The Royal Museum of Fine Arts (KMSKA), housed in a beautiful 19th century building, closed its doors in 2011 for a complete renovation. The historic buildings former patio’s and courtyards are making space for a new museum volume, called the vertical museum. This new part of the museum, consisting of ten modern rooms, will create a brand new experience. Next to that, the old part of the museum stays intact and the classic style is retained. This beautiful contrast between classic and modern calls out for a new story.

When the new museum opens, they want to show how the centuries-long tradition of image culture remains topical and relevant with their collection of artworks in a contemporary way. To bring their new story, KMSKA asked us to design the ideal customer journeys of their target groups. The goal was to align their artistic program to the characteristics new building. Taking into account the architectural plans we had to map out the potential of the building and all the opportunities, but also the possible bottlenecks and hazards. The challenge was to design perfect museum experience, tailored to the wishes and needs of different target groups.

We started by setting up an extensive qualitative field research by contextual research, conducting in-depth interviews with curators and staff of the museum, doing street-interviews with tourists and neighbours of the museum, online survey, persona research and so on. During a co-creation workshops with the KMSKA team and technical and architectural partners we designed customer journeys for each persona. The co-creation with the architectural partners was key to streamline the service and experience with the physical route visitors would take through the museum building.

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Based on quantitative and qualitative research data we shaped four different personas, each accompanied by their own ideal customer journey and positive museum experience. By focussing on the people - the visitors and the team of the museum - we offered KMSKA the opportunity, guidance and concepts to take the necessary customer-centred design decisions to convert the persona customer journeys into reality. More specific, a reality where the flow of the museum visit respects the architecture of the building and uses it to its advantage to enrich the experience.