According to the preliminary results of the “Apps en Museos y Centros Culturales Iberoamericanos” survey, 66% of museums plan to implement a mobile application during the remainder of 2013 or during 2014. Museums that have no plans to publish a mobile app give the following reasons for not doing so: 50% allege a lack of economic resources, 30% admit they are digitally illiterate and 20% claim that the implementation of this technology is not among its strategic goals. We wanted to advance some of the results of this study, but please remember that the form is still avaialable and that the survey is not finished.
Although a lack of resources is the first obstacle for cultural innovation, unawareness and having no prior plan are equally problematic. For museums who do want a mobile application, the main goal is to enable their audience to make the most of their visit. Most museums dismissed using this tool to generate new revenue, as is already done in other sectors.
The accessibility of these new apps is not a priority for museums, because they are seen as being to expensive or too complex. However, smartphones feature free accessibility solutions and technologies like GVAM integrate them at a low cost.
With this study we seek to identify the needs of Latin American museums regarding the implementation of mobile technologies, as well as their preferences. The idea is to share these needs with the industry and to promote the responsible implementation of mobile technologies. In turn, the questions posed will allow us to assess if museums are aware of accessibility issues, discarding the lack of economic resources as an obstacle. We expect to receive more answers and we will analyze in detail the survey results. In this sense, we particularly appreciate its dissemination.
