1. I don't like when museums have cafes or restaurants that aren't walled off from the collection. Smelling food and hearing the clatter of dishes distracts me.

Often many small objects are displayed in one case. I don't like when these cases are set into the wall. I prefer when the case is away from the wall so patrons can walk around it without crowding each other. Obviously there are limits to this, depending on the exhibit.

I don't like when museums reframe old paintings into modern frames to fit with a gallery's look. I don't think this is done so much anymore, but there was a time when it was. The frame is part of the presentation, and should be either left alone or, when replaced, chosen very carefully.

Cards with information about the pieces should concentrate on the art, the artist, and the historical and social milieu in which the work was created. They should not include current political judgments of the artist or her times, unless of course that's the entire point of the museum or exhibit, in which case I'd be an unlikely patron.

I don't like specified entrances and exits in an art museum's permanent collection. In a current exhibit, it's fine to keep the heavier traffic flowing in the same direction, but permanent collections are for wandering and it's humiliating to be chided for swimming upstream when I want to enjoy art at my own pace and direct my own tour.

I don't like when docents or curators shoo me away while they're giving someone else a tour. It doesn't happen often but it's embarrassing and pointless. I understand if it's a group of kids, but I'm unlikely to want to tag along with that kind of tour. But I am interested in what the curator has to say, and I don't think increasing my enjoyment of art by listening diminishes whatever gains are made by keeping such tours exclusive.

2. I think the art museum I built would depend mostly on the collection. I like high-ceilinged, airy spaces with neutral wall fabric. I'm not a big fan of stark white painted spaces.

I like interestingly shaped rooms -- ovals, rhombi, odd triangles -- and I like when passages from one room to another prevent you from seeing what's next (except in cases of grand hallways, in which it can be neat to look through a big doorway and see a statue prominently displayed). There's a thrill to turning a corner and seeing something dazzling.

I like to see jewelry and coins in dark velvety rooms with little lighting beyond that which illuminates the pieces.

I would take a lot of display cues from Walters Art Museum in Baltimore or the Luxor Museum in Egypt. Of course it would be great to have such a fine collection as well.

My ideal museum would be free. I grew up with access to the Smithsonian and I still feel strange paying to see art. I know this is an unusual stance, but it's not just a quirk. Parents think twice about committing to a museum visit with a little kid when it costs money, since kids sometimes have short attention spans or other reasons to leave quickly. Twenty dollars for a fifteen minute museum visit is discouraging, and means that a lot of children miss out on an important and potentially exciting experience.

I don't visit many art museums but I dislike insufficient signage especially when the museum has a lot of little nooks. The museum here has a full gilded age bedroom in a room off to the side. My coworkers have seen it but when I went there, I could not find it and I never saw any signs for it.

Having an audio guide dictate which order to see the works.

When guards stare at and follow me...even when I've checked my bag!

1a. I don't like it when you can't really tell why the objects are arranged in that particular way. They don't have to all be Spanish oils from the 15th century, but (as, say, in one of our campus museums) they'd have a piece of 18th century furniture next to some John Steuart Curry piece and I'd think, "Are they just throwing things together because this is all they have?"

1b. Sometimes the rooms are an awful warren! When I go to the Art Institute of Chicago, I can never remember where the ginormous El Greco is because I get turned around within all that marble :P Some sort of orientation to indoor landmarks would be nice.

1c. Cafe or "hang-out space" access needs to be available from both inside and outside the "paid" area. If you have kids, if you have people who can't spend a long time or just want to meet you there, whatever. I went to the Field Museum several years ago and was not particularly impressed by the stuff I paid 20 bucks to see; we hung out in the McDonalds. Annnnd... the McDonalds was inaccessible unless you were already inside. As Hugh Janus pointed out, it's no good to spend a lot of money just to get to a place where you can take your screaming kid or go to the bathroom.

2a. More places to sit.

2b. I would have a tiered pricing strategy and/or free days each month. When I have visited the Art Institute, I've gotten in for free sometimes because it was late in the day. I've enjoyed the extra benefits of membership (my mom's), but don't think they're absolutely necessary to enjoy the museum as a whole. And I'm happy to pay extra for a visiting exhibit.

