The J. Paul Getty Museum's iPod touch® tour

In June 2010, the J. Paul Getty Museum launched a multimedia tour at the Getty Villa, available on the iPod touch® onsite for visitors to check out.

The tour features videos and insightful commentary from curators and conservators on over 150 works of art in the collection of the J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Villa and in special exhibitions.

Over the summer of 2010, we evaluated the Getty Villa iPod touch® tour -- here are excerpts from the evaluation:

Users selected the words ‘interesting’ (74%), ‘informative’ (73%), ‘accessible’ (71%), ‘educational’ (69%) and ‘engaging’ (66%) most frequently to describe their tour experience out of a list of 22 words including an ‘other’ specified option where visitors could provide their own word or words.

Overall, users rated the tour highly. At least 3 in 4 users were very satisfied, rated the amount of content just right, will strongly recommend and thought the tour made the experience much more enjoyable.

Overwhelmingly, users prefer a multimedia format to traditional audio-only format.

Villa visitor comments about tour (from evalulation): 

I knew I could get a guide of some kind. It’s hard for me to read the wall cards. As I get older it’s harder to see.

You learn, which is part of the joy. You see the beauty that you wouldn’t see otherwise. The iPod provided me with more information!

The demonstration will cover a demo of the tour, as well as how we developed, and manage content for updating the tour in-house.