Glasgow Museum. Source: Glasgowlife.
Nina Simon, What Does Audience-Centred Look Like? It Looks like Glasgow Museum, Museum 2.0, 20 July 2016
When we say we want our museum to be “audience-centered,” what do we mean?
Over the past decade, I’ve seen two distinct versions of this term:
- the user-centered museum, in which visitors are active participants, invited to contribute to and co-create the experience
- the customer-centered museum, in which visitors are valued guests, invited to enjoy personalized experiences that cater to their specific needs and interests
It will be no surprise to hear that I fundamentally align with the user-centered model. However, I have enormous respect for the customer-centered model when it is executed in ways that truly invite visitors in on their own terms and deliver satisfying experiences. My career first got moving at a brilliant example of the customer-centered museum: the International Spy Museum. Many of my favorite museums, libraries, and zoos are customer-centered places. They care about visitor comfort. They deliver learning experiences at many levels, engaging many senses. They are responsive to visitors’ needs and interests, and they are willing to tailor their offerings to better satisfy those visitors.
To be clear: I’m not a fan of all aspects of customer-centered museums. At their worst, instead of human-centered, they become commerce-centered institutions, overly focused on the shop, the restaurant, the spectacle, and the highest ticket price the market can bear. But at their best, they focus on the humans walking in the door, providing them with value on their own terms. One hundred years ago, John Cotton Dana, founder of the Newark Museum and godfather of modern museums, famously said: “A great department store, easily reached, open at all hours, is more like a good museum of art than any of the museums we have yet established.” I believe that Dana’s department store museum is best exemplified in the customer-centered museum. The customer may not always be right, but she deserves to have an experience that brings her comfort, satisfaction, and joy.
