by Micah Walter

Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum (CHSDM) is generating and collecting large amounts of data. This data, generated by the use of an interactive pen (The Pen) presents an opportunity for CHSDM to develop a deeper understanding of its visitors.

To better understand the data, CHSDM has started to develop new analytics tools to allow its staff the ability to look into all of its datasets at once, generating queries and reports in a more holistic and cohesive way by using a technique known as Data Warehousing.

This paper will use data collected and generated by CHSDM as a case study. At the time of this writing The Pen has been issued to over 130,000 visitors and used to collect over 3 million objects in galleries and through interactive tables. Each time an object is collected, a record is created of the Pen that was used to collect it, the time and date it was collected, and whether it was collected by tapping the Pen to a label near an object or through the use of an interactive table.

CHSDM knows which objects are the most popular at any given time, how long visitors spend in its galleries, and many other quantitative facts about visitor behavior it previously was unable to understand. The museum is beginning to be able to develop a deep understanding around the ways its visitors behave with the Pen and this paper will attempt to explain how it can continue to develop the tools necessary to dig even deeper.