Regarding the Pentimento application and the intention of this iteration, yes, this particular app was designed for non-visitors. However, Pentimento itself can accommodate both on site and off site “visits” depending on the objectives of the institution and the components that are incorporated into the museum’s customized version.

Looking forward to more reviews!

Cheers, Sarah

To answer your question about whether I prefer having this kind of experience on a handheld device rather than a larger screen, I think the answer is that each platform fits a different need. What I love about the handheld experience is that it gives me access to the content in situations where it was never conveniently available before – basically any time, anywhere, and on my own device. It’s kinda like a book! So I can’t wait to try it on an iPad!

I’ll be interested to see best practices develop too – there’s a lot to figure out.

I would have liked to see the app include the interactive and social media functions available on the iPhone; as it is, this is a pretty traditional, one-way broadcasting of content about the collection, so represents a bit of a missed opportunity to engage with audiences in a more dynamic way on the new platform.

Nonetheless, I like the content very much: both the variety and the quality. The videos are really compelling and well-produced (nice voices, photography, editing and length). Like you, I was impressed by how clear the letters and drawings are as well, even on the small screen. Enabling visitors to examine those letters in detail from up close – holding them in their own hands, as it were – is a really good use of the technology. As you say, it’s a shame the images can’t be zoomable in a higher resolution, but the app is already enormous (I had to delete several things off my iPhone in order to download it), so until there’s some clever new compression or streaming technology I think this is a good compromise of quality and size.

When I worked for Antenna, we created a PDA-based multimedia tour for the Van Gogh Museum covering many of these same paintings; I wonder if it is still in use on-site, or if this app is intended to replace it? Your comments point to some elements it might need to work well on-site: a map or other linear/chronological listing of the works that corresponds to the gallery hang.

Historically there has been a lot of concern about using video and even still images on multimedia tours in the museum, for fear of distracting people from looking at the exhibits and artworks. I don’t really share this concern: first, we know that people typically spend more time reading wall labels than looking at the corresponding artwork or exhibit, so in one sense, this is not a new ‘problem’, if it is indeed a problem at all. Secondly, good content and experience design will use the right piece of content, in the right medium, at the right moment to reinforce the intended message. We cannot say that all video and images are bad in the museum, anymore than we can say that all signage is distracting – it depends on the context and design.

In any case, this app seems to have been designed for audiences who are not in the museum. I assume this is in part the nature of Antenna’s Pentimento template (also used for the National Gallery of Art, London tour), but wonder if you (and other virtual visitors) prefer having this kind of experience on a handheld device rather than a larger fixed web screen – where it would be easier to deliver the images in high, zoomable resolution, for example?

Most museums have more ‘virtual’ visitors through their websites and social media content than they will ever be able to have in person. As more and more of those digital visitors are accessing museums’ content through mobile platforms, it makes sense to me that we should be developing handheld programs for them. I’ll be interested to see best practice emerges and develops for museums’ mobile presences, much as it has for fixed web.