Source: Old Denmark Open Air Museum https://en.natmus.dk/museums-and-palaces/frilandsmuseet/
This blog is the second in a series about creating memorable experiences with location services. Read more about optimizing hotels experiences.
I live next to an open-air museum in Denmark and my family often visits when we have an hour or two free. We all love going there as it has a very nice atmosphere. There are many old houses and buildings to visit and you get a sense of visiting Denmark in times gone past.
I can’t help thinking what would happen if the museum implemented Aruba location services, Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacons, Meridian app and wayfinding to optimize the experience. Adding location services would make the museum both more interactive and creative and provide visitors with a mobile learning experience along with their visit.
I have immense respect for the job they do at my local open-air museum and we love going there. It’s not just about this particular museum, but an overall vision to have more interactive museum experiences and in the end making more people interested in visiting and learning about history, culture and science.
Creating a Better Museum Experience
I love going to museums and I’ve visited quite a few with my family and so far we’ve had museum experiences in Copenhagen, London, Madrid and Malaga. We always customize the experience for the kids and it can be somewhat challenging to find a way that makes kids look at paintings or other artifacts for a longer time (I mean four seconds instead of two!). But sometimes we hit the nail on the head and there’s a spark of curiosity that creates wonderful conversations. This spark could be provided by delivering a more personal experience customized for visitors.
With BLE beacons, you can get micro-locationing with high precision (up to three to five meters) and with Meridian apps you can enable endless creative possibilities and change the museum experience dynamically for visitors. Imagine what this could do to a museum experience. Museums could:
- Provide personal notifications on the user’s own devices filtered by age or interests (family or couple visits)
- Share information about the artifact the visitor is close to automatically as they move around the museum
- Indoor mapping helping visitors find the artifacts they’re looking for without getting lost or asking for directions
- Offer a new experience via a new route for returning visitors to the museum
- Update any information on exhibits easily and fast
Read about a real life Aruba implementation in a Texas history museum.
Interactive Impressions Worth Remembering
My all-time favorite museum experience was visiting Alcatraz in San Francisco and using the audio guide. It’s a visit I remember very clearly even though it’s been nearly 10 years since I was there. The sounds and the stories combined gave me a unique learning experience. I’m sure I remember details I would not have remembered, had it not been for the feeling I had walking and experiencing it all myself. With location services, it could have been an even more customized experience to have the sounds and stories in my ears precisely when I was around a specific area or prisoner cell.
Making history interactive is an art itself, but it is worthwhile and will increase visits and re-visits. If you’re interested in hearing more, I find this real-life example about Aruba technology at BOZAR, the Brussels Centre of Fine Arts, really interesting.
Read more about location services from Aruba.
Read my first blog in this series, Create Valuable Experiences with Indoor Mapping and Aruba Meridian.
