{"id":6657,"date":"2019-10-23T17:22:41","date_gmt":"2019-10-23T21:22:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/studentwork.prattsi.org\/foundations\/?p=6657"},"modified":"2019-10-23T17:44:41","modified_gmt":"2019-10-23T21:44:41","slug":"observation-at-the-met-fifth-avenue-how-is-the-museum-tour-guide-in-including-different-kinds-of-visitors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/studentwork.prattsi.org\/foundations\/2019\/10\/23\/observation-at-the-met-fifth-avenue-how-is-the-museum-tour-guide-in-including-different-kinds-of-visitors\/","title":{"rendered":"Observation at The Met Fifth Avenue: How is the museum tour guide in including different kinds of visitors."},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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The Metropolitan Museum of Art is the largest\nart museum in US and the third most visited art museum in the world. The main\nbuilding in Manhattan\u2019s Upper East Side in one of the world\u2019s largest art galleries.\nAs was posted on January 4, 2019 that 1,659,647 visitors were attracted to The\nMet Fifth Avenue and The Met Cloisters from May 10, 2018 to October 8, 2018. Based\non the data from Wikipedia and MET official website, with such large number of\nvisitors from all over the world, I began to curious how the visit guide\nprovided by the museum service did well in considering different kinds of visitors.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to what I learnt from Design Justice,\nthe tour guide designed by MET should aim to ensure a more equitable\ndistribution of the benefits and in this case, the museum tour guide should also\nconsider non-English speakers, people with disabled, etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I went to The Met Fifth Avenue on 27th<\/sup>, Sep. to directly observe as a visitor and my goal was to see whether different kinds of visitors were guided friendly and effectively in visiting the museum. It was a cloudy afternoon with crowded visitors, and I waited for 10 minutes in line to get my ticket.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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1 Manual Guide<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
I saw several cicerones surrounded by a small\nnumber of visitors. I joined them for free. Some visitors followed by cicerones\ncarried backpacks and not seemed like locals. The good thing for getting a\nmanual guide is that you could directly ask questions and get answers, especially\nfor history or art fanatics who are always filled with questions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But this method is not that feasible for visitors who prefer to get through the museum quickly and are not fluently English speakers. Since you are guided by a certain route and listening to deep explanations of the exhibits really takes time. In this period, I found some of visitors would only follow a few minutes then left the group to visit by themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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2 Audio Guide Rent Onsite<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
These days the most commonly used tour guide in museum is audio guide. At the museum lobby visitors could easily find the words \u201cAudio Guide\u201d, and the return place was also obvious to find. During my observation period, I found no more than 50% visitors were using audio guide and I guess it was because the audio guide in MET was not free, or some were not first-time visitors or some just preferred to quickly visit the whole museum without deep explanations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yes. The audio guide provided by MET contains 10 different languages, which is especially considerable for foreign visitors. When I visited the museum, I found a lot of Asian visitors renting audio guide and listening to the guide frequently. It\u2019s much effective for them to get the explanations in their mother language.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
2.2 Whether considering visitors with disabilities.<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
During my observation period, I did not find disabled visitors. But I found some information on the MET website that the museum offered assistive listening devices and real-time captioning for visitors with hearing loss.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I found an old woman who seemed uneasy to input numbers into the audio guide to get the explanations. And some visitors seemed tired to hold the guide near their ears to listen all the time and they needed to find a place to sit or change to another hand to hold the guide. I think the interaction method between visitors and audio guides is not that friendly especially for aged visitors. Manually inputting numbers could waste time. Besides, the guide is not that easy and convenient while the MET is large, and most visitors would stay more than 2 hours. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I guess it\u2019s better to add automatic induction function to the audio guide and visitors don\u2019t need to input numbers themselves but only to answer yes or no to listen the guide. In addition, always holding the guide near ear to listen is not convenient. Why not provide earphones to aged visitors together with audio guide? Or support the visitors using their own earphones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
2.4 Whether considering visitors who prefer\nquickly visiting the whole museum.<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
I did find a visitor hanging the audio guide around her neck, but she didn\u2019t use it during the whole process. And some only listened a few seconds then gave it up. I guess the contents provided in audio guide were too long and they only wanted to get a concise version. They came to the museum to get something new but not preferred to get that deep understanding towards a single exhibit. In that case, perhaps better to provide different versions for visitors to choose from. For instance, a quick 1-minute explanation together with a detailed 5-minute version.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
3 The MET App<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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There is an App called The MET which also provides travel guides and even augmented reality function. The good thing is you could use it offline, while the bad thing is that you have to download it beforehand. How many visitors would take trouble to download an App to help them visit the museum? I guess better to develop a Web App for visitors who just want to visit temporarily. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
During my observation period, I only saw a young woman using her iPhone to get the audio guide. Generally speaking, not a large number of visitors choose to get a guide on App. I believed one of the problems was not enough contents on App, compared to the audio guide you rent onsite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Conclusion<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
In 2015, the MET did a thorough research on how to improve the audio guide and during the research they did find 40% visitors were foreigners and the importance of reducing the complexity of using audio guide. However, just like what Norman said, \u201cThe world is not neat and tidy and things not always work as planned.\u201d All the tour guides provided by MET are roughly satisfied but still have space to improve. Perhaps reconsidering different visitors\u2019 needs could help better the overall experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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