2c. I would share more of the collection, either rotating items in and out more frequently or giving the visitors more of an idea of what the museum actually owns. What's the point of having them if you do nothing with them?

I don't like the modern sterility that comes with some museums in an effort to be up to date. The new cafeterias in both the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, are uglier and sterile-i-er than sin. When the PEM remodeled several years ago, they got rid of a lot of the coziness and folksy-ness that made a museum feel like a nice place to visit. Maybe I'm just old-fashioned that way.

brujito hit on one of my major annoyances -- having a guard stare at me as I wander. The absolute worst on this (that I've yet encountered) is The Rothko Chapel, in Houston, which was a place where you (I) could sit in silence, or stand in silence, just be in that spectacular room, but ten years ago or fifteen for some reason now there is someone gaping at you the entire time you are there. I've walked to them said "Hey, look, I'm not hurting anything and I'm not going to, plz buzz off" but it seems that someone has decreed that this must be done to everyone, no matter what. I don't meditate there any longer, that's for sure, stings even to walk into the place anymore, and it's one of the most beautiful places in Texas.

The museum is about the collection, rather than the building. The art will stand on its own, if given a chance. I know the collection at The Blanton very well, here in Austin, was so glad that they were building a new hall solely to show that collection; I'm thinking "Great, now they'll have proportionally more of the collection on display at any time." I was/am astonished/appalled to find that, while they have these beautiful, vast, soaring walls and halls, there is way, way less of the collection on display. Worse, they don't/won't rotate to show it all. It's insane. I'd rather have seen them shove each painting cheek to jowl with the next, one over the next stacked three high and seventeen side by side in a garage, at least I'd get to see them. And there is now an admission charge, which I guess I'd be fine with but I'm damn sure not fine with as it is. I miss that collection, sortof breaks my heart to know that somewhere here in town, in some cooled storage area, lies a great collection that no-one ever sees. A waste.

hugh janus hit on another button -- when there is a visiting show, I'll go, if at all possible, at a time when there will not be a huge crush of people stampeding through, so I can enjoy it fully. And then, when I wander back to favorites that I want to get glued into my eyes, nailed onto my heart, some gaseous-looking frowny mope gaping at me sternly -- comical. So caught up in what they've been told that they can't think, can't see that no one is getting hurt. I don't pay them any mind anyways, and sometimes the right smile will wake them up; I guess that's it, they're just asleep is all. I wish they'd wake up, and help them when I am called to. Or something.

I don't much like when a museum shop has artsy gee-gaws but not much related to the collection, either permanent or traveling. I'm not a wealthy man, two hundred dollar books, for me, are library items, or Half-Price Books items, but it's nice to send my sister a card with a painting I love, to share that with her, or a smaller paper-bound book, so plz, a few things in my reach. A favorite reminder of a trip to Paris is a medallion from a Klee design, was on a key-ring but I knew a pendant when I saw one; I can share a small bit of that trip with others decades later, when they ask what is that interesting pendant.

As far as how I'd create a museum, what I'd want in one of my design, I can't really think of what defines great vs not so great; I get caught in the art maybe and don't notice if I don't like whatever about a building or the team behind it. It's the collection, by far, over the building.

That said, I'd want to open it at least a few times a week for free, perhaps on off-peak days -- if I recall correctly, The Art Institute, the MFAH in Houston, and the San Antonio Museum of Art all are free on Thursdays, or maybe Thursday nights after X:XX PM. I spend lots of time around museums, proportionately, it's church for me, in cities I've lived with large collections I've spent many hours -- I began to find art, or it me, in Chicago, on Thursday nights, in 1981, week after week I went there to worship, or begin to learn to worship, learn the rudiments of my faith, try to understand The Clear Truths of some of the prophets. Maybe a museum I'd build would all the time have a section open free, so the uninitiated could take a peek, sortof like a dealer giving you some junk there at the first.

