High-Impact Visitor Research to Amplify the Museum Visit Experience
Make impactful museum marketing and business decisions based on a deep understanding of your visitors and their museum experience.

Trusted By World-Class Museums





What You Get

Make visitor-centered museum business decisions
Measure your visitor demographics, museum needs, and visit satisfaction; and see how you compare to similar institutions on these metrics.

Monitor visitor experience over time
Track visitor metrics over time to understand trends and seasonal variations, and measure the impact of campaigns and events.

Go beyond your permanent collection
Get deep visitor feedback on special exhibitions, as well as the museum shop, restaurant, and events.

Identify unique visitor segments and personas
Understand generational differences in visit experience, as well as differences between local residents and tourists, gift shop purchasers and non-purchasers, and more.
Bring insights to life with immersive qualitative research
Audio and video vignettes that tell a story and reveal something new about visitor psychology.

Optimize digital touchpoints
Understand how the museum website and mobile app impact the visitor experience, and also look for opportunities to integrate emerging technologies (i.e. NFTs, genAI, AR/VR).
How It Works
01
Design the research
We pair with your Org to design a research strategy that meets your unique objectives and needs. Our frameworks have been successfully used by world-class museums hundreds of times over the past decade.
02
Capture the data
Our professional interviewers ask questions of visitors just before they exit the museum. Other data collection methods include email and sensor technologies.
03
Deliver dashboards & reports
We deliver real-time dashboards, visitor media clips, and detailed research reports that callout nuanced findings and actionable insights.
04
Measure visitor experience over time
Repeat visitor research throughout the year, or during special exhibits and other events. This enables you to monitor visitor health, understand trends, and measure the impact of campaigns.
Frequently Asked Questions
Find answers to commonly asked questions about our visitor experience research.
What is visitor experience research for museums?
Visitor experience research helps you understand who your visitors are and how they experienced the museum. The data we capture from visitors ranges from demographics to how much they enjoyed their visit, what they liked specifically, and what they thought could be improved. Research is often extended to capture insights on special exhibits, the museum gift shop, and its restaurants and cafes.
How can visitor insights help me reach my objectives?
Over the past 10 years, we have seen our insights directly impact all museum functions, including Art curation, Operations, Marketing, CX, Public relations, and Data science. Decision-making that is informed by the visitor experience improves customer satisfaction, encourages repeat visits, and ultimately increases annual visitation.
How much does this research cost?
The main cost drivers include the number of visitors interviewed and the length of the question set. Our general recommendation is to interview several hundred visitors with a 5 to 10 minute survey. Once we agree on a study design we will provide you with several cost options.
How long does this research take to complete?
The average timeline is 1-2 months from first meeting each other to the final research report. This gives us time to go back and forth with the stakeholders in your organization and put together a research strategy that meets everyone’s objectives. Running additional research throughout the year is much faster, because the research dates and question sets have already been decided on.
Should I run research during special exhibits or other events?
Running visitor experience research during special exhibits and holiday periods is a common strategy for museums. In doing so, you will capture specific feedback about the event and can measure the impact of the event on the visitor experience (compared to normal periods). Such events are also ideal for immersive qualitative studies, which offer deep insights into visitor perception and result in immersive video walkthroughs that bring research to life.
Do I need to run multiple research waves?
Running more than one research wave is not necessary, but we recommend it for several reasons. Multiple research waves, strategically placed throughout the year, enable you to measure visitor trends, seasonal variations, and the impact of special events. A common strategy is to run 4 to 6 waves per year. This way, several waves can be allocated to normal periods to establish a baseline, and the rest can be allocated to special events and holidays. We have successfully run this program with some of our clients for over 7 years, and they tell us the value of visitor experience data increases over time.
How does this research enable me to prove the impact of my decisions?
Visitor experience research can be run before, during, and after a major change to the museum. This establishes baseline metrics and enables you to measure how things like special events, advertising campaigns, policy changes, and renovation projects impact the experience.
What do in-person visitor interviews actually look like?
ConsumerDNA interviewers stand in the museum lobby and politely ask for feedback from visitors who are about to leave the museum. We only employ market research professionals who are trained to interview visitors in a consistent, non-biased way. Interviewers select visitors at random, give a 5 – 10 minute interview, and capture responses on a tablet. These interviews are fast, friendly, and discrete.
What happens when a visitor doesn’t want to participate in the research?
We have found that visitors are generally eager to share their experiences with us; however, when a visitor does not want to participate in the study they will politely say that they are not interested and simply walk past the interviewer. We have never had a problem in our 7 years of doing this and after approaching more than 100k visitors.
How can I involve other museum stakeholders in this research?
The best time to involve others is from the start. In the beginning, we run stakeholder workshops to align research with all museum functions and encourage internal buy-in. Our shared dashboards provide a unified view of research outcomes, supporting collaborative decision-making and strategic planning.
What about data security?
ConsumerDNA uses robust security measures, including encryption for data both at rest and in transit, and enforce strict access controls to ensure only authorized personnel can access sensitive information like Personally Identifiable Information (PII). We also follow industry best practices for data retention, securely deleting or archiving data when it’s no longer needed.
What are the research deliverables for each research wave?
Each wave delivers a programmed survey, real-time data monitoring via dashboards, access to raw data, and a deep-dive report. We cater to both data enthusiasts who want to dig into the data themselves as well as busy executives who just want to know the bottom-line.
What can I expect from research reports?
Our research reports are deep-dives into your data. We run statistical analyses to measure differences between visitor sub-groups and track changes over time. You also get to leverage ConsumerDNA Benchmark so you can see how your museum compares to similar institutions on key experience metrics like Net Promoter Score (NPS). At the beginning of each report we give a summary of key findings as well as our perspective on what your data is saying and what the museum can do about it.
Can you help us with our other research needs?
ConsumerDNA has been in the research business for over 40 years. Our expertise is broad, covering all types of market and UX research. Let’s go deeper into your research needs together.