GLAMi nomination: Rijksmuseum app – Rijksmuseum in your pocket
institution: Rijksmuseum
category: Museum-Wide Guide or Program
www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/app
The Rijksmuseum in your pocket
Allowing the collection to be at the fingertips of the public, that’s the main online goal of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. With a completely revamped smartphone app the Rijksmuseum is now even more accessible to everybody, whether it’s before, during or after a visit to the museum.
For an optimal user experience, the Rijksmuseum app is subdivided into three main sections: Tours, Rijksstudio and E-tickets. A simple press of a button gives users access to 14 tours, an advanced navigation system, the Rijksmuseum collection in Rijksstudio and the e-ticket shop. The app allows you to easily purchase tickets and scan them at the ticket checkpoint.
Indoor wayfinding
The large and impressive building of the museum requires a good wayfinding system. The indoor automatic wayfinding feature in the app provides direction within the museum in a similar way to navigation apps. Using the four flights of stairs as hubs, the app shows you the way to a new area in no more than three steps. By choosing your own route, you will intuitively get to know the structure of the building.
Multimedia tour with beacons
The concept of the multimedia tour is closely related to the wayfinding principles. A total of 300 beacons have been installed around the museum to give you the right information at the right place. Each stop in tour section has several layers that allow you to discover unique and surprising details about the collection. The tours section currently offers 14 tours in nine languages. New tours are added on a regular basis. The app can be used for free on own devices or on a rental device in the museum.
Take a look at the tours instruction video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SZRPj98nT4
Swipe through 340,000 works of art
Rijksstudio is an important component of Rijksmuseum’s online presence. Enjoying the collection anytime, anywhere, with Rijksstudio is now even more exciting. You can easily scroll through vertical sets of the 340,000 works of art and then swipe through the set of your choice. By moving your fingers along a work of art the most beautiful details appear in front of your eyes.
Collecting objects has become more intuitive in the app as well. You can easily save an entire work of art or detail that you see filling out your screen at that moment. You move your fingers along the work of art until the most beautiful detail appears in front of your eyes.
Rijksmuseum is the first museum that offers its collection in addition to its tours. With the collection section in the app Rijksmuseum aims to enhance the visitor’s experience, enabling visitors to prepare their visit, enjoy their visit afterward or even enable non visitors as well to enjoy its collection.
Visuals centre-stage
By developing the collection and multimedia tours at the same time, we were able to create an optimal and integrated solution. Like the Rijksmuseum’s website the app puts visuals centre-stage, using consistency and simplicity as a base. User-friendly, but majestically.
More information about the project in this paper .