The Smithsonian Institute's National Museum of African Art (NMAfA)
partnered with Balance to create Connecting the Gems of the Indian
Ocean: a fascinating, engaging, and entertaining mobile app sharing the
history surrounding East Africa to the Arabian Peninsula trade route from
1000 B.C.E. through the 19th century.
Available
for download on iTunes and Google Play for both phones and tablets, the
mobile app gives users an ocean of additional content for visitors and
shares the wonderful stories from the museum through text, images,
animations, and videos for those who do not have the opportunity to
visit. Users can also explore the 3D photo-real artifacts, complete
with additional content, for a richer educational experience.
The
custom content management system allows the administrator to add, edit,
or delete content, images, videos, and links, and includes a robust
searchable database.
The
museum also wanted to quantify the great response to the mobile app.
Employing Balance Studio's proprietary analytics platform, illumine™, NMAfA
is able to see how successful the app is regionally, identify popular
categories, and obtain data including dwell time, unique and returning
visitors, and more.