Leighton House

The Challenge: Leighton House in Kensington, London, is one of the only purpose-built studio-houses open to the public in the United Kingdom and one of the most remarkable buildings of the 19th century. The house museum does not have wall labels in order to preserve the original style and immersive experience of visiting. Staff want it to feel like a home and not a gallery! However, visitors often have many questions so additional interpretation was needed to tell the story of Leighton and how the objects on display interact with the architecture of the home.

Our Solution: Staff at Leighton House decided to use Smartify’s object recognition functionality to allow visitors to identify objects (and groups of objects) in the house using their own smartphone camera to access information. This meant that the walls did not have to be filled with QR codes while still allowing visitors to explore more about the objects on display.

The implementation of the Smartify app also allowed Leighton House to monitor which spaces are more popular with visitors, giving them the opportunity to create deep dives into overlooked areas. One example is the stunning Arab Hall. Analytics showed that visitors spent a lot of time in this area marvelling at the space, so the team created an additional tour ‘Perspectives on the Arab Hall’. This tour includes English translations of Arabic poetry on the tiles, and invites six people with a connection to the space to explore its meaning and importance.

The Results: In just a few months since opening, the tours have already been taken over 4000 times and objects have been viewed on the app over 25,000 times. The team at Leighton House are able to dynamically update content on the Smartify platform and are now working with Smartify to produce Augmented Reality experiences.

Check out Leighton House on Smartify here.