Meeting Visitors Where They Are

    Imagine a history museum exhibition on the five fundamental freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution: religion, speech, press, assembly, and petition.  As visitors enter the exhibition, they walk through one of five gates, selecting the one freedom that is most important to them--the one they would protect above all others. They are handed a colored wristband with a single word identifying the selection ("religion," "speech," etc.) written on it. The wristbands activate different content throughout the exhibition. There are some interactives that request visitors find a partner with a different wristband to complete a given task, and others that encourage groups of like-minded visitors to gather and discuss the reasons they each chose "assembly" as the most important freedom. This theoretical exhibition takes the "Facing Mars" example to the next level by encouraging people not only to make a discrete selection at entry but to use that selection as the basis for a personalized, and potentially social, experience of the content.

    In this hypothetical case as in the Facing Mars exhibition, the visitor profile is constrained to just one word, one affinity. It is immediate to each visit experience and on subsequent visits, people may choose other freedoms with which to self-identify. The act of self-identifying by selecting a single freedom is a powerful learning experience--visitors are forced to reflect on their values, grapple with the options, and make a personal determination of preference. And then that determination becomes a gateway to specific experiences that reinforce the personalized framing of all of the exhibition's content.

    This imagined history exhibition is an example of the power that self-identification can have in driving custom content to museum visitors. It's not just about giving people the opportunity to go on tours of the things that are most appealing to them. It's about acknowledging individuals' starting points and then tailoring their experience based on their identity needs. The entry point is not a physical doorway. It isn’t an organizing label directed generically at all-comers. It is the beginning of a personalized experience.

    The traditional museum starting points—the admissions desk, the map, the docent tour—are not personalized. The ticket transaction occasionally confers information about particular offerings of the day, but not necessarily offerings of interest to the visitors at hand. The map features abstractions and content aggregations that reflect institutional organization, not visitor interests or needs. Even staff interactions, such as docent tours, present content in an often impersonal (or worse, self-absorbed) manner. While some docents are excellent at adapting their tours responsively to their audiences, this can be a challenge.  Visitors come in the door knowing who they are, but they may not know what content is of greatest interest to them. Well-meaning docents may ask, "what would you like to see?" and receive blank stares in response. Try this enough times and guides may conclude that they should just lead the tour their way and give visitors the experience they perceive to be of high quality. (This is a significant point. Docents are a significant human contact with the visitor. Training of docents in an interactive style would go far to transforming many an institution I have visited nationally and internationally. It does not take a grand new project to start working more interactively with modifications to front desk people protocols, docent protocols, security people protocols.SB)

    This inattention to visitors’ unique needs inordinately affects people who are unfamiliar with museums, visitors who are still learning to decode what a museum experience is all about. To these novice visitors, the map and tour are not obvious starting points full of useful information from which they can dig deeper. These supposed entry techniques introduce another layer of abstraction and ritual to the museum experience that may be confusing or off-putting. They are like idiosyncratic Dewey Decimal systems, intelligible only to the initiated. How can a visitor learn to "make her own meaning" from a museum experience if she cannot make meaning from the map?

    Most museums aggregate their content either by category (Impressionism, Dinosaurs, World War II) or by abstraction (3rd Floor, Green Wing) and  maps reference these aggregate names. This makes sense, if visitors understand what those aggregate names mean, and if visitors are primarily interested in the content available as opposed to the experience available.

    But in most cases, neither is true. When the aggregate names are abstract, it’s hard to know what to expect. What kind of experience waits in the Blue Wing, or worse, the Sloane Gallery? Even when the aggregate names are clear, i.e. “Optics”, the experiences available in that section of the museum are not. John Falk’s research on visitor identity needs suggests that people come to cultural institutions to fulfill particular goals that are more related to self-concept and desired experiences than to specific content interests. A visitor may want a contemplative experience or an active one, a quick fix or a lengthy rumination. Others might be looking to accommodate the needs of their children or friends. In most museums, visitors have to divine potential experiences from the map and program titles. There are some rare labels that are strong signalers: I feel reasonably confident that Bubbles will give me an opportunity to play with bubbles. But what about Chemistry? Will I do experiments? Will I see explosions? Will I learn about the history of the discipline?

    Theme parks address this issue well. Like museums, they have aggregated areas with abstract titles (e.g. Tomorrowland) and within those, rides with only slightly more descriptive names (Space Mountain). But on the maps, alongside the names of the rides, there is shorthand information—what kind of ride it is and what ages it’s appropriate for. Many theme park maps also feature pop-outs with lists of “must-dos” for visitors of different type—teenagers, people who only have 3 hours, etc. These recommendations are not only based on what visitors might like (rollercoasters vs. swings) but also on their particular constraints and situations. And they always include information about where to get a snack or relax between high-impact activities. Theme parks are serious about helping visitors figure out what experiences will be most appropriate for them in all ways. (Museum maps are another opportunity for high interactivity impact with much less investment or fanfare. It is simple, and yet it is a major shift to be visitor-oriented. SB)

    Why don’t museums operate this way? Because unlike theme parks, which are focused on the visitor, museums are focused on their own idiosyncratic, rarely transparent strategies for content organization. Rather than addressing the question “What do visitors want to see/do?,” cultural institutions speak their own insider language. Even in cases where visitors are invited to create their own maps, they are required to do so based on the museum's collection rather than preferred experiences. Museums expect visitors to take responsibility for their own experiences, performing any necessary translation on their own.

