With help from data, art museums are reframing the visitor experience
With help from data, art museums are reframing the visitor experience
在数据的助力下，艺术博物馆正在重塑参观体验
Giovanni Kanter goes to at least one art museum whenever he visits a new city. That’s on top of his regular exploration of galleries in New York, where the 25-year-old ICU nurse lives and studies. He typically discovers new artists and gallery openings through word of mouth, though he has recently started curating his social media feed to serve relevant content (he’s currently in what he terms a “surrealism phase”). 每到一个新城市，Giovanni Kanter 至少会去参观一家艺术博物馆。这还不包括他在纽约——这位 25 岁的重症监护室护士生活和学习的地方——对画廊的日常探索。他通常通过口碑发现新的艺术家和画廊展览，不过最近他开始整理自己的社交媒体订阅源，以获取相关内容（他目前处于他所说的“超现实主义阶段”）。
He was raised on visual art; he’s the son of painter Marianne Gargour and nephew of mixed-media artist Heather Hutchison and painter-printmaker Mark Thomas Kanter. His “exposure-oriented education” featured childhood visits to galleries and shows in and around Dallas, where he grew up, and in France, where he spent time with his grandparents. 他在视觉艺术的熏陶下长大；他的母亲是画家 Marianne Gargour，姨妈是混合媒介艺术家 Heather Hutchison，舅舅是画家兼版画家 Mark Thomas Kanter。他这种“接触导向型教育”的特点是童年时期在成长地达拉斯及其周边地区，以及在法国与祖父母共度时光时，频繁参观画廊和展览。
But Kanter is an exception. Many other young people have a less immersive artistic education, perhaps shaped by occasional school trips or family visits to museums. If they haven’t internalized an instinct for what Kanter calls “moving through the art and absorbing it,” the museum experience is central to how they learn about and understand art. 但 Kanter 是个例外。许多其他年轻人所受的艺术教育并不那么沉浸，可能只是偶尔的学校旅行或家庭博物馆参观。如果他们没有内化出 Kanter 所说的“穿梭于艺术之中并吸收它”的本能，那么博物馆体验就是他们学习和理解艺术的核心。
Museums take this educational role seriously, and many institutions understand the need to sustain and broaden their appeal. “They used to be these big ivory towers of knowledge and history and thought and art,” said Hilary Knight, director of Change& in London and former director of digital at Tate. “Museums themselves are changing their role to be centers for discussion and encounter and to be much more participatory.” 博物馆非常重视这种教育角色，许多机构也明白需要维持并扩大其吸引力。“它们过去是知识、历史、思想和艺术的象牙塔，”伦敦 Change& 总监、泰特美术馆前数字总监 Hilary Knight 说，“博物馆自身正在改变角色，成为讨论和相遇的中心，并变得更具参与性。”
To aid this transition, museums and other cultural institutions are increasingly using data to inform decisions about how to present the works they house. Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum (VGM) has embraced this challenge head-on, instituting a yearslong collaboration with academics from leading business schools to explore how using data and analytics can improve visitors’ experiences. 为了助力这一转型，博物馆和其他文化机构正越来越多地利用数据来为如何展示馆藏作品提供决策依据。阿姆斯特丹的梵高博物馆（VGM）正面迎接了这一挑战，与顶尖商学院的学者们开展了长达数年的合作，探索如何利用数据和分析来改善参观者的体验。
More extensive data use by museums has enabled a new era of individually tailored experiences, and new waves of technology have impacted everything from how art is displayed to how fragile art is preserved. But this active role in shaping museumgoers’ experiences raises questions about how museums shape and nurture cultural engagement at a time when both consumption habits and the technologies surrounding them are evolving rapidly. 博物馆对数据的广泛使用开启了个性化体验的新时代，而新一波技术浪潮影响了从艺术品展示方式到脆弱艺术品保存方式的方方面面。然而，在消费习惯和相关技术都在迅速演变的时代，博物馆在塑造参观者体验方面的这种积极作用，也引发了关于博物馆如何塑造和培养文化参与度的问题。
Artistic institutions are amassing more and more information about us, and they can now use it to guide nearly every aspect of modern artistic exposure. Museums have always conferred cultural legitimacy and served as tastemakers, but to what extent have they also become—even inadvertently—more strategic stewards of our evolving tastes and interests? And where do we go from here? 艺术机构正在积累越来越多关于我们的信息，现在它们可以利用这些信息来引导现代艺术接触的几乎每一个方面。博物馆一直以来都赋予文化合法性并担任品味引领者的角色，但它们在多大程度上也——哪怕是无意中——成为了我们不断演变的品味和兴趣的战略管理者？我们未来又将走向何方？
Data-informed layouts / 数据驱动的布局
