

Due to ASK at the Brooklyn Museum, I rate this museum the top museum out of all I visited before!

Keep it up please! This is the best form of digital technology yet!

And third, as can be the case with visitor studies, this one leaves me wanting a bit more. Not through any fault of the students who worked on it, but due to the fact that it’s whetted my appetite for more info about our users. This study paints a small picture of what some of our users experienced, but what would happen if we ran this for longer? Switched out some questions? Got more responses? Something we may have to explore…

The original cards for the ASK activity (right) had beautiful large images on the front that people wanted as souvenirs. We redesigned them (left) to be a little less appealing, with smaller images and more text.

The Kahlo exhibition opened on February 8 and ran for thirteen weeks. In mid-April, we made an adjustment to one of our engagement activities: we changed the palm cards that were being distributed to promote our Kahlo-related tours of the Museum’s collections. The new ones had smaller images with instructions on the front, and we hoped that visitors would use them to take the tours rather than see them just as free postcards.

Did it make a difference?

Yes and no. Visitors did realize more quickly that we were offering a gallery activity through these cards. And they did pause longer to read the explanatory wall text in connection with the cards. However, their awareness of the themed app tours didn’t necessarily translate into increased participation. We were busiest during the first three weeks of the show (with 20 to 30 tour-takers per week), but for the rest of its run, we averaged about 10 tour-takers per week. Many visitors still seemed more interested in collecting multiple cards as souvenirs than in taking an app-guided tour beyond the exhibition.

The “no photography” policy within the exhibition meant that visitors were looking for another way to remember their favorite works in the show. (Photo: Jonathan Dorado)

This particular problem is hard to analyze. Based on comments visitors made to our Ambassadors at the card rack, we have a sense that visitors sometimes saw the cards as compensation for the photography ban within the show and often came back to claim them when the exhibition shop was sold out of Kahlo postcards and greeting cards, due to high demand. Visitors wanted a takeaway image, any image, and our ASK palm cards’ potential as souvenirs far outweighed the potential appeal of their engagement content.

In the meantime, we were offering a second Kahlo engagement option! This was a hunt for Kahlo quotations posted throughout the Museum. To plan this game, the ASK team consulted our curators’ list of verified Kahlo quotes and chose fifteen, some of them humorous and some more introspective. They also gathered interesting, relevant facts about Kahlo to share for each quote.

Kahlo said, “The marvelous Nefertiti, wife of Akhenaten, I imagine that besides having been extraordinarily beautiful, she must have been ‘a wild one’ and a most intelligent collaborator with her husband.”

These quotes were strategically placed on all five floors of the Museum, in public areas like elevators and in collection galleries where we juxtaposed them with works of art that had some kind of connection. For example, a quotation about painting flowers was placed near a panel of Ottoman tiles with a floral motif, and a short reflection on Nefertiti was placed near two depictions of the ancient Egyptian queen in our Amarna Period gallery.

Visitors learned about the quote hunt from our ASK Ambassadors or by encountering a quote with its instructions: “Text us snapshots of Kahlo quotes from around the Museum to win a special prize.” We asked visitors to locate 12 quotes, with the exception of Mondays and Tuesdays, when only the first floor of the Museum was open for the Kahlo exhibition. On those days, we asked visitors to find eight quotes on the first floor.

Some quotes were posted in public areas: in our cafe, in elevators, on glass exit doors.

Over the course of the exhibition, nearly 900 visitors started the quote tour and approximately 100 completed it. Many of them entered into the game with full enthusiasm, including selfies in front of the quotes they found and taking the opportunity to show off their own Kahlo t-shirts or tattoos. Every winner received a prize from our Shop, including mugs or colorful totes emblazoned with Kahlo’s likeness. Since the quotes were placed around the Museum rather than within the Kahlo exhibition itself, even visitors who didn’t have tickets to see Kahlo were able to participate.

Kahlo once said, “I have not regretted the things I have done.” While we might rethink our staging of the themed tour option for future exhibitions, we still think it’s a concept we should revisit, and we know that artist quotes (and games with prizes!) will continue to receive a positive response visitors.

We have more exhibitions to come soon, so I’ll be back in a couple of weeks to share some of our ASK engagement ideas for the summer!

Jacki modeled the chat search function after the snippet search, which allows for three ways to access the information.

The chat search function has three possible ways to search through chats. The (seemingly) easiest way is to search for a particular object via its accession number. However, not all chats have the objects tagged with its accession number. That is why being able to search words or phrases in the chats (the second option) is so useful. I might not be able to search the accession number, 83.84, and pull up all of the chats for it. However, I can search “East River View with Brooklyn Bridge” or “Yvonne Jacquette” to pull up more chats where individuals were asking about this particular work. There is a third option to search Chat by ID, which is useful if I need to reference a particular chat.

