How the Philadelphia Museum of Art is changing the way people interact with art

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The Philadelphia Museum of Art spent three months developing its new interactive iPad app and it’s nothing short of magical.

At first glance you might think it’s just another ploy to get people in the door. But once you actually get your hands on it, you will quite literally see a whole new artistic point of view.

When you first open the app, you get a map of the museum, so you always know where you are, and you know where everything is, so you won’t get lost. Next, the art museum installed 280 iBeacons all around the art museum that are continuously broadcasting a signal. The signals not only direct you (kind of like a treasure hunt), but they also tell you which items have more information available within the app.

For example, one tour group stopped by a large Picasso painting of musicians, and the app immediately showed the painting as well as more information. It then had a notification saying to play the music, and when the visitors clicked play, they could hear what the painting would have sounded like when Picasso painted it.

It’s fully immersive, both in sight and sound.

On average, a patron will spend roughly two minutes per item in the app learning about it. Instead of just looking at items, now you can actually learn about them. There is also a hint of gamification in the new app.

For example, you can unlock achievements for finding certain things. At one point, the tour group had to find a large blue section with a white X. They ended up having to find it on the ceiling with no help from the tour guides.

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