A new way of visiting a musem

A good experience of a museum not only depends on the visitor but also in the museum service. Normally, the way that the museum is organized influence the experience of the visitor. It influences their direction but also the way that the visitor perceive the artifacts.

The museum experience starts in the planning of the tour, with the focus in the information, activities and events that are happening, thus, if the visitor not have an easy access to this information, when he arrives at the museum he will feel lost and not enjoy the experience. I explored the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum Service with the objective to understand the experience of other visitors on the museum and analise how the museum work external and internally, to be able to improve the museum service.

After done some field research in the Kelvingrove museum, I considered helpful to created personas to represent the most common visitors of the museum.

The visitor’s journey describes the moments and the steps that each persona make when they visit the museum, in order to understand the common touch points in the different journeys as well as their common issues.

The most important and common issue is in the level of information. Not only the information given by the staff, but also the flyers that helps the visitor in their personal tours are wrong.

I also perceived that the local visitor journey is the one that is better resolved by the current service, but the one that gives the best experience to the user is the treasure hunt app user journey. Even so, it was possible to see that the service of the museum is very good and very complete, and most visitors are very happy with their experience.

The service blueprint is the easiest way to completely understand a service, and to find frictions points that are not visible but can make a big difference in the experience of the visitor.

The blueprint of the Kelvingrove Museum service describes the visitors experience in their visible interactions (the touch points and relationships) and shows the backstage process.

Above the visible line, the relationship between the visitor and the service museum is represented in each moment of the visit. It describes the relationship of each persona with the touch points, the staff of the museum and the customer interactions. This way, it is easier to identify frictions points and when and where they happen during the visit.

Below the visible line, the backstage process and the behind the scenes support is described for each moment of the visit. This makes it easier to understand what happens in the service that is not visible for the visitors.

The most common friction points is the moment when the visitor needs information about the museum. The only alternative to the website is to ask in the reception desk because the flyers or the papers don't offer this information. This is a big a problem for the tourist because it can be hard for him to speak in another language. The same happens with information about the artifacts.

The visitor who has more difficulties inside the museum is the tourist. That is probably why most of the times, the tourist opts for a guided tour. We can also see that most of the museum staff does not interact with the visitors unless they need help to find some information.

Although the service of the Kelvingrove Museum offers a museum service, the most common interaction with the visitors happens in the coffee shop, café shop and gift shops service. These are not properly connected with the experience by providing knowledge and culture.