Jacki also created a function to filter out the search results. This has been especially useful as of late. A significant number of visitors recently have been using ASK for Frida Kahlo themed tours or quote hunts. If I want to look at an object that was incorporated in the Frida Kahlo activities I can just filter out the past few months in my results rather than manually combing through to remove can filter out the past few months of Frida Kahlo.

There is also the option to export desired chats from the results into a JSON file. The JSON file export is super useful because the file format lets allows me to read the full chat conversations and is a great record of what I have already analyzed. This is a huge step up from copy/pasting into Google docs and will likely have future benefits that the next Fellow or researcher can explore!

Searching by text via the chat search function was often the best way to find the ASK labels.The search text is even highlighted in the results making it even easier to do a quick scan for information.

Additionally, the ability to search words or phrases was also useful for searching the in-gallery ASK label text. The object 83.84, East River View with Brooklyn Bridge, has an in-gallery label that says: “How did the artist get this view? Download our app or text … to learn more from our experts.” I used the search to pull up any chats that contain the label text to see if visitors were using the language verbatim and then what else they were looking at. 

I used the various search features to start compiling a table organized by object, which looks at the following:

• Did the visitor use the label question
• Where in the trajectory of their visit (beginning, middle, end) did they ask about this object in particular
• Did they ask other questions about this object and how many
• Did they ask about other objects, if so how many and which objects
• Did they use specifically other in-gallery label questions, if so how many and which objects? (using the question provided in the prompt or a slight variation)
• Did they ask any question about objects that have ASK? labels, if so how many and which objects? (not using the labels prompts specifically rather asking in question in general about the object that does have the label)

This process took a lot longer than I anticipated for one object alone. Unfortunately there was no way to streamline gathering this information from each chat. The most time consuming aspect was having to look up accession numbers and/or titles of different works that visitors asked about which did not get tagged in the chat or the conversation did not explicitly include the title. This highlights an overarching issue with the chat data that not everything has been tagged consistently over time especially in regards to objects asked about.

With how long it took me just to go through one object/in-gallery label and time running out of my fellowship, I wouldn’t have time to go through as many objects and chats as I would have liked. I decided to focus on a few objects that have in-gallery label questions, in-gallery generic labels, and popular objects with no labels at all. The downside is, the more popular or asked about an object the longer they take to analyze, further limiting how many I can get through.

From my very brief overview of a few objects and roughly 200 chats only one visitor used the in-gallery labels more than once. This visitor used two question labels but also asked about two objects that did not have in-gallery labels.  Additionally, from what I did look at, visitors who did use the in-gallery labels most often used them as the first object that they asked about. My hypothesis is that visitors are using the in-gallery labels to get an introduction to the app and then proceed asking questions about objects that they were interested in. This is great news, since that was the original goal of these labels: to get people using the app. More chats and objects will definitely need to be looked at to confirm this, but the foundation for going through chat data has now been established.

Over the past year I have learned a lot not just about the ASK app and its users but also that big learnings can still come from small tools. I’m going to miss working with this challenging but incredibly interesting data and I wish the best of luck to next year’s Fellow!

To start, I needed to complete an audit of which objects currently have or have ever had ASK-related labels. This was more challenging than it seems, because over the years the record of which labels actually made it into the galleries was not always accurately kept up to date. I was able to look at what objects currently have ASK labels by easily walking through the museum and making note. For objects that are no longer up, there were two installments of labels that had been tagged in the dashboard (a first iteration of questions and a later iteration of generic labels).

The prompt for this ASK label reads: Curious about how turquoise was used in Tibetan medicine? Download our app to ask an expert.

The audit of existing labels was able to be a bit more elaborate. I was able to look at the text of the label and snippet counts as well as compare the label question with the questions that visitors actually asked. I would have also liked to look at the location of the labels (wall/case/pedestal etc.) to see how that influences behavior, but time constraints prevented me from pursuing this avenue of inquiry.

Through this comparison, I was able to gain a little insight into how the labels affect user behavior. Based on snippet counts, objects with ASK labels have on average 16.19 snippets while objects with no labels have, on average, 8.28 snippets. That means objects that have current ASK labels have a 2x higher engagement rate than objects without.

To take it a step further, I broke down snippet counts by objects that have ever had a label (according to the dashboard categories) and the type of label. Objects that have or had generic labels have an average of 14.15 snippets. Objects that have had or had question labels have an average of 19.90 snippets. Objects without any type of ASK label have an average of 5.96 snippets. This suggests that the question prompts are the most effective method to get users to engage with objects and the app.

