How might we design more resonant and educational visitor experiences?
Client: A Major Art Museum
Category:
Cultural Institution
Services:
Strategic Planning, Stakeholder Engagement, Facilitation, Retreat & Event Design
Context
Museums often face the challenge of designing experiences that resonate deeply with their visitors. Understanding visitor needs is crucial for creating meaningful engagement. This client had incredible content expertise, but their vision of visitor experience needed expansion.
The primary challenge was to shift traditional museum frameworks towards more visitor-centric approaches.
Approach
Designing Insights brought us on to co-create a Human Centered Design (HCD) immersive workshop series that moved staff from theory to practice.
We focused on increasing the museum staff’s capacity for problem-solving:
Mindsets: We encouraged the entire staff (from frontline workers to the executive director and everyone in between) to prioritize the visitor experience, focusing on empathy and customer service.
Behaviors: We facilitated cross-disciplinary teams that broke down departmental silos, requiring curators, educators, and ops staff to solve visitor-centered problems together.
Methods: We trained them in rapid ethnography and synthesis, giving them the tools to observe visitors and turn those observations into actionable insights.
Outcomes
The workshop concluded with each team presenting their concepts and post-workshop plans, showcasing their commitment to focusing on visitor engagement. The collaborative environment not only generated innovative ideas but also fostered networking and communication among museum staff.
Cultural Shift: Staff moved from “the visitor experience is not part of my job” to “visitor engagement is a priority for all of us”.
Practical Tools: The museum now has a shared language and practices for continuously improving the visitor experience.
Actionable Roadmap: Each team left with a post-workshop project to implement immediately.
