Royal Delft Museum is the museum for Delftware in the Netherlands. It has opened its’ renovated doors in the midst of the pandemic and is mostly populair among foreign visitors. Recently, they have also expressed their wish to better cater to the interests and needs of the domestic public as well. This sparked the opportunity for this thesis project: increasing the attractiveness of Royal Delft Museum for domestic visitors. Extensive research has been done and resulted in several design guidelines which can be found at the end of every chapter. These guidelines were used for the final design.

The project started with an initial exploration of the context of Royal Delft Museum and their customer journey. Secondly, a theoretical framework about museum visitors and their reasons for visiting a museum was developed. Additional research has been conducted to discover more about the societal impact museums have and what challenges they want to overcome in the future.

Data has been gathered about the visitors that have been visiting Royal Delft Museum in order to determine which domestic target group proved the most promising to attract, and thus, which people to interview. Interviews were conducted using the contextmapping method and the insights were clustered. Ideas were iteratively developed and two creative sessions were held; one with the museum, the other one with a group of IDE students.

This eventually lead to a strategic roadmap and the final concept Transform. Transform is an open, creative space which can best be described as a combination of an artist-in-residency and a space for future museum development. The main purpose of Transform is to provide a platform which showcases more diverse perspectives and cultural expressions on a variety of topics linked to ceramics.
Transform is a space which allows for collaborations between artists and the museum. Through Transform, the museum is able to facilitate a space which is beneficial for the museum as well as artists and visitors. It helps the museum to better understand their visitors and to cater to their needs and beliefs. It gives artists a platform and interactions with visitors.

In the validation phase, the designed meaning of Transform and its desirability were tested through interviews with participants. These were among the same participants who also took part in the contextmapping interviews.
The meaning proved to be communicated well; The participants thought Transform was a valuable addition to the museum because it provided a new perspective on the museum experience due to its innovative character. It was found that experimenting with and promoting the events in Transform were crucial for it to be a succes.

In the discussion and conclusion the results are reviewed based on the impact Transform could have on attracting visitors. Things to do differently next time are addressed. Finally, recommendations are formulated for future development of Transform by Royal Delft Museum.