Research into arts patrons' mobile preferences

Group of Minds, the arts and technology consultants over in Silicon Valley, have commissioned an update to their 2009 research into the mobile preferences of arts patrons. You can download the report from here.

I’ve been looking at differences in mobile traffic, conversion rates and use cases lately so I found this interesting. I’ve mostly been looking through clients’ Google Analytics accounts which is great in many ways, after all those are actual figures for what users are doing. However, you don’t quite get the whole picture.

The Group of Minds research is survey-based, which gives scope for asking a different set of questions and for gauging intent – you’re less likely to bet your life on the results, but they provide some extra flavour. There’s plenty of good stuff in these are the bits that stood out to me:

• 21% of respondents indicating that they use their mobile devices to purchase tickets; and
• A high percentage of users wanting information about event logistics: directions, proximity of events, and parking information

Those two sound about right to me, although I’ve only been seeing figures around the 20% mark for mobile transactions, and that’s only where the ticket purchase pathway is mobile-friendly (otherwise you’d be lucky to see a quarter of that).

Users wanting logistical information is interesting. I’m not disagreeing with this, but I’ll write something separately about how I think use cases differ for mobile users. I don’t think it’s a mobile-only issue but, as far as it applies to mobile users, I think there’s a more sophisticated set of circumstances that need unpicking. It starts to edge into how possible/realistic it is to personalise experiences for website visitors – an area where imaginations often outpace reality (and budgets).