museumsandtheweb.com - visitor studies

Exploring the Relationship Between Visitor Motivation and Engagement in Online Museum Audiences

rjstein — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 19:28:18 +0000

MW2012

Published Paper:

Exploring the Relationship between Visitor Motivation and Engagement in Online Museum Audiences

Keywords:

audience engagement

Keywords:

audience research

Keywords:

visitor studies

Keywords:

online evaluation

Keywords:

Motivation

Keywords:

online surveys

Abstract:

In the past few years, most museums have witnessed a growing number of visitors to their websites. For the Indianapolis Museum of Art (IMA), those online visits easily surpass the number of visitors to the museum’s physical campus. Despite this success, however, very little is known about this audience: who they are, how they engage with the site, and what experiences they might take away from their visit.

Information about online users is available to museums via powerful and easy-to-use web statistics tools like Google Analytics. Recent work by Finnis, Chan, and Clements (2011) describes a set of best-practices and analytical approaches for evaluating online success. However, many of these techniques tend to focus on the technical details of visits to a website, and – used in isolation – do not provide a deep understanding of more abstract information about user needs, motivations, and satisfaction. Without this information it can be difficult for museums to effectively design, promote, and evaluate on-line content and services.

User segmentation has been the basis of marketing practice for more than 50 years, but has also been one of the most popular techniques for understanding website users, attempting to provide a predictable model of visitor behavior. While more complex analyses that correlates psychographic segmentation - particularly motivation - with actual behavior, are common practice in the visitor studies field, similar methods have not been extensively applied for online audiences. Prior work by Haley-Goldman and Schaller (2004) at the Institute for learning Innovation and by Peacock and Brownbill (2007) at the Museum Victoria Australia have discussed methods for addressing this kind of audience segmentation. Following up on the work done by these researchers, the IMA is conducting a series of online studies to identify which psychographic variables including motivation have an impact on the way visitors engage with the museum’s website and the definition of segments that can be used as a reference in the evaluation and the development of content and services.

In this paper, the authors will describe the reasons for undertaking such research, the method used for analysis, and the preliminary results of the study. Authors will discuss how these results might provide a reference dataset, and a replicable model for other museums that are interested in better understanding their online audience and in conducting similar studies for their own web efforts.

Haley Goldman, K. and Schaller, D. Exploring Motivational Factors and Visitor Satisfaction in On-Line Museum Visits, in J. Trant and D. Bearman (eds.). Museums and the Web 2004: Proceedings, Toronto: Archives & Museum Informatics, published March, 2004 Consulted September 27, 2011.
http://www.archimuse.com/mw2004/papers/haleyGoldman/haleyGoldman.html

Peacock, D. and J. Brownbill, Audiences, Visitors, Users: Reconceptualising Users Of Museum On-line Content and Services, in J. Trant and D. Bearman (eds.). Museums and the Web 2007: Proceedings, Toronto: Archives & Museum Informatics, published March 1, 2007 Consulted September 27, 2011. http://www.archimuse.com/mw2007/papers/peacock/peacock.html

Finnis, Jane, Sebastian Chan, and Rachel Clements. "Let's Get Real: How to Evaluate Online Success?" WeAreCulture24 | Action Research. Culture24, 19 Sept. 2011. Web. 28 Sept. 2011. http://weareculture24.org.uk/projects/action-resea...

Type:

Paper - in formal session

Optimizing engagement

Authors:

Silvia Filippini Fantoni

Robert Stein

Evaluating the Practical Applications of Eye Tracking in Museums

rjstein — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 19:21:54 +0000

MW2012

Published Paper:

Evaluating the Practical Applications of Eye Tracking in Museums

Keywords:

eye tracking

Keywords:

gaze tracking

Keywords:

visitor studies

Keywords:

interpretation

Keywords:

interactives

Keywords:

Evaluation and Research

Abstract:

Museum professionals spend a significant amount of time studying the ways that visitors engage with objects in their collections to improve the quality of interaction with them. Focus groups at the Indianapolis Museum of Art and elsewhere indicate that visitors see art museums as places for “inspiration” and “contemplation;” however, visitors are observed to spend very little time actually looking at art. Obtaining a more concrete understanding of what aspects of a visit are found to be inspiring, and how museums can actively promote and encourage those experiences remain some of the field’s biggest challenges. In thinking creatively as to how to address these problems, the authors began to explore whether recent advances in eye tracking technology might hold some answers.

