Case Study: John Deere
Introducing Visit John Deere - The App Experience!
Some museum tools come and go. Audio tours are not one of them. They have been guiding visitors through galleries for decades, and they remain one of the most dependable ways to help people slow down, look closer, and connect with a collection. Here is why we think they still belong in almost every museum's toolkit.
Personalized exploration: Audio tours let visitors move at their own pace. They can linger in their favorite exhibits, skip the ones that don't pique their interest, and revisit significant artworks or artifacts as often as they like.
In-depth information: Each stop can carry historical context, artistic insights, and the stories behind the exhibits — depth that a wall label rarely has room for.
Accessibility: Audio tours are designed to serve diverse audiences. They offer options for multilingual narration, making museums more accessible to international visitors, and they can feature audio descriptions for visitors who are blind or have low vision — helping every visitor feel valued.
Engaging storytelling: A well-crafted audio tour is a storytelling medium. It brings exhibits to life and connects visitors with the narratives behind the artifacts, which is what makes a visit memorable.
Educational value: Audio tours are an effective teaching tool for adults and children alike, conveying historical, scientific, and cultural information in a form people actually absorb — and, at their best, sparking a love for learning.
This is not only a matter of principle; it shows up in the measurement. Across 31 measured institution-years in our portfolio, visitors using a Guru app spent an average of 55.6 minutes with it inside the venue, with a median of 54.6 and no measured institution falling below 37 minutes. Twenty-five of those 31 institution-years cleared 45 minutes and 13 cleared a full hour. Afterwards, 57.7% opened the experience again a week or more after their visit.
That last figure is the one institutions rarely plan for. An audio tour people reopen at home has stopped being a utility that ends at the exit.
Audio tours remain a timeless, essential tool for immersive, personal, self-paced museum experiences.
At Guru, we build audio tours into fully branded visitor apps because we believe technology should deepen the connection between people and collections — not stand in the way of it. If you're wondering what an audio tour could look like at your institution, take a look at how we approach audio tours, or simply keep the question in mind on your next walk through the galleries.
Behind the scenes of how we turn museum stories into interactive, accessible experiences - plus what we’re learning along the way
