Introduction
by Riley Trist, December 2022
As technology becomes increasingly embedded in people’s everyday lives, museums are experimenting more and more with the ways that tech can enhance the museum experience. Some museums have created their own apps that can direct you around the physical space while feeding you information on your phone. Others have guides available on the Bloomberg Connects app which is a free platform that hosts many museum guides. Many museums scrambled to create more digital elements during the pandemic but many of those elements have been disappearing as in person visitors return. Websites and apps, however, remain relevant. The problem is:
How does the museum make visitors aware they exist?
The Metropolitan Museum of Art doesn’t utilize its own app, it prompts in-person visitors to scan QR codes that take them to their website where they can access audio guides, maps, and additional content about certain exhibitions. Recently the Met also can be found on the Bloomberg Connects app – however the in-person experience at the museum does not refer to it. The Met has also experimented with other integrated digital experiences; for example, their Chroma exhibit in the Greek and Roman Art wing currently utilizes AR to allow visitors to experience parts of the exhibit through their phone. A QR code is scanned and the visitor is directed to a website that makes one of the statues appear in front of them. They can then manipulate the statue to appear as it would have at different periods in the aging process, all the while prompting the viewer with different facts about the statue.
This section of the project will be evaluating how the Met’s digital content is integrated into the physical museum space, how it impacts the visitor experience, how it increases accessibility (maps, transcripts), and whether the design of the exhibition space encourages the use of said digital content (does it mention digital components, QR codes, etc.)