FAQ
Brooklyn Museum API: the iPhone app released on iTunes
This is a rare weekend blog post from us, but we found out that Brooklyn Museum iPhone app hit iTunes and, well, we just can’t contain ourselves—yay!
If you read this blog, you may remember this app is a product of a real-world use of our newly released API by developer Adam Shackelford at Iconoclash Media. The creation of the app was announced on our blog about a month ago and as Adam was shepherding it through the app store approval process, I’ve been keeping in touch and hearing stories about Apple’s pretty thorough rounds of testing. As Adam mentioned at one point, “It never occurred to me, for example, how the app would function if the phone were in airplane mode.”
That said, version 1.0 is in the store for free download now and we are already starting to see the feedback roll in via Twitter and the app store rating system:
So, we’ve seen some early responses and Adam is graciously asking for feedback. We are grateful to him for his hard work on this app and it amazes me how he and others are using our API to show off our data in innovative ways, all on their own time!
Leave comments here and we will be checking in.
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Eastern Parkway/Brooklyn Museum
May 31st, 2009 at 11:22 am
I think this is a good first step. I will be visiting the Brooklyn Museum next month and this will be an invaluable tool not only for planning my visit, but also for learning more while in the museum. A couple of things keep me from singing its praises, though.
First, it isn’t stable. I have not had a single session that didn’t crash. I have even done the classic iPhone reboot and it hasn’t solved the problem. This is very frustrating. It generally happens when hitting the “next” button, so if I avoid that I’m fine.
Secondly, many of the images are too small and/or pixilated. Most of the time this isn’t a problem. I get a taste of the object and sometimes that is all I need. The problem is the quality varies from image to image. “Girl on Fourteenth Street” (39.414) is a particularly bad example, as is “The Breakfast Room” (43.202). The “Old Reformed Dutch Church 1776″ (54.137.6), however, is quite legible, even though it is small. These inconsistencies in quality diminish the user experience.
Third, from a user perspective the number of missing images is much too high. Overall I imagine the percentage of missing images is rather small, but when you are browsing the collection and hit a streak where every fifth image is missing it can lead to frustration. I would almost rather not have those items listed in the app or have them removed from the general flow of works and separated into their own category.
Finally, and this is a personal preference, I would like to see the colors reversed. White on black isn’t as easy to read, especially with the font size that the app uses.
Otherwise, I think it is terrific. I love the ability to randomly view objects in the collection, as it allows for a more serendipitous user experience. I also like the quality and quantity of information that is presented. This has the potential to be a killer, groundbreaking app and I not only hope it continues to evolve and expand, but I hope that other museums take notice and follow your lead!
May 31st, 2009 at 12:24 pm
Hi Chris,
Thanks for this feedback, esp. with accession numbers. That helps a lot.
I, too, have had a lot of crashing issues. For me, it happens when I search for a term (”dog”) and when I try to scroll through the list of results, I get a lot of freezing. By contrast, the “next” function seems to work for me, so it’s good to know you’ve seen trouble there.
Regarding the pixelation - this is an issue we’ve seen crop up with other instances of our API, so this may be of interest to some people out there if they are planning an API for their institution. Take a look at 39.414 on the website. You’ll see we can only deliver this image at a small size due to copyright issues and we state the reasons why right there on the page. This is true in the API as well - if an image is protected by copyright, we deliver at 100px on the longest size via the API. In most of the apps we’ve seen dev’d from our API, we’ve found this to be a bit of a gotcha for the developers - in almost every case the apps seem to ignore this restriction and autosize the images which cause them to stretch and pixelate. We thought we did a decent job of documenting this, but since it keeps cropping up, I guess it’s obvious that we’ve failed in this respect and need some big, bold and itals there pointing it out : )
I have to agree with you about the imageless objects and, like you, wonder if a) seeing objects without images is kind of useless or b) if they are helpful in some way, but they need to be buried. What we do on the web to minimize frustration is provide the objects w/o images at the very end of a search and, in addition, give people the option to only search objects with images. In this case, with such a visual-driven app, you couldn’t be more right that it becomes a big issue.
Let us know how your in-gallery experience goes. As designed right now, it seems a bit more like a tool to casually browse away from the museum. For one, using it in gallery, you’d want to see location information to know if a work is on view or not (and, like the above point, perhaps a way to only see works on view during the duration of your in-gallery searching). Location info is a part of the API, so technically that could be integrated. Adam also has a ton of ideas about possible future integration with the social features of our site, but it was a big “ah ha” moment for us when we realized that none of those features are available though the API and even the Terms of Use for the API would have to change to provide them. That’s an uphill battle and we’ve got a lot of work ahead of us on the Brooklyn Museum side if we want to make that a priority.
May 31st, 2009 at 1:04 pm
Very exciting! Big congratulations
A few thoughts:
Images: It seems the app is not pulling primary images of objects. For example, see 20.640 —it’s displaying a b/w image rather than the main color version used on your Web site.
Some of the low resolution images appear blurry in the app. For these, perhaps the thumbnail size could be reduced proportionately in accordance with smaller-sized primary images on the Web site, rather than every image in the app being 100 px on the longest side.
Tombstone: Rather than repeat tombstone info, the dims, credit line, and image file name could be incorporated into the initial tombstone display, and the redundant running text version removed entirely.
Additional Content: The Web site has descriptive text for some objects; it would be nice to include this helpful material in the mobile version (there will be plenty of space once duplicate tombstone info is removed.)
