Understanding Modern History Museum Smartphone Mobile Guides and Apps

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to better understand smartphone mobile guides and their use in US history museums. This study sought to answer three core questions. First, what features are shared by smartphone mobile guides in history museums? Second, what do history museum staff think are the factors associated with successful guides? Third, in what ways does the use of smartphone mobile guides in history museums impact exhibit development practices? Smartphone mobile guides were defined as phone-based applications that guided users on scripted tours. This study was significant for two reasons. First, previous studies of smartphone guides were not conducted in history museums. Second, the rapidly advancing capabilities of smartphones rendered many of those studies obsolete. Data collection was done through semi-structured interviews of history museum professionals who worked with smartphone guides as well as document analysis of the guides themselves. Zoom was used to conduct and record the interviews. The interview transcripts and mobile guides were analyzed using emergent coding. There were four significant results for history museums to understand when considering the use of smartphone mobile guides. First, smartphone mobile guides were defined by high usage rates and a focus on enhancing the visitor experience. Second, common features of smartphone mobile guides were: they were free of charge, allowed data to be gathered on users, designed for individual use, classified as heads-up experiences, included some form of navigation aid, and included an alternative tour. Third, smartphone mobile guides did not impact the development of exhibits. Fourth, history museum smartphone mobile guides were not viewed as a source of revenue. When combined these findings suggested that there was a baseline set of expectations successful mobile guides in US history museums followed. There were three limitations to this study. First, the sample size was small. Second, many of the mobile guides had inaccessible location-based features. Third, the sample was biased towards guides whose existence was acknowledged online through third party websites.