Leaning Into Value: How Digital Tools Help Museums Define, Deliver, and Demonstrate Impact
Museums have long been trusted institutions—repositories of art, history, science, and culture. But trust alone no longer guarantees relevance. In an era when public expectations are shifting and funding is increasingly tied to measurable impact, museums face a new challenge: to prove not only that they matter, but how they matter.
At Footnote, we believe that the next era of museum innovation will be defined not only by access and engagement but by a deeper question: what value do museums create, and for whom?
In his recent book Leaning Into Value (2024), researcher and author John H. Falk calls for museums to become “user-focused institutions.” He argues that the sector’s future depends on understanding what visitors truly need and designing experiences that deliver genuine, demonstrable value. As Falk writes, “Museums must move from being about something to being for someone.”
That simple shift—toward centering value as defined by users rather than institutions—has profound implications for access, relevance, and sustainability. And it’s precisely where digital tools, data, and design thinking converge.
The Value Imperative
Over the past decade, museums have navigated enormous change: audience fragmentation, digital acceleration, financial uncertainty, and the lingering aftershocks of the pandemic. Many responded by embracing technology—QR codes, virtual tours, mobile guides, and data dashboards. These initiatives have expanded reach, but the question remains: are they delivering value in ways that visitors recognize and funders can see?
Falk’s research reframes this dilemma. Value, he writes, is “what people believe they gain from interacting with your organization.” That gain could be intellectual, emotional, social, or spiritual—but it must be perceived by the user.
For decades, museums have measured outputs: attendance, memberships, program counts. But what if the true measure of success is not how many people visit, but how many people benefit? Leaning into value means designing every interaction—physical or digital—around the visitor’s outcomes. It means understanding why people come, what they hope to experience, and how those experiences improve their lives.
From “About Something” to “For Someone”
Traditional museum models have centered on collections, exhibitions, and scholarship. The institution was the expert, and the visitor the recipient. Falk argues that this mindset, while historically successful, limits museums’ ability to respond to rapidly changing expectations. Visitors today seek connection, meaning, and belonging. They want to see themselves reflected in stories, contribute their own perspectives, and leave with something personally significant.
By shifting from “about something” to “for someone,” museums unlock new possibilities for interpretation, inclusion, and engagement. The focus moves from what the museum offers to what the visitor receives.
At Footnote, we see this shift every day. When museums use our platform to link digital stories, audio, and translations directly to objects in their galleries, they move from broadcasting information to facilitating connection. A visitor scanning a code beside an artifact isn’t just reading facts—they’re forming a relationship with the institution through relevance and accessibility. When technology is designed for someone, not something, it amplifies value.
Understanding What Audiences Truly Value
Knowing your audiences is the foundation of any value-driven institution. Falk identifies five broad categories of museum users—Explorers, Facilitators, Professionals/Hobbyists, Experience Seekers, and Rechargers—each motivated by different needs and expectations.
Understanding these motivations allows museums to design for outcomes, not assumptions. Explorers thrive on discovery; Facilitators value shared experiences; Rechargers seek solace or beauty. Each arrives with distinct goals, and each leaves with a unique sense of value gained.
Digital tools make it possible to see these patterns clearly. Engagement analytics, dwell times, language preferences, and content selections reveal how users navigate exhibitions and what resonates most. This data, when interpreted responsibly, provides a map of value creation.
It also helps museums address equity. Many audiences remain underserved not because they lack interest, but because they face barriers—physical, linguistic, economic, or cultural. By analyzing who engages, how, and who does not, museums can target access efforts where they matter most. As Falk notes, “Institutions that understand their users are better equipped to create value for them.” The goal is empathy at scale—powered by data, guided by mission.
The Value Realization Cycle
In Leaning Into Value, Falk introduces a practical framework he calls the Value Realization Cycle—a continuous loop that helps institutions define, deliver, and validate user value.
The cycle includes five stages:
Calibrate – Understand who your users are and what they need.
Articulate – Define the value your museum intends to provide.
Design – Create experiences that deliver that value.
Validate – Measure whether users actually received it.
Refine – Use evidence to improve future offerings.
This process transforms value from a vague aspiration into an actionable system. It also mirrors how effective digital design works—continuous, iterative, user-informed.
Digital platforms like Footnote naturally support this cycle. QR-based interpretation calibrates audiences through analytics, articulates value in accessible language, delivers experiences in the gallery, validates engagement through interaction data, and refines content through ongoing learning.
