Muse: Museum & Art Tracker

Rank the museums you've been to and Muse works out the score. Keep track of your favorites and share with friends.

Muse is a record of your museum life. Everywhere you've been, in order, with a score. Everywhere you mean to go, saved and waiting on the map.

This started as an idea my sister had. We were talking about museums and she said she wished there was a rating system for them so we could keep track of all the places we'd been and how much we liked them. Then we found out we had the same favorite museum, the Vasa Museum in Stockholm. We'd both loved it and neither of us knew the other had it at number one. That was kind of the whole pitch.

Before this I kept track with my memory and my camera roll. Photos that never got posted and maybe got shown to a handful of friends. It felt wrong, because there were some really good memories in there, and some works you just don't see unless you go there or go searching for them.

So I built Muse. It took a couple of weeks, mostly during the day in coffee shops and hostels, constantly going to new museums to test it out and figure out which features I'd actually use. It was a lot of fun. This is the app I wanted to have in my pocket while traveling.

Here's how it works. Ranking a museum takes two or three taps. Muse asks how the visit was, then compares it against museums from your own list until the new one finds its place. Rank five and scores unlock.

The score comes from your answers. When I'm comparing two museums it's about the feeling I had in there, the works I still remember, the space itself. The good ones give you a sense of awe and wonderment. Some of the biggest museums I've been to ended up surprisingly low on my list and some tiny ones are near the top. It helps cut through some of the popularity bias that's usually there.

80,000+ museums in 26,000 cities are already in the catalog, so whether it's the Met or a tiny maritime museum in a town whose name you forgot, it's probably there. If it isn't, you can add it.

When I'm in a new city I just open the app and look at what's around me and what's ranked highest nearby. I save a bunch, tap directions when I'm ready to go. For art museums I look at the top works so I know what to seek out if I only have an hour.

You never walk into a city blind. Whenever I get somewhere new I ask around, locals, other people at the hostel, anyone who's been there a while. Muse does the same thing with the people you actually know. Follow someone whose taste you trust and a blue ring marks every museum they've ranked, right on your map. When a friend asks what's worth seeing, you send your list, or a guide you put together for the city. And if you don't have a mom who knows which artists to look for like I do, the top works page is the next best thing.

Muse is something you use alongside travel, or just exploring the city you already live in. It's a journal of your favorites, and a way to discover things you might not otherwise find. I built it for my friends and family and I hope whoever downloads it gets the same value out of it that I do.