A  paper published by Museums and the Web 2013 describes DMA Friends, the new visitor engagement program rolled out in 2013 at the Dallas Museum of Art.

At the heart of DMA Friends is a relationship management system that is a modified version of BadgeOS, developed and customized by LearningTimes sitting on top of WordPress. This system is the primary source of interaction for all systems and is the engine driving feedback for visitor engagement. Visitors are registered, engagement  recognized, credit earned, and rewards redeemed through this system. BadgeOS was an early candidate given LearningTimes’ experience in creating learning management systems with elements of gamification and activity recognition, both of which strongly paralleled our experience intent. Early conversations demonstrated a deep and mutual understanding that swiftly identified core functionality tied with strong interface design.

The comprehensive paper, co-authored by Rob Stein and Bruce Wyman, is entitled Nurturing Engagement: How Technology and Business Model Alignment can Transform Visitor Participation in the Museum.  The paper  discusses the Dallas Museum of Art’s “approach of establishing a digital platform for museum engagement … that attempts to structure and measure the repeat engagement of visitors with the Museum and its programs.” It shares “the underlying approach in design of the Friends program, some technical detail about the implementation, and some significant initial findings from the project launch in January 2013.”

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