High Museum offers dating app to help you ‘hook up’ with your favorite art

June 15, 2019

The High Museum wants you to swipe left on getting lost and swipe right to a personalized, curated tour of its galleries.

The Midtown museum has launched an app, Heartmatch, that lets visitors match with artwork currently on display in a Tinder-like fashion. After matching with enough art to fill your visit, you can then get a personalized map of the museum to help guide you through the more than 50 galleries.

“If you’re in a hurry, new to the museum, or just want a personally curated way to view works in our gallery, #heartmatch is for you,” the museum said on Instagram.

To create your own map, visitors can visit Heartmatch.org. You swipe right if you like an object, left if you don't. After you are finished, you can have the site email you a map to bring on your visit.

Julia Forbes, head of museum interpretation, and Ivey Rucket, manager of web and new media, said the museum began discussing creating a mobile app last fall, in a post on AAM-US.org.

“We had three goals in mind. First, we wanted to show our on-site visitors the diversity of our collection. Second, we wanted to direct them to artworks they liked so they could experience them in person. And third, we wanted to collect data on our visitors’ tastes,” the pair said.

The app will show visitors up to 100 pieces of art, which the museum is tracking to help make marketing and display decisions in the future.

“We wanted enough to give them a feel for what we have, but not so many that they would get bored,” Forbes and Rucket wrote. “After some testing, we decided upon 100, which takes less than five minutes to swipe through but still gives our users a good introduction to the collection.”

Planning a visit to the High? In addition to HeartMatch, check out the AJC guide to the High Museum for not-to-be-missed works and practical tips on parking and prices.