I will add that there was one object that was not considered in these counts. The Dinner Party has over 400 snippets and is a project of analysis within itself. It is asked about so much more frequently than the other objects that it was skewing the averages and therefore temporarily removed it from the dataset.

Since I had every object asked about (over 2,000 different artworks) and their snippet counts at my disposal, I also wanted to get back to some of the less frequently asked about objects. I put together a spreadsheet of all the objects organized by their total snippets. From this I learned that objects with snippet counts above 50 snippets only make up 2% of all the asked about objects. Objects with snippet counts 20 and above make up 6% of total objects. The majority of objects have fewer than 20 questions asked about them.

What was it about the 2% of objects that made them so appealing and what makes visitors want to ask about less “popular” objects? Other than the ASK labels, I wanted to see if there was anything glaringly obvious about the popular or less popular objects. I looked at a selection of the 50 or higher snippet count objects individually and recorded various qualities about them. I did the same with a selection of objects with 2 snippets associated with them. Here’s what I found….

What makes people ask about objects?

• Is larger in size
• Has religious connotations
• On view for extended length
• Made by an extremely well-known artist (i.e. Rodin) or depicts a recognizable figure (i.e. Jesus)
• Is a mummy

Why might people ask fewer questions about objects?

• Smaller in size
• Are functional objects

There is still much to be answered about the second question. However, since 98% of objects have fewer than 50 snippets, there just isn’t enough time to look at each object’s qualities and questions to determine more. Plus, I wanted to dedicate some remaining time to the full visitor journey with the app, but I was still dealing with no way to search through chats.

Stay tuned for my final blog post as I detail how this was resolved and what more I learned.

Next came standardizing the themes so I could code them and compare them across collections.

This chart serves as basic data viz for themes across collections. Note that these themes are my interpretation from the questions visitors asked and could vary based on what another researcher codes the questions as.

Several universal themes across collections came out of this analysis. I personally find ‘damages/missing parts’ one of the most fascinating findings. If a work of art has something that appears to be missing from it, intentional or not, visitors will likely ask about it. Other themes across most of the different collection areas include:

• Creation techniques/materials
• Symbolism
• Purpose/function
• Curatorial decisions
• Significance/meaning

The coding system of themes, definitions, and collection areas. Note ECANEA stands for Egyptian, Classical and Ancient Near Eastern Art.

While this thematic breakdown does provide interesting insight into what visitors want to know, I still wanted to delve deeper into user behavior with the app, especially in regards to the complete trajectory of a visit. These themes are based on only a snippet of entire conversation. What could we learn if we looked at that entire conversation? Unfortunately, the dashboard won’t export entire conversations yet, so I had to pause this line of inquiry. But I picked up another thread and began to follow it. More on that next week!

We knew at the outset that we’d be working around one major restriction: photography is not permitted within this exhibition. We devised a pre-exhibition ASK activity (a trivia quiz) for David Bowie is last year, and this time we came up with a post-exhibition experience to prolong visitors’ post-Kahlo excitement.

With their usual flair and extensive knowledge of our collections, the ASK team collaborated on shaping four ASK-guided tours of the Museum. Each tour would direct the visitor to works that related to the main themes of Frida Kahlo, sharing interesting context and information at every “stop. The four tour themes would be Mexican identity, modernism, feminisms (works by women or works addressing themes of female identity), and “the art of the personal” (artist that draw upon autobiography in similar ways to Kahlo), and the visitor would pick their favorite card to get started. (We also assembled a tour limited to the Museum’s first floor, to offer on Mondays and Tuesdays when the rest of the building is closed.)

The four palm cards for our post-exhibition ASK experience offered a choice of four Kahlo images.

To create special materials for this exhibition activity, we selected four images of Kahlo from the exhibition checklist, and our Design colleagues crafted four palm cards to share with visitors. Each card featured a different image on the front, and the backs all included the same basic information (including our ASK texting number), in both English and Spanish.

Cards are prominently racked beside the exhibition exit, with instructional wall signage above.

Starting on the first day of the exhibition, the cards were displayed in a rack in the show’s exit space, near our “Frida selfie spot” and just below some ASK wall signage. An ASK Ambassador was stationed nearby to explain the activity, to assist with any technical issues, and to restock the cards when needed. We all agreed that the cards looked fantastic.

