How to collect visitor feedback in a museum
By Matúš Marcin, founder of Sensa · Updated
The simplest reliable way to collect museum visitor feedback is a tablet at the exit asking a handful of one-tap questions: a “would you recommend this museum?” question first, then 0–10 statements about the things you can change — the exhibits, the labels, finding your way, staff, value. Put a second tablet at the exit of each temporary exhibition and you can measure every exhibition on its own, while it’s still running.
This guide gives you the questions, a smiley version for families, and a way to turn the answers into decisions.
What the tablet shows once it's locked down
The Sensa kiosk in the two most common setups — a smiley scale and a 0–10 scale. Tap one to try it; nothing is submitted.
Smiley scale, 0–10 NPS, or Likert. Your choice, changeable anytime.
Why ask at the exit
Visitor books collect a few heartfelt comments and a lot of children’s drawings. Emailed surveys only reach people who booked online, weeks later. A tablet at the exit asks everyone, at the moment the visit is fresh, without a name or an email — and because each tablet belongs to one place, the answers tell you which gallery or exhibition they’re about.
The questions (in priority order)
The first question summarises the visit; the rest go from most to least actionable. Statements are answered on a 0–10 scale from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree”.
| # | Question | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | How likely are you to recommend this museum to a friend or colleague? (0–10) | Overall loyalty — your headline Net Promoter Score |
| 2 | The visit was worth my time. | Whether the experience delivered |
| 3 | I found the exhibits interesting. | Content and curation |
| 4 | The labels and information were easy to understand. | Interpretation — texts, audio, panels |
| 5 | It was easy to find my way around. | Layout, signage, the visitor route |
| 6 | The staff were welcoming and helpful. | Front-of-house service |
| 7 | The ticket was good value for money. | Price perception (skip it if entry is free) |
Short on space? Use the first three — recommendation, worth my time, interesting — and add the others once you know where to look.
Measure each exhibition separately
Treat each temporary exhibition as its own place: a tablet at its exit, with the same questions as the main exit. Because every answer is tied to where it was given, you can compare:
- Temporary vs permanent — is the new exhibition pulling its weight?
- Exhibition vs exhibition — the same questions, year after year, build a record of what your audience responds to.
- Early vs late in the run — scores in week one tell you whether a tweak (a clearer intro panel, a better route) is worth making while the exhibition is still open.
Keep the wording identical everywhere. The moment one tablet asks a slightly different question, you can no longer compare it.
Families and children: use the smiley scale
A 0–10 scale is abstract for a seven-year-old. For family-focused exhibitions or a children’s area, ask one or two statements on a four-face smiley scale instead — “Did you enjoy the exhibition?” — and place the tablet at a child’s height. Smileys still count toward the exhibition’s average score, so you can keep tracking it. Keep the recommendation question on 0–10 for the adults.
Why order matters: every tap counts
On a Sensa kiosk, each answer is saved the moment it’s tapped. A visitor who answers two questions and heads for the café still counts; after about a minute without a tap, the tablet quietly resets to the first question for the next visitor. So the first question always has the most answers — make it the one you’d put in a report — and compare averages between questions, not counts.
What the results look like
An illustrative month across a museum’s main exit and one temporary exhibition:
| Question | Main exit | Temporary exhibition |
|---|---|---|
| Recommend (NPS) | NPS +41 | NPS +29 |
| Worth my time | 8.3 | 7.1 |
| Exhibits interesting | 8.5 | 8.2 |
| Labels easy to understand | 7.6 | 5.8 |
| Easy to find my way around | 7.9 | 7.4 |
| Staff welcoming and helpful | 9.0 | 8.9 |
| Good value | 7.2 | 6.5 |
The exhibition’s content lands (8.2 for interest), but visitors struggled with the texts (5.8) — and the lower “worth my time” and NPS follow from that. That’s a fixable problem mid-run: a clearer introduction panel, shorter labels, or an audio summary, then watch the 5.8 over the following weeks.
Turning results into decisions
- Wait for about 30 answers per question before reading averages — a few days at a busy museum, longer at a small one.
- Find the lowest average you can influence and start there.
- Compare places — main exit vs each exhibition — before blaming the whole museum for one gallery’s problem.
- Make one change and keep the questions identical, then watch that score for a few weeks.
- Share the strengths. High staff scores are worth telling the front-of-house team about.
Set it up
- Write the survey — the seven questions above, or the first three to start. Write them in the language most of your visitors speak, and keep the wording plain for international visitors.
- Create one location per exit — the main exit plus one per temporary exhibition — so every answer is tied to where it was given.
- Place each tablet in the walking line just past the last room, at chest height (lower for children’s areas), not behind the ticket desk.
- Add a small sign: “How was your visit? One tap per question, anonymous.”
- Lock the tablet to the survey and keep it plugged in — see our iPad kiosk mode guide.
- Review weekly while a new exhibition is in its first month, then monthly.
Frequently asked questions
- What questions should a museum visitor survey ask?
- Start with “How likely are you to recommend this museum?” on 0–10, then three to six statements about what you can change: whether the visit was worth the time, how interesting the exhibits were, how clear the labels were, wayfinding, staff and value.
- How do I evaluate a temporary exhibition?
- Put a tablet at the exhibition’s exit with the same questions as your main exit, and compare the two. Measure from the opening week so you can still improve it during the run.
- Should museum surveys be anonymous?
- Yes. Anonymous answers are more honest and you avoid collecting personal data under GDPR.
- How do I get feedback from children?
- Use a smiley-face scale for one or two simple questions and put the tablet at a child’s height.
- Is a visitor book enough?
- It’s lovely for comments, but too few people write in it to measure anything. Use both: the tablet for numbers, the book for stories.
- Does it work for free-entry museums?
- Yes — drop the value-for-money question and keep the rest.
Running a museum or gallery? Sensa collects this survey on tablets you already own — anonymous, one tap per question, results per exit and per exhibition, with a smiley scale for families. Short surveys run on Starter; the full version and multiple exhibitions on Pro.
Start free with one locationRelated guides
- MetricsWhat is Net Promoter Score (NPS), and why is it worth measuring?The question, the formula, a worked example, what counts as a good score — and how to collect NPS from walk-in visitors, not just email lists.
- LibrariesHow to measure customer satisfaction in a librarySeven questions in priority order, collected by a tablet at the exit — and how to read the answers to find the one thing worth fixing first.
- MethodsFeedback kiosk vs QR code vs comment cards: which should you use?Three ways to collect feedback on-site, compared honestly — including when a QR code or a paper card is the better choice.
- SetupiPad kiosk mode: how to lock an iPad to one appLock an iPad to one app with Guided Access — free and built in. Setup steps, the checklist that keeps a kiosk running, and when to outgrow it.