Apr 25, 2007
I've written several posts about my evolving appreciation for how people adopt to new technology. I've also written specifically about the need for communities to get involved in encouraging their citizens to adopt certain technologies like SMS.
Just the other day, a friend was brainstorming with me some ideas to incorporate interactivity and multimedia interfaces for museum goers.
Two technologies came to mind:
1. SMS
2. Bluetooth
How SMS would work:
As a museum visitor walks through the exhibits, the plaque describing each piece in the collection will have a little Google icon (or whichever search service is funding the project) and a unique number to send an SMS to. The visitor can send an SMS to the given number, with any question related to the piece they're looking at.
The unique SMS number will aide the search service to pull more accurate answers because the unique SMS number will indicate to the search service that the inquiry is related to a specific work of art. I envision this working similarly to Google's SMS service which I use all the time, and is generally accurate as long as I include enough information. Most of the time I use it to find stuff in NYC, and I'd love it if there was a unique number for NYC, so I didn't need to type "new york city" each time...
Using SMS promotes the use of an easy to use technology which every phone around the world has pre-installed. It promotes the use of an already adopted interactive technology. Accuracy can be high, and ease of use is already high. Furthermore, there is low overhead to a project like this. Lastly, users can have the answers saved on their phone, for future reference and discussion.
How Bluetooth would work:
When museum visitors enter the museum, there will be a sign (and it will also be on their ticket or receipt for admission) advising them to activate Bluetooth on their phone, and which device to pair it with.
Alternatively, since many people will visit the website of a museum before going, the museum can offer users to pre-set their device to pair with the museum's computers, so that when they arrive, their phone will automatically sync up with the museum's computers and receive pertinent information. There can also be a download right from the site (similar to the already popular downloads of audio-guides to the museum). In addition, if the museum offers ticket sales on their website, users can store their receipt in their phone, and when they arrive they can be validated via Bluetooth at the entrance.
As visitors walk around the museum, each exhibit area can push multimedia data to their phone about the exhibit they've just walked in to, and each piece on exhibit will be feeding information about that specific piece. All of this can include links to the web, for web-enabled phones for further exploration once the visitors leave the museum.
Just some thoughts off the top of my head. Hopefully someone will do something like this soon. I'd use it ;-)
P.S. In the near future, I'll be posting ideas like these to Ideageneration.org - a blog I'm setting up with the specific purpose of posting solutions for various organizations that I simply want to see happen, rather than quit my job to create.
Labels: interaction, interactivity, Mobile, Phones, Technology
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