Visitors are likely to use this app in the galleries, it would be great to include whether or not the object is on view, and if so, give the gallery location as your Web site does. (Just reading your comment above now, Shelley, agreed.)
Navigation: Back button labels “Collection” and “Brooklyn Museum Collection” are a tad confusing. Could be more specific (e.g. it looks like “Collection” is really “Search Results.”)
Overall, the app is very exciting, and I’m thrilled it’s available. Kudos!
May 31st, 2009 at 2:34 pm
[…] @brooklynmuseum If you installed the iphone app, give us your feedback in the blog: http://bit.ly/lyJai @magnes #mtogo fresh, […]
May 31st, 2009 at 3:21 pm
It certainly shows promise, but there a few problems with it at the moment. I’m currently having real difficulty getting past the list of search results - as soon as that loads, everything pretty much grinds to a halt. Scrolling the list is painfully slow, and selecting an item takes a second or two before anything happens.
Once I do get to a detail view, speeds seem to return to normal, but while the list view is active, it’s like browsing through treacle. I’m also seeing sporadic crashes when pressing Next in the detail view.
In detail view, a “Previous” button would be nice as well.
I do like the Randomise feature - it’s a great way to stumble across things you might otherwise just never see!
May 31st, 2009 at 3:58 pm
Thanks for all the feedback so far! The to-do list is quite lengthy indeed, and given my limited testing/QA resources, these comments are highly valued.
I do find the report of crashing to be troublesome. Neither I nor Apple’s review have been able to crash the current version of the app. I would appreciate if people could note specific steps taken to induce crashes, including what version of the OS they have installed. Thank you!
May 31st, 2009 at 4:14 pm
OK, I’ve done this a couple of times now and this appears to be consistent.
Start up application.
Touch Browse
Browse by keyword
Touch text field and enter ‘Chair’
Once list loads, select the first item
Return to Collection View
Return to Brooklyn Museum Collection View
Browse by keyword
Touch text field and enter ‘Cat’
Select first item
Touch ‘Next’
Application crashes
iPhone 3G, OS 2.2.1
May 31st, 2009 at 7:00 pm
Congratulations!! This is really exciting news.
Like some of the others I’m having a few stability problems too on a 1st Gen iPod touch - 2.2.1
Start the application - crash
Start the application and quickly visit browse or randomise & it’s OK. As soon as I pause for a bit it crashes.
May 31st, 2009 at 7:08 pm
Yikes! It looks like we are having mysql issues, so the crashing may very well be due to us and not the app (though, for the list, we may need a way to gracefully deal with instances when the API is not responsive rather than totally crashing).
However, after a restart of mysql, when I repeat Dave’s steps - my app crashes as well and I’m running identical specs. So, what Dave is reporting may very well be an app bug.
May 31st, 2009 at 8:00 pm
First, congrats to all involved. This is really exciting and a great v1.0.
I’m on a 3G iPhone w/ OS 2.2.1 and I’ve been giving it a go for about 20 mins utilizing both keyword searches and randomization. I’m having no issues w/ crashing…the only slight hiccup has been slow scrolling upon initial keyword load. But that’s not a dealbreaker for me
Can’t wait for upcoming event information, etc. And maybe some participatory visitor portals down the road…
Keep on keepin’ on y’all.
June 1st, 2009 at 11:05 am
[…] Brooklyn Museum Mobile Collection iPhone App - Well done Brooklyn! iPhone users, download this app to browse and search the Brooklyn Museum’s collection. It’s still a young lil’ app so help their developers out and leave feedback on their blog about your experience. As Daniel hinted, we’re working on one of our own. […]
June 2nd, 2009 at 3:18 pm
[…] important. But I’m impressed that the Brooklyn Museum’s online users have so usefully engaged with it, tested it (to breaking point many a time), and constructively fed back via the blog. Already using their social networks for audience development/engagement, fundraising, and […]
June 2nd, 2009 at 4:54 pm
Thanks to everyone who offered feedback. I fixed the major bugs and took a number of the suggestions for a version which was resubmitted to Apple today(1.11). Other suggestions have been added to my bug-tracking system, and will be addressed in future versions.
If anyone is interested in volunteering to help me beta-test future releases, please just shoot me an email and I’ll be in touch.
June 5th, 2009 at 5:38 am
[…] Brooklyn Museum API: the iPhone app released on iTunes! […]
June 5th, 2009 at 8:08 am
[…] Brooklyn Museum API: the iPhone app released on iTunes […]
June 5th, 2009 at 4:08 pm
I’m launching a blog about free and inexpensive things to do in Brooklyn and would love to discuss some of the things the museum offers, besides Target First Saturdays (which is mentioned in my first post). If anybody can help me out, it would be great!
June 5th, 2009 at 5:44 pm
Hi Alex,
Thanks so much for mentioning us your first post - sounds like a great idea for a blog! The press office here welcomes bloggers and they would love to talk to you - shoot them an email at press@brooklynmuseum.org and they can help you out.
June 11th, 2009 at 2:36 pm
[…] A raiz de ello, recientemente se ha desarrollado la primera aplicación del museo de Brooklyn para iPhone. […]
September 22nd, 2009 at 12:35 pm
[…] and more museums are using apps to create interactive experiences for the viewer. In fact, the Brooklyn Museum app allows users to recommend pieces to fellow visitors and then based on the visitor’s initial […]
November 1st, 2009 at 6:03 am
[…] The first was the Brooklyn Museum, with the Brooklyn Museum Mobile Collection. While having mixed reviews, this iPhone app is more of a general tool for getting to know the museum. The application offers […]