As you navigate a museum, data can be generated on which paintings you visit, how long you spend viewing each one, and even where your eyes linger. Such data can lead to better layout decisions, according to a new study by Ali Aouad, a professor at MIT’s Sloan School of Management; Abhishek Deshmane, a professor at Georgia Institute of Technology’s Scheller College of Business; and Professor Victor Martínez de Albéniz of the University of Navarra’s IESE Business School. 当你在博物馆参观时，系统可以生成关于你参观了哪些画作、每幅画停留多久，甚至你的目光停留在何处的数据。根据麻省理工学院斯隆管理学院教授 Ali Aouad、佐治亚理工学院谢勒商学院教授 Abhishek Deshmane 以及纳瓦拉大学 IESE 商学院教授 Victor Martínez de Albéniz 的一项新研究，这些数据可以带来更好的布局决策。
In their paper, published in the April 2026 print issue of Management Science, the researchers show that visitors respond to both the physical location of works and their placement on digital guides. According to the authors, a visitor’s next move—whether to view another painting, change floors, or even end a visit—can be analyzed in terms of the perceived utility, or benefit, of each option, likely weighed subconsciously. 在发表于《管理科学》（Management Science）2026 年 4 月刊的论文中，研究人员表明，参观者对作品的物理位置和数字导览上的排列顺序都有反应。作者认为，参观者的下一步行动——无论是观看另一幅画、换楼层，还是结束参观——都可以根据每个选项的感知效用或收益进行分析，这很可能是潜意识权衡的结果。
The researchers randomly selected 25,000 out of 1.5 million visits to the VGM between 2019 and 2021 and extracted data from visitor interactions with digital multimedia guides, along with the location and artistic characteristics of the museum’s collection, which contains over 4,600 works (of which approximately 200 are on display at a given time). They used this data to gain insights about visitor movement and identify “optimal” locations for pieces—those that collectively maximized viewer engagement, as measured by the expected number of pieces seen. 研究人员从 2019 年至 2021 年间梵高博物馆的 150 万次参观中随机抽取了 25,000 次，并提取了参观者与数字多媒体导览的互动数据，以及馆藏作品的位置和艺术特征（馆藏超过 4,600 件，其中约 200 件同时展出）。他们利用这些数据深入了解参观者的动线，并确定作品的“最佳”位置——即那些能通过预期观看作品数量来衡量，从而使观众参与度最大化的位置。
The authors’ model, named pathway multinomial logit or “pathway MNL,” does not reveal causal effects, they caution, but the associations they uncover are informative for museum professionals. Multimedia guide users largely visited recommended artworks in the suggested order. Lisa van den Bos, product manager for digital education at the museum while the study was underway, expressed surprise that even subtle ordering changes on the guide impacted traffic patterns. “We actually have a lot of power in how we move people through,” she said. 作者的模型被称为“路径多项 Logit”或“路径 MNL”。他们提醒说，该模型并未揭示因果效应，但他们发现的关联性对博物馆专业人士具有参考价值。多媒体导览的用户大多按照建议的顺序参观了推荐的艺术品。在研究进行期间担任该博物馆数字教育产品经理的 Lisa van den Bos 表示，即使是导览上细微的顺序调整也会影响人流模式，这让她感到惊讶。“我们实际上在引导人们参观方面拥有很大的权力，”她说。
Visitors sought variety in time period and size but consistency in subject and theme, the team found. Time pressure also affected choices; as time elapsed within a given visit, people were more likely to prioritize seeing masterpieces. Perhaps surprisingly, the data revealed that congestion can increase engagement. “When there are more people, at least up to a certain number…people are more likely to go and view artworks that they probably wouldn’t have seen,” said Deshmane. Crowding around a painting may also be seen as a signal of quality. 研究小组发现，参观者追求时期和尺寸的多样性，但在主题和题材上追求一致性。时间压力也会影响选择；随着参观时间的推移，人们更有可能优先观看杰作。令人惊讶的是，数据表明拥挤实际上可以增加参与度。“当人多的时候，至少在一定数量以内……人们更有可能去观看他们原本可能不会注意到的艺术品，”Deshmane 说。围在画作周围的人群也可能被视为一种质量信号。
Rearranging permanent collections can be tricky due to space or thematic constraints, but museums can often experiment with exhibition or gallery spaces, where shorter time frames and lower infrastructural requirements allow easier changes, said Deshmane. Rather than actually moving pieces, the researchers used a simulation to generate new layouts and predict likely visitor reactions. Based on their simulations, they found that moving highly attractive art from leaky spots (e.g., stairs or lifts) and strategically swapping pieces could le… Deshmane 表示，由于空间或主题限制，重新布置永久藏品可能很棘手，但博物馆通常可以在展览或画廊空间进行实验，因为那里的时间跨度较短，基础设施要求较低，更容易进行调整。研究人员没有实际移动作品，而是使用模拟来生成新的布局并预测可能的参观者反应。根据他们的模拟，他们发现将极具吸引力的艺术品从“流失点”（如楼梯或电梯附近）移走，并进行战略性的作品交换，可以……