There is a solution for each of the three obstacles holding back your digital mediation

For several months now, we’ve been reaching out to museums. Large ones, small ones, municipal ones, thematic ones, regional ones. More than 1,200 institutions have been contacted across France. And one thing is clear: the questions we’re asked are, almost word for word, always the same.

This is no coincidence. It’s a sign. When 1,200 different people, who don’t know each other, describe the same problem to you using the same words, it’s no longer an isolated opinion. It’s a collective barrier.

Three obstacles come up again and again. Here’s what they are—and how we address them.

First obstacle: the budget

This is the word that comes up first, almost every time. And it covers two realities that are often confused: the physical audio guide, with its devices that must be purchased or rented, recharged, cleaned, and repaired, exhibition after exhibition; and the custom-built app, which generally costs between €20,000 and €80,000 to develop, plus 10 to 20 percent of the budget each year for maintenance, an amount that rules out this option for the vast majority of regional museums, which already bear 80% of the operating expenses for institutions designated “Musée de France.”

With YOMU, neither is necessary. No equipment to buy, recharge, or maintain: visitors use their own phones, either via an app or directly from the web. And no development costs to bear: the technology is shared among partner institutions, so that individual museums do not have to shoulder the design costs alone. A predictable monthly or annual pricing model, tailored to your needs.

Second obstacle: time

The second word that comes up is time. Or rather, the lack of it. 18% of museums have no staff dedicated to their online presence, and 55% do not have full-time staff for this purpose. The outreach coordinator is already responsible for programming, school workshops, and communications. Digital initiatives come at the bottom of the list, if there’s any time left. So they never get done.

The question, then, isn’t “which tool to choose,” but “do we have the time to carry out this project?” And that’s precisely what we built to avoid: we co-create content with your teams, offering machine translations into 33 languages, a ready-to-use framework—you remain in control of what’s published without having to devote time you simply don’t have.

Third obstacle: the fear of dehumanizing the tour

This one is different from the first two. It’s not a question of resources; it’s a belief: that digital technology will replace the tour guide rather than complement them.

The fear is legitimate. But it’s based on an outdated view of the field. The smartphone is no longer an object that needs to be “introduced” into the tour—it’s already there. 87% of French people own one, and more than 95% of those aged 18–40. And about 8 out of 10 visitors take out their phones during the visit to photograph a work of art, look up an artist’s name, or translate a label. The debate is no longer about whether to allow smartphones in the galleries. They’re already being used—by everyone—for everything.

The real question is who is responsible for this use. The museum, with content it controls and has chosen to share? Or Wikipedia and Google, stepping in, with information that isn’t always verified? Or worse: a chatbot like ChatGPT, which invents a plausible answer rather than admitting it doesn’t know. A well-designed tool does not replace the docent: it reaches isolated visitors, non-French speakers, or those visiting outside of hours when human docents are available.

What these three obstacles have in common

Budget, time, and fear of dehumanizing the experience: three ways of expressing the same hesitation, stemming from the lack of a tool designed for a museum without a developer, without a dedicated team, and without the budget of a major national institution. This is exactly what YOMU was designed to address: a visitor scans a work of art with their phone—no QR code required—and accesses a multi-format resource (audio guide, video, quiz, customized tour) via the app or the web, available in 33 languages. You manage your content and track your audience from a dashboard, without any development work or a dedicated technical team.

We’ve compiled everything we’ve learned from these 1,200 interactions into a comprehensive white paper on the state of digital technology in French museums.

Download the white paper →

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