The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri

The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art is one of our team’s favourite museums. The first time we visited we were in awe of the building, the collection, the library... everything! Believe us that this is definitely a destination museum worth making a trip for. In 2007, Time magazine ranked the museum's Bloch Building number one on its list of "The 10 Best Architectural Marvels" which considered candidates from around the globe.

Challenge: The Nelson-Atkins Museum had been using an alternative software solution to power their guided tours on visitors' own smartphones. Having invested in audio content creation and handsets (preloaded for visitors who did not wish to use their own phone) they were left suddenly without their original software partner - so Smartify stepped in. For Nelson-Atkins it was important to offer accessible tours in multiple languages and for visitors with impaired or low-vision.

Our solution: With a lot of the content creation and digital collection ready to go, the integration with Smartify took just one week to get up and running. We also gave the Gallery access to the Smartify dashboard to manually manage the visitor experience. This enabled gallery staff to easily create new guided tours by dragging and dropping works into a trail and customising an interactive map.

Result: Smartify is given to everyone as they enter the museum and has already become an integral part of the visitor experience. Since launch in 2018 the gallery has created 5 tours of the building including a tour in American Sign Language, a Sculpture Park tour and Collections highlights.