Techniques for measuring gaze have been an important part of cognitive psychology since the early 1960’s. Environmental scans by Rayner (1998) summarize the scope and evolution of research linking eye tracking and cognition. Agreement in the research suggests that gaze and attention are tightly coupled (Hoffman 98) implying a direct relationship between the way we look at museum objects and our thinking about them. Research by Wooding (2002) examines the use of eye tracking systems and art from the collection of the National Gallery in London. While the data seems promising, Wooding’s work focused more on a generalized method for visualizing eye tracking data and not on specific applications of these techniques for art history or museology. Milekic (2010) published an overview of gaze tracking and its potential applications for museums, highlighting the coming advent of cheap and commercially available equipment to support the use of these tools in a museum setting.

Funded by an IMLS Sparks! Ignition grant, the Indianapolis Museum of Art is exploring whether or not eye tracking technology can be useful to museums seeking to better understand how in-gallery visitors actually “see” the objects in our collection. Through a set of three experiments, the project seeks to understand whether eye tracking can be used to measure visitor attention to artworks, understand the correlation between guided interpretation and visitor comprehension, and to trigger interpretive content delivery. In this paper, authors will review the relevant literature in the field that connects gaze detection and cognition; explain in detail the experimental methodology used to determine the practicality of adopting these techniques in museums; and report in initial conditions and factors discovered during the project’s initial research.

Rayner, K. (1998). Eye movements in reading and information processing: 20 years of research. Psychological Bulletin.

Hoffman, J. E. (1998). Visual attention and eye movements. In H. Pashler (ed.), Attention (pp. 119–154). Hove, UK: Psychology Press

Wooding, D. (2002). Fixation maps: quantifying eye-movement traces. In Proceedings of the 2002 symposium on Eye tracking research & applications (ETRA '02). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 31-36.

Milekic, S., Gaze-Tracking and Museums: Current Research and Implications. In J. Trant and D. Bearman (eds). Museums and the Web 2010: Proceedings. Toronto: Archives & Museum Informatics. Published March 31, 2010. Consulted September 28, 2011. http://www.archimuse.com/mw2010/papers/milekic/mil...

Type:

Paper - in formal session

Tools for tapping into visitor behavior

Authors:

Robert Stein

Ed Bachta

Silvia Filippini Fantoni

Tiffany Leason

Guided Expectations: A Case Study of a Sound Collage Audio Guide

norditte — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 16:23:47 +0000

MW2011

Ditte Laursen, University of Southern Denmark, Denmark

Abstract

This paper is a user evaluation of a mobile phone audio guide developed for visitors to use at the National Gallery of Denmark. The audio guide is offered as a downloadable MP3 file to every incoming visitor who is carrying a mobile phone with an open Bluetooth connection. The guide itself is structured through association, offering an experience more comparable to an audio documentary than a traditional guided tour. Instead of directing visitors' focus of attention to selected points and objects provided by the museum as a producer, the sound collage relates indirectly to the various objects of the exhibition, emphasizing visitors' agency and authorship.

The paper reports on a number of strategies developed by visitors when experiencing an unfamiliar guide structure. These strategies reflect both a conflict between the initial expectation of guided instruction and the freedom of making choices according to personal interest, and a conflict between the expectation of a learning experience rather than an aesthetic experience. Results indicate that most visitors are able to make sense of the guide and to use it successfully, in different ways, to enrich their visit. Evaluation also shows that visitors are fond of using their own mobile phones - but they have several problems with their phones in downloading the MP3 file.

Keywords: mobile phone, audio tour, downloadable MP3 tours, sound collage, visitor studies, user expectations

Mobile Phones and Visitor Tracking

JulianBickersteth — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 23:34:39 +0000

MW2011

Published Paper:

Mobile Phones and Visitor Tracking

Keywords:

google analytics

Keywords:

museum

Keywords:

visitor

Keywords:

mobile tracking

Keywords:

visitor studies

Abstract:

Google Analytics provides museums with extensive data around visits to their virtual sites. Physical visits and the way in which visitors track around museums is currently much harder to monitor. This paper discusses the opportunity that mobile phone WiFi, Bluetooth and TMSI signals provide to allow visitor tracking. The resulting data has potentially great value to museums in understanding how exhibitions and museums spaces are used, in forming exhibition design, assessing the return on investment of interactives and even profiling visitors. Two pilot studies using comparative technologies will also be discussed.

Type:

Paper - in formal session

Mobile Parade

Authors:

Julian Bickersteth

Christopher Ainsley

Educators, Curators and Docents: Creating Interpretive Resources based on Conversation

biblio — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 22:10:46 +0000

Olsen, C., Harris B., & Zucker S. (2010). Educators, Curators and Docents: Creating Interpretive Resources based on Conversation. (Trant, Jennifer, David Bearman, Ed.).Museums and the Web.