Case Study 17: Handheld Guide Survey and the AANM

by Devon Akmon (Deputy Director at the Arab American National Museum in Dearborn, Michigan)

Learning Times recently published the findings of its Handheld Guide Survey for museums. The goal of the survey was to gain “a better collective understanding of the museum community’s use and ambitions with handheld guides and mobile interpretation.” Our museum was among the many institutions that took part in the survey. For the sake of clarity, the term “handheld” refers to the following in this survey: all types of digital, mobile interpretation tools including audio tours, PDA/multimedia tours, MP3 download tours, iPod Touch tours/applications, interactive tours, and cell phone tours.

Not surprisingly, the three main reasons museums utilize handheld devices are to provide supplementary information to visitors, to create a more interactive experience and to provide multiple voices into the visitor experience. I would say that these all hold true for our institution. Additionally, the fifth-ranked objective – to provide a foreign language provision – definitely ranks in the top two for us. On the other hand, the majority of challenges facing other institutions haven’t been much of a problem for our museum. Updating content is definitely a requirement, but we don’t necessarily perceive it as a challenge.

Currently, our museum is hosting a cell phone-based audio tour for our guests. We launched this service in the Fall 2008. At the time there was only one other local museum utilizing a similar tour, and they had employed the service for a temporary exhibit. I have recently noticed several other large museums in our area are now using similar platforms. I’m curious to learn more about their success and failures (sounds like a good session for next year’s Michigan Museums Association conference!).

When we first began exploring cell phone-based audio tours in 2005, there were only two providers offering this service and very few museums nationwide hosting such tours. We initially planned on hosting a more traditional handheld experience, but we weren’t too keen on the costs of developing and hosting the tour. Further, we found that with some providers there were gray areas on who owned the copyright/intellectual property rights of the tour. Not good. In the end we chose to host our service through Guide By Cell, which is based in San Francisco. We met early on with founder Dave Asheim and really enjoyed his laid back approach to the service. He offered to let us try the service out and, if we liked it, we could sign up at a very affordable rate. If you’re interested in learning more on some of our early thinking on the project, see the second presentation below.

Our audio tour is delivered in two languages, English and Arabic (each has its own phone number), and it is made available through both cellular service and museum issued iPods. We piloted the first phase of the tour last year and it focused on the first “permanent” exhibition space, as well as a temporary exhibit in one of the rotating galleries. At this time we are finalizing the second phase of the tour’s development, which will feature ten stops in the Coming To America gallery. While usage of the tour has been decent, we get limited feedback through the integrated feedback system on the phone service. This has been a bit of a bummer. We are certainly looking for other avenues to break down the walls between the museum and its guests.

Unlike some of our peer institutions, our tour rarely features museum staff on the audio tour recordings. Because we are a community-based museum, we incorporate community members into the tour. Some recordings are scripted by the staff, others are spoken from the heart by those featured on the recording. We feel this adds to the user experience, considering most of our exhibits utilize the personal narrative as a means of convening information. I presume we will begin the third phase of the tour in early 2010 (we have the tour planned out over four major phases, with minor ones throughout the process).

In addition, we are always exploring new ways of delivering and exchanging information with our guests. Some projects that are currently in the incubator include iPhone apps, online mash-ups that include audio and potentially video (say yeah to the API!), and hopefully a mobile website for the museum. Further, we are tossing around ideas for GPS and location-aware applications for the phone. Most recently we launched a museum site on Apple’s iTunes U, which has gotten off to a great start. In addition to providing museum content 24/7, visitors can download audio tours, interviews, etc. straight to their mobile phone. We will continue to develop this promising tool as well.

Source: http://www.devonakmon.com/