{"id":8137,"date":"2019-08-12T15:12:12","date_gmt":"2019-08-12T15:12:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gvam.es\/prado-museum-other-international-museums-commit-multimedia-guides\/"},"modified":"2019-08-12T15:12:12","modified_gmt":"2019-08-12T15:12:12","slug":"prado-museum-other-international-museums-commit-multimedia-guides","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gvam.es\/fr\/prado-museum-other-international-museums-commit-multimedia-guides\/","title":{"rendered":"Prado Museum and other international museums commit to multimedia guides"},"content":{"rendered":"

The trend set years ago by monuments and leisure centres around the world is unstoppable and spreading to art museums not wishing to be left behind. The Prado Museum is the latest to take up the mantle with a new audioguide for smartphones, the simplicity of which will certainly attract the interest of other art museums that have remained cautious until now.\u00a0 The new Prado Museum audioguide has no maps or visit customisation functions but rather demonstrates that, when applied sensibly and without abusing image resources, multimedia audioguides can work and are popular among visitors.<\/strong>\u00a0Let\u2019s take a look back over the history of these tools, with a particular focus on the experience at internationally significant museums and monuments!<\/p>\n

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Destroying myths<\/h2>\n

Before taking a look over the history of this already consolidated technological innovation, we should first deal with a few myths that have made their penetration in this sector rather tough.<\/p>\n

The first myth is one shared by other technological innovation processes. For many people, multimedia guides were a tool for digital natives only<\/strong>. However, more senior profiles use these systems without difficulty. What\u2019s more, the over-50 are usually more satisfied the service!<\/a><\/p>\n

At the opposite end of the scale, we find those who consider them\u00a0a rather unattractive tool for digital natives, <\/strong>who demand\u00a0apps with more functionalities built in. Time has revealed the existence of two different types of apps for museums: audioguide apps and all the rest. We will see this clearly reflected\u00a0 in the historical evolution of the Audio MOMA app (among others). These audioguide apps offer a necessary and useful service<\/a>, demanded by both digital natives and other audience profiles.<\/p>\n

Setting aside this matter of age, there is another myth supported by the belief that multimedia audioguides are\u00a0a tool that distracts and displaces the original work.<\/strong> There are still advocates and opponents to this idea<\/a>, but what is certain is that several well-grounded initiatives exist to destroy the myth. Let\u2019s take a look at some of them!<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Historical evolution of multimedia guides<\/h2>\n

Just like the cutting edge of art, these visitor guides started to proliferate under a variety of names, in various formats and in reaction to a pre-established order.<\/p>\n

2013 \u2013 2016: \u201cCutting edge\u201d multimedia guides and apps<\/strong><\/p>\n

We usually speak about 2013 as the year in which experimental multimedia guides began to proliferate, due to their immediate association with a recognisable case for the sector. This was the year when the Louvre incorporated a Nintendo DS (yes, the famous portable console) as a visitor guide.<\/p>\n

What did these multimedia guides have in common with the cutting edge art of the 19th Century? They arose as a reaction \u2013 that did not reject \u2013 a pre-established order, altering a commonly accepted reality and one that is, in fact, still present. There were already a number of reasons to react to the limitations of conventional audioguides:<\/strong><\/p>\n