As it turned out, however, we’d created something a little too appealing. As visitors moved from the last gallery of the exhibition into the exit space, they spotted the cards from a distance and made a beeline for them. They were so focused on the cards, and on the goal of taking them as souvenirs, that they weren’t paying much attention to the accompanying wall signage or to the Ambassadors’ pitches. When the Ambassadors gently encouraged them to “choose your favorite card” (rather than multiples or all four designs), visitors wanted to know whether they could also buy the cards in our museum shop.

Redesigned palm cards feature smaller images and give more weight to promotional copy and instructions.

Back to the proverbial drawing board! I discussed a few options with our Design colleagues, and they came up with an alternative card design that presents a different overall appearance and foregrounds our engagement angle. The front of each card has a significantly smaller image with introductory text below it. The reverse of the card continues the instructions and offers the texting number.

Our Ambassadors found that visitors were more likely to read signage and listen to pitches after the cards were updated.

About a week ago, the Ambassadors began pitching with the new cards. Based on early feedback, there are still some pros and cons, but the cards’ purpose is now clearer. Visitors are quickly identifying them as “educational material” of some kind rather than apparent souvenirs. Gina, one of our Ambassadors, has noted, “Visitors aren’t approaching as aggressively with these new cards, which is great! They are instead reading a lot more as they approach—both the cards and the wall text. It seems like they are getting the idea that this is something to do rather than something to take.” She added, “The number of ‘Do you sell these in the gift shop’ inquiries have decreased a lot!”

Frida Kahlo: Appearances Can Be Deceiving runs through May 12, so we we’ll be tracking our engagement rates for the final month of the show. We’ll report back on the results of the card switch as well as overall success of the two ASK-related activities associated with the exhibition.

What does pre-download visitor behavior look like?

The notes from ASK ambassadors provided critical insight into behavior around the app, especially before downloading. Two main trends are especially worth noting:

Download locations occurs most often and most easily at start of visit. Ambassadors most often had success approaching people and creating desire to use the app earlier on in visit. Favorite spots include near the directory in the lobby (just past the admissions point) and first floor exhibitions and elevators.

Ambassadors help lower a barrier to entry. ASK Ambassadors frequently encountered visitors who struggled with how to use the app due to various technology issues (i,e. Location services, or bluetooth not being on). There were instances of individuals having the app downloaded, but were unable to get it to work due to some setting or password issue on their phone. An ongoing challenge with ASK is that visitors aren’t always sure what questions to ask (especially if there were no labels with suggestions), so ambassadors helped provide a starting point.

Ambassadors were crucial to solving these issues of uncertainty and highlight the importance of having staff on the floor who are well trained in whatever technology the museum is trying to promote.

Who are the users and non-users?

Based on ASK Ambassador notes, I was able to paint a small picture of a few user/non-user personas. In the chart below, personalities highlighted in red indicate those not likely to use the app, those highlighted in yellow indicate visitors who could be convinced to use the app, and green indicate those who are very enthusiastic about using the app.

The data from Sara’s Pratt class, who is currently conducting user surveys via the ASK app, will be able to refine this in the near future (more in a future post from Sara).

Where are people asking questions?

As mentioned in my previous post, locations proved a huge challenge to identify. To start, I had to manually create this table by filtering the total chats metric by location and entering it in.

As you can see, the top gallery locations are American Identities (now American Art), Egyptian, the Lobby, and European. On top of the fact that locations tracked by the dashboard do not account for visitors who use the text option, there are other glaring issues with taking this data at face value. The first is that from going through chats and the kinds of questions asked it became clear that areas without descriptive labels often were areas where visitors asked a lot of questions. Additionally, the overwhelmingly most asked-about artwork is The Dinner Party, which is located in the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art (EASCFA). Despite this, EASCFA is not one of the top gallery locations because The Dinner Party is tracked separately and is not included in the EASCFA data. Nuances like these can provide a more complete picture about app use and visitor interest, but are not reflected in this data. If the question is where is the app being used in the museum, this data can provide a general overview. However, if the questions is more about what are people asking about, this data does not offer any valuable insights.

What are people asking about?

Next I wanted to know what objects people were asking about and the kinds of questions they asked. The dashboard actually made the start of this easy since it offers some of that information. I was able to pull the most popular objects and popular snippets of all time as well as by year to see what kinds of variations there were. The problem with this was that there are a handful of objects that are so popular (such as The Dinner Party, or the Assyrian Reliefs)  that it thwarted my ability to learn anything new about user behavior. Through anecdotal information (having to answer the same questions about the same objects over four years) and the dashboard metrics, we already know the most asked about objects and most popular questions. However, over 2,000 objects have been asked about, and the dashboard only pulls the top 100 works. I start to wonder: what about the objects that don’t make that list?