Abstract
Until today museums have tried to identify and segment their audiences based on their demographics. After years of conducting research in the US, John Falk in 2009 introduced a descriptive and predictive framework for identifying visitors on the basis of their motivations, as related to identity. This article summarises Falk’s innovative framework as described in his book <em>Identity and the Museum Visitor Experience</em> (2009), in addition to his presentation at the Visitor Studies Conference at the Victoria and Albert Museum in January 2010. In addition the article draws on the author’s related research case studies from the Courtauld Gallery, the Horniman Museum and the Wellcome Collection in the UK.
Highlights
Trying to capture and interpret a museum visit is not quantum physics, but none the less is not an easy task to do
Until today visitor research has mainly been based on demographics but given the complexity of the museum experience, one can understand that there are more than simple categories and boxes to check
Falk gave an example from the California Science Center in LA, where the most common identity was facilitator with 41%, followed by Explorer with 34%. Falk concluded his presentation by outlining the implications that his visitor identity motivation model has for museum design. He argued that shifting focus from demographics to identity motivation does not mean museums have to design many different activities or exhibits, but they should see themselves not as presenting only one museum experience but a range of different experiences
Summary
Trying to capture and interpret a museum visit is not quantum physics, but none the less is not an easy task to do. Falk (2009) has stressed the limitations of seeing our visitors through the above-mentioned lenses and suggests another more predictive and descriptive way, that of identity-related visit motivations. Identity-related visit motivations After years of research in science centres, zoos and aquariums, Falk (2006; 2009) acknowledged that throughout his research he had not paid enough attention to one of the basic threads in understanding the museum experience, that of identity.
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