An Indoor wayfinding app for museums enriches visitor experience as it adds value to facility management in multiple ways. A memorable museum experience is heavily dependent upon the amount of time visitors spend in the facility and the quality of their engagement with the displayed memorabilia within the museum environment.
Such apps work as a tour guide as it supports indoor navigation for museums while providing relevant information on the various exhibits. Likewise, this wayfinding & navigation app helps visitors personalize wayfinding while they chart their time and explore museums like never before.
Beacons: The Technology Behind The Wayfinding App
Beacons located strategically at every exhibit and various points of interest can support this system. Visitors can locate themselves on a real-time basis using the navigation app on their Smartphones, while the museum curators identify the user engagement at the facility.
Apple has launched iBeacon technology which transforms the visitor experience at museums by giving them both visual and aural updates while navigating the facility. This transformative experience is expected to increase visitor footfall at museums by over two times. As Smartphone usage is gaining larger acceptance it is only a matter of time before they are used to guide visitors along their journey inside the venue.
Enhancing Visitor Experience Via Indoor Navigation System
Indoor Navigation
Navigation in the museum becomes interactive and informative with the help of navigation apps. The beacon technology creates an interface on the mobile phone where users can effortlessly pick and choose the exhibits they want to visit – this aids in creating a well-planned route as it is impossible to cover all exhibits in one tour.
An Indoor Navigation App:
- Enhances visitor experience through real-time routing
- Acts as a smart tour guide displaying relevant info about exhibits
- Is a personalized and user-friendly navigation map
- Works as an interactive map which exhibits catalog and events
Targeted Push Notifications
These apps send push notifications to reach out to the visitors within the museums. This helps the user to take appropriate actions based on where they are located within the venue. Through push notifications, interactive content such as quizzes, mini-games, etc. can be sent to users to retain engagement.
- Adding content related to the museums, its exhibits, services, and events
- Safety tips and alerts can be sent on a real-time basis
- Doubles-up as a marketing and sales platform
Visitors’ Location-Based Analytics
Indoor navigation system helps in location-based analytics to understand user behavior and interests. It includes the average time spent, most visited places and levels of visitor concentration at particular exhibits, etc.
- Sending location-based offers and routes to the visitors
- Monitoring the flow of visitors through heat maps
- Understanding the visitors’ behavior and analysis of successful event and exhibitions
- Improving the security level in the museums
- Evaluating the effectiveness of the advertising campaigns
Social Interaction
A museum wayfinding app helps the museum to communicate with the visitors, informing them about the future exhibitions, special events, invitations and deal offers. These social interaction elements can also understand visitor behavior to take strategic management decisions.
- Helps in communication in-between the museum staff and the visitors
- Helps in collecting feedback from the visitors about the facility and exhibits
- Visitors assistance within the museum
- Safety & security messages to the visitors
Also, read our blog Indoor Navigation for Enhancing Visitor Experience in Museums? A Reality in the Making
Benefits of Indoor Navigation App For Both the Management and Visitors
Benefits for museum management:
- It provides data like the number of visitors, their interests, the hours spent, etc.
- Understand the user behavior within the museum
- Management can send messages to the visitors
- Track the entire area and its safety
Benefits for visitors:
- Indoor navigation apps guide the visitors within the museums
- Helps in creating awareness about each location
- Instant access to change their desired destination
- Save time to explore more
- Access events calendar and participate in deals, offers, etc.