    This isn't the only way to go. Consider the example of the I Like Museums community marketing campaign, which took an experience-first approach. I Like Museums is an online directory of eighty-two museums in North East England that encourages visitors to explore "museum trails"—short lists of related museums—that are based on experience interests, not institutional content. Yes, there are content trails, like "I like military history."  But there are also trails like "i like... keeping the kids happy," for those facilitating family outings, or “i like… a nice cuppa,” for people who are ready for a break. The basic premise behind I Like Museums is: whatever experience you might be seeking, there are North East museums that can provide it.

    Think about how different this approach is from the typical regional directory, and how powerful. No more scanning the list of museums trying to figure out whether Lady Waterford Hall or the Centre for Life or any number of enigmatic attractions might accommodate your unique interests. No more hunting through institutional websites to see if they have a shop or are open late or allow kids to run around. The initial I Like Museum trails were developed by staff and community members, and new ones are submitted on a continuous basis by visitors to the site. One of the most popular user-submitted trails is the irreverent "i like things to do with a hangover", which offers art adventures to take your mind off the pain, religious memorials for divine intervention, and seaside castles for "big blast of fresh air!"

    These museum trails are more accessible and relevant to regular people than ones that are collections-based, because you can start with who YOU are, not what the institution offers. You can find a place to play, a place to be inspired, a place to shop. These are all personalized entrypoints to museum experiences. And by displaying them all together on one wayfinding site, I Like Museums encourages people to think of museums as multi-use venues, good for different people on different days in different ways. The website subtly gives you more and more reasons to visit a museum beyond viewing its collection.

    Some people might suggest that museum experiences are not as opaque as I am making them out to be. Others might argue that by obsessing over visitors’ identity needs, museums will lose their mystery as a place apart, a cabinet of curiosity in which unexpected discoveries can be made. Many museum professionals opine that the best museum experiences are the surprises that you stumble upon around a dusty corner. But this is a semi-religious argument, one that derives from the highly privileged position of already feeling comfortable in the museum and ready to see it as a place of discovery. Not all people feel that way. If you've grown up thinking of museums as boring places you are forced to visit with classes or with grandma, you may feel not feel like the museum is "for" you in any way. These kinds of visitors need a way in that is clearly relevant and valuable to their own lives, and the easiest way to deliver that is via personalized entry points that speak to people’s known and articulatable experience needs. I may not know what a Monet is, but I may know that I want a peaceful, inspiring experience. I may not know what nanotechnology is, but I may know that I'm at the museum to learn something new.

    In many ways, it’s not that dissimilar from experiences in religious facilities. For those who are steeped in the tradition and who derive great emotional, spiritual, social, and or intellectual value from religious pursuits, it can be hard to see the value of “dumbing down” religious venues with outreach activities like coffee shops or singles events. But for newcomers, religious facilities and their associated rituals can be bewildering, off-putting, or even threatening. Only by gradually connecting to the experiences offered via entry points that are familiar and well-understood can individuals decide whether a particular church or group is right for them.

    All of this means that we need better ways for people to query the museum content based on their own knowledge and starting points. This doesn’t have to mean throwing out professional ways to organize and present materials. Consider the library. Library content is organized via a highly idiosyncratic and archaic code system, but there are many entrypoints to finding the content you need. You can search by topic, by author, by media type, and increasingly you can search by folksonomies that include user-generated content about what materials are related to each other. Eventually, even new library users find the book they want, check it out and go home. Over time, patrons start to think of the library as a place that delivers content of specific value to them at their level, their needs, their experience. Once a person is comfortable enough with the library as an information source, he starts browsing more confidently and may become a power user. He becomes open to a more random and revelatory experience.

    Some people were taught the Dewey Decimal system in school. Some lucky people spend lots of time in libraries as children, pulling books off the shelves and lolling around on the carpet reading them. That's how I grew up. But I know I am very unusual in this way. The same is true for people who grew up getting lost in museums or those who went to arts performances as children or those who spent time in religious environments; their comfort in these idiosyncratic institutions is based on years of familiar and positive experiences. But many people didn’t grow up this way and value a starting point--for any new cultural experience--that is focused and highly relevant to their needs. (Overcoming the coefficient of starting friction is worth an entire section. Much of what you have written relates to those who have entered the museum. But there are many more who have never been there. How do you actually move past the initial resistance to create that point of access? SB)

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