When museums adopt this mindset, they stop treating digital as a one-time project and start seeing it as an evolving infrastructure for relevance. As Falk writes, “Value is not static; it must be continually created, recognized, and renewed.”
Digital Tools as the Infrastructure of Value
In today’s museum landscape, digital systems are more than communication channels—they’re the infrastructure through which value is delivered and measured.
A visitor’s journey might begin online, continue through an on-site mobile experience, and extend afterward via follow-up stories or collections access. Each touchpoint represents an opportunity to generate and record value.
Mobile interpretation platforms, when thoughtfully implemented, bridge the physical and digital. They offer accessibility (translations, audio, visual supports), personalization (choose your path, save favorites), and continuity (return later, share stories). Every interaction deepens relevance while producing measurable insight.
Crucially, digital tools also democratize value. They allow small and mid-sized institutions—often rich in content but lean on staff—to deliver world-class experiences without world-class budgets.
When museums leverage these systems strategically, they not only reach more people but also understand them better. The result is a virtuous cycle: value created, data captured, insight applied, value increased.
Proving Value: Data, Insight, and Trust
For decades, museums have been asked to justify their impact in terms funders understand: numbers, growth, efficiency. But as Falk emphasizes, “Value cannot be proven by volume alone.”
True proof comes from demonstrating outcomes—what changed for users as a result of engagement. Did visitors learn something new? Feel inspired? Connect with others? Experience a moment of peace or joy?
Digital tools make these outcomes visible. Engagement metrics reveal attention and curiosity; feedback forms capture reflection and meaning; repeat visits indicate trust and loyalty. When combined, they tell a story of impact that goes beyond attendance.
This isn’t about replacing human insight with numbers—it’s about using evidence to strengthen relationships. By articulating and demonstrating value, museums build trust with their audiences, communities, and funders. They show not only that they matter, but why they matter.
Building a Culture of Learning and Adaptation
Value-driven museums don’t treat evaluation as an afterthought; they build it into every project. When teams use data not to defend past choices but to inform future ones, learning becomes part of institutional DNA.
This shift requires cultural change. Staff must feel empowered to ask questions, test ideas, and iterate. Leaders must see experimentation not as risk but as responsibility. A museum that learns from its visitors—rather than simply teaching them—stays relevant, resilient, and humble.
Digital tools support this transformation. They collect feedback in real time, reveal patterns invisibly to staff, and make it easy to test new content or layouts. Over time, those small experiments build a picture of what truly creates value.
When museums learn continuously, they adapt naturally. They can pivot when audiences change, when funding shifts, or when new technologies emerge—because the mechanisms for understanding and responding are already in place. As Falk reminds us, “Institutions that make decisions based on evidence, not assumptions, are the ones that thrive.”
How Footnote Helps Museums Lean Into Value
At Footnote, we see value creation as both a mission and a method. Our platform was built to help museums deliver digital interpretation that is accessible, adaptive, and analytics-driven. In practice, that means:
Understanding users. Footnote’s engagement data helps museums see who is interacting with content, what draws their attention, and where barriers exist.
Delivering relevance. Mobile storytelling, translations, and audio interpretation make collections more personal and inclusive—meeting visitors where they are.
Demonstrating impact. Our analytics dashboards show how engagement translates into outcomes: how many people interacted, which stories resonated, and how long visitors stayed connected.
Together, these tools help museums apply Falk’s Value Realization Cycle without needing a research department. They make it possible to calibrate, articulate, design, validate, and refine—all within a single ecosystem.
But more than that, they turn value from an abstraction into something visible and actionable. When museum leaders can see what works, they can defend budgets, win grants, and grow audiences with confidence.
Leaning into value isn’t just a theory—it’s a practical framework for sustaining mission in a changing world. And digital infrastructure like Footnote is how that framework comes to life.
Conclusion: From Relevance to Resonance
Museums have always sought relevance: to connect their collections and stories to contemporary life. But in today’s environment, relevance alone is not enough. Audiences, funders, and communities are asking for resonance—experiences that matter personally and demonstrably. Leaning into value offers a path to that resonance. It shifts focus from what museums own to what people gain; from presentation to participation; from numbers to meaning.
John H. Falk’s research gives us the language and framework. Digital tools like Footnote give us the means. When museums combine these—anchoring technology in purpose and purpose in evidence—they become not just accessible, but indispensable. They can say, with clarity and proof: This is the value we create, and this is why it matters.
Sources
Falk, John H. Leaning Into Value: Becoming a User-Focused Museum. Rowman & Littlefield, 2024.
Quotations used with attribution to the author.
Additional context drawn from Footnote research and sector best practices.