Hi all
Coming to this conversation late and only got a little bit of fairly
anecdotal evidence to add but thought it might be an interesting
comparison with Matthew's figures about motivations for visiting the BM
website.
In a couple of online surveys we did recently with adults (115 responses
to the relevant question) and teachers (53 responses to the relevant
question), we asked them to rank various different reasons for visiting
museum websites in general in order of importance and they collated the
average responses.
Adults put them in this order:
1. Finding out what events/exhibitions are being held
2. Finding out how to get to the museum
3. Finding out what objects are in the museum's collections
4. Finding out information to help me learn about a subject (e.g.
London's history)
5. Finding out about research facilities
6. I might click on a link to the website from a social media channel
if I think it looks interesting
7. I might find pages of a museum website through a Google search
8. To find out what the museum offers for schools
9. To find out what the museum offers for universities
10.To play online games
Whereas teachers put them in this order:
1. Finding resources to support my classroom teaching
2. To find out what you offer for schools
3. Finding resources to support me in planning my visit to the museum
4. Finding out what events/exhibitions are being held
5. Finding pre- or post-visit resources to use with my class
6. Finding out how to get to the museum
For adults, we can also see the percentages of respondents who ranked
these reasons in their top 3 reasons for visiting a museum website:
Answer Options
Response Percent
Response Count
Finding out what events/exhibitions are being held
97.3%
109
Finding out how to get to the museum
90.2%
101
Finding out what objects are in the museum's collections
58.9%
66
Finding out information to help me learn about a subject (e.g. London's
history)
52.7%
59
I might click on a link to the website from a social media channel if I
think it looks interesting
45.5%
51
I might find pages of a museum website through a Google search
33.0%
37
Finding out about research facilities
23.2%
26
To play online games
18.8%
21
To find out what the museum offers for schools
17.9%
20
To find out what the museum offers for universities
14.3%
16
This is far from perfect data for a number of reasons but quite
interesting nevertheless. I think we can see from this that teachers
are more interested in material that isn't related to a physical visit,
whereas adults, certainly these adults, were more interested in
information about the physical visit.
Thanks
Rhiannon
Rhiannon Looseley Online Learning Manager Museum of London London Wall 150 London Wall London EC2Y 5HN Tel: 020 7814 5774 Email: [log in to unmask] www.museumoflondon.org.uk
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-----Original Message-----
From: Museums Computer Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
Matthew Cock
Sent: 07 March 2012 10:58
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Museum visitor statistics
Hi Mike, and everyone,
In the last 30 days, around 30% of our visits to the BM website included
a view of one or more pages within the Visiting and What's on sections
of the site. That doesn't mean they were planning a visit, just that
they looked at those pages as part of their website visit.
In a recent online survey (Jan-Feb 2012, 1,648 respondents)
In answer the question:
What was the main reason for your visit to the British Museum website?
(Please select one only.)
Planning a visit to the Museum galleries 17.8%
Planning a visit / buying tickets for an exhibition 7.3%
Looking for / booking an event (lecture, workshop etc.) 2.8%
Planning a visit for my class / school 1.6%
Total: 29.5%
The rest of the options were non-physical visit related..
So, for us, around 30% - their website visit is related to a physical
visit.
Best,
Matthew
([log in to unmask])
-----Original Message-----
From: Museums Computer Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
Mike Ellis
Sent: 07 March 2012 10:08
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Museum visitor statistics
I was thinking exactly the same - for stats heads like me it's
interesting anyway - but the relationship between online and "real"
visitors is so difficult to map with any meaning I suspect it doesn't
tell us too much.
What'd probably be more meaningful would be to map stats to "visiting"
pages and compare to "real". Or to have a sense of % online visits to
these "obviously motivated by visit" pages. This always used to be ~70%
of visits when I was at NMSI. How does this stack up with everyone now?
tt
Mike
_____________________________
Mike Ellis
We do nice web stuff: http://thirty8.co.uk (http://thirty8.co.uk/)
* My book: http://heritageweb.co.uk (http://heritageweb.co.uk/) *
* Bath's first Digital Festival: http://bathdigitalfestival.com
(http://bathdigitalfestival.com/) *
On Wednesday, 7 March 2012 at 09:48, Tehmina Goskar wrote:
> This makes interesting reading but I wonder what the point of
comparing
> physical visitor statistics with online ones is?
>
> What is the idea behind it? I think it is largely expected that you
get a
> very different set of motivations and reasons for online visits to
museum
> and other cultural heritage websites to that of physical visits. I
don't
> think it is useful to talk about visitor conversion except in the
sense of
> your website working to make people aware that your building, site and
> collections exist.
>
> So can anyone explain the rationale behind the comparison? Is it just
to
> prove that more people are exposed to your collections and information
> online than they are in person?
>
> All the best,
> Tehmina
>
> On Tuesday, 6 March 2012, Melissa Terras <[log in to unmask]
(mailto:[log in to unmask])> wrote:
> > I made a quick table, based on the stats in the DCMS document:
>
>
http://melissaterras.blogspot.com/2012/03/physical-versus-website-visito
rs-to.html
> >
> > m
> >
> > On 06/03/2012 15:27, Mia wrote:
> > >
> > > On 5 March 2012 12:08, Arran
Bevington-King<[log in to unmask]
(mailto:[log in to unmask])>
> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Can anyone advice where I may be able to find some statistics to
show
> Phisical visitors to museums in a given year?
> > > >
> > > > I am trying to do a comparrison with Phisical visitors and
virtual
> visitors.
> > >
> > > An additional source for DCMS sponsored museums is 'Sponsored
Museums:
> > > Performance Indicators 2010-11', including downloadable
spreadsheets
> > > of performance indicators like physical/web visitors at
> > >
http://www.culture.gov.uk/what_we_do/research_and_statistics/8609.aspx
> > >
> > > The Culture24-lead research project 'How to evaluate success
online'
> > > touched on many of the other issues raised in this thread. The
final
> > > report and other outputs are available at
> > >
> >
>
>
http://weareculture24.org.uk/projects/action-research/how-to-evaluate-su
ccess-online/
> > >
> > > It's lovely to see new posters popping up!
> > >
> > > Cheers, Mia
> > >
> > > ****************************************************************
> > > website: http://museumscomputergroup.org.uk/
> > > Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/ukmcg
> > > Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/museumscomputergroup
> > > [un]subscribe: http://museumscomputergroup.org.uk/email-list/
> > > ****************************************************************
> > >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Melissa M. Terras MA MSc DPhil CLTHE CITP FHEA
> > Co-Director, UCL Centre for Digital Humanities
> > Reader in Electronic Communication
> > Department of Information Studies
> > Foster Court
> > University College London
> > Gower Street
> > WC1E 6BT
> >
> > Tel: 020-7679-7206 (direct), 020-7679-7204 (dept), 020-7383-0557
(fax)
> > Email: [log in to unmask] (mailto:[log in to unmask])
> > Web: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/infostudies/melissa-terras/
> > Blog: http://melissaterras.blogspot.com/
> >
> > General Editor, Digital Humanities Quarterly:
> http://www.digitalhumanities.org/dhq/
> >
> >
> > ****************************************************************
> > website: http://museumscomputergroup.org.uk/
> > Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/ukmcg
> > Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/museumscomputergroup
> > [un]subscribe: http://museumscomputergroup.org.uk/email-list/
> > ****************************************************************
> >
>
>
> --
> Dr Tehmina Goskar, MA AMA
> [log in to unmask] (mailto:[log in to unmask])
>
> http://tehmina.goskar.com/
> Twitter: @tehm
>
> ****************************************************************
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>
>
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