What does success look like for museum QR code usage?

Image from IWM Family in Wartime Gallery

We all know that developing ways to define, evaluate and ultimately measure the success of digital activities is an issue faced by all parts of the cultural sector.  It’s a difficult task, particularly as definitions are still fluid, and what is measured is ultimately down to the requirements of funding rather than visitor engagement.

So as part of the Social Interpretation Project we have done a lot of thinking about how to evaluate success on all three digital outputs.  For online success we have taken a lot of ques from Culture 24 lets Get Real Report.

But for Digital interactives on the gallery floor and QR codes we’ve had to be a bit more inventive. By inventive, I mean ask other people what they have done.

We’re going to try and tackle QR code success criteria first.  This is where the twitters came in.  I asked

“ Does anyone have any benchmarks for success on QR code usage that they would be willing to share with us for #socialInterp?”

And I had a great response.

First up looking at some of the scan rates of QR code use in museums.

QRpedia use at Fundació Miró

Here QR codes were placed alongside 18 of the most prominent artworks of the exhibition. These codes linked to Wikipedia articles. The sample is from October 1, 2011 – March 30, 2012 (data taken from here)

The scan rate is pretty impressive!

Next is

QRpedia use at The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis

The Children’s Museum has four QR codes against four specific labels. Again the codes linked to Wikipedia articles. The sample data is from June – November 2011. (data taken from here)

These QRpedia examples, with really impressive scan numbers give QR code use in Museums hope.  However when not linked with Wikipedia, QR code usage leaves a lot to be desired.

Brooklyn Museum have done various trails with QR codes, and admitted to multiple fails, including a five fold drops in traffic.

So should we all be linking QR codes to Wikimedia?  Shelley asks “Could Wikipedia get visitors over QR code hump of technical hurdles and poor user experience?” 

But then comes another benchmark case study

QR code implementation in the Love Lace Exhibition, Powerhouse Museum

Data below is from a 4 weeks period. (data taken from here)

What’s nice here is that the Powerhouse built a bespoke app, with a QR code scanner built in, just as we are doing with IWM.  So it was really interesting to see the number of app downloads.

When it comes to actual scans – has had 844 scans including 45 failed scans and 17 non-exhibition codes. Despite many objects not being scanned at all, 844 scans in a 4 week period is massive!

During the course of the Social Interp project we’ve had a few mental fisty cuffs about the use of QR codes.  In an post on the Social Interp Blog  I asked several questions: Are the useful? Are they just a transient technology? Are they even a technology? How do they help visitor experience? Where do they lead the visitor once they have scanned it? And ultimately who actually scans QR codes? Is it just us?

We haven’t really reached any conclusion on this, but in reality whether you love them or hate them (yes QR codes are the marmite of the digital tech museum world) the fact remains that QR codes are an incredibly cheap, easy and compelling way to provide information, get visitors interacting, and illicit responses from them.

Now I have a couple more questions to add to the QR conundrum list:

• Should all QR code content take the QRpedia approach, and utilising an already existing, well used platform?
• Will a bespoke Museum specific application solve the barriers to access when using QR codes?

Any answers or other benchmarks for QR code usage in museums would be gratefully received!

So this hasn’t really given us some clear cut success measurements, other than number of scans and number of app downloads.  You can break that down into time spent on page, shares etc.   But if we can get anywhere near the QRpedia case studies, I’ll be more than happy.