I like real one-off buildings. I love that the SAMoA in San Antone is in what was a huge Lone Star Beer distillery -- how about THAT for a Texas flavor, right? That building had been closed down for years, fallen into decay and disrepair, a low hang-out, I've got a buddy who used to drink and drug and screw there in high school and now it's an art museum -- that makes me so happy. Another one-off is the building which houses The Menil, in Houston -- set into a residential neighborhood, a really unusual design, pulled off perfectly -- I guess what I'm trying to say is that so many art museums look like so many others, and while I'm mostly about the collections, it does add fun/love when they stand apart in their own ways.

Unmentioned so far (I agree with most of what folks said above, and really really agree with more places to sit) is a good HVAC system, capable of bringing in lots of fresh air while keeping the spaces comfortable. Stumbling around drowsily due to lack of fresh air (I'll spare you the physiological changes that go on with stale air) detracts from the experience of the visitors.

Plus, and I have no idea whether this is a really good idea or not, but some "palate cleansing" areas, in which on can stand, sit, or walk through and not encounter art, even for a few steps.

As an avid museum goer, I dislike two things

1) Over zealous guards. usually not a problem, but they can pretty overbearing in some galleries (I was just leaning in! I am a full four feet from the object!) gah.

2) No Context. The old fashioned "here are a hundred examples of peroid lamps in a glass case" thing. I'd rather have ONE lamp, with lots of notes and a detailed breakdown of WHY this Lamp IS. I'd really like the "few select curated objects" thing over the LETS SHOW YOU EVERYTHING.

I'm a huge fan of reconstructed rooms and places so you can see everything in context and pull in lots of different kinds of fields I E: This doesn't just look good, it was designed for a purpose, etc, there's a story along with this thing ..etc. Context!

I also like being able to touch things but I know that's not really possible lots of the time.

A really good audio guide is worth so much, it can very academic like the Berlin national, or even just music - the New Palace in Vienna has an option of just hearing peroid music for collections, and that was AWESOME.

Oh, and this is kind of specific to big collections, but an "after hours" night with drinks and an event-like atmosphere is great, it turns the museum into a hang-out-like destination "Oh hey after work lets get drinks at The Museum and look at stuff" kinda thing.

OOOOOOh, I also really like the gimmicky "Lets show you how we made Candles/stone work/etchings/ whatever" but that's just me liking crafts....and again CONTEXT!

although people dressed up in peroid garb for no reason (it's not about a fashion thing) irks me irrationally.

This may be specific to Tate Modern in London... Love the place to bits, but they happily sold me a full-price timed-admission ticket to the very last hour of the Edward Hopper exhibition a few years ago. It was a great exhibition, very popular, and the last day was the only day I was free to go. It soon became apparent that an hour was nowhere near enough time to see the whole exhibition, and I was thrown out when the gallery closed.

In general, I love the fact that most big museums in this country have free admission. I adored visiting MoMA in NYC last month but I had a free day in which to do so, so I felt I got good value out of my $25 - in London I can pop in and say hi to a few favourite paintings when I'm en route to somewhere else.

Like dancestoblue, I would love the museum shop to carry a range of items somewhere between $2 kids art kit and $1500 piece of artisan glass. Also, please stop trying to sell me $75 tote bags and/or blank journals. I have (and will) purchase artist biographies, books on art movements, exhibit catalogs, small well-made gift items (say $50 and under) made by local artists, and the like. I won't buy 'artistic' mass-produced gee-gaws. Also, if an item is in the permanent collection, and currently on display, could there at least be a postcard with the image?

I love when there is a place to sit.

Some of us are short. When exhibit cases go to 6 or 7 feet high, I literally cannot see what is on the top shelf unless I stand across the room, which means I can't really see what is on the top shelf. This drives me crazy.

My local art museum has done a very cool thing; the last room before exiting the galleries *is* a 'touch this please' room. After wandering around for several hours looking but not touching, there is a child-like joy in running one's fingers over bronze or wood or thickly textured oil paint. I always leave with a smile.

Yeah for the shop I like books, biographies, local crafts, postcards..no so much things with the art just mass-plastered on them like some huge Cafe Press warehouse. Like If I was at a museum on say, home life and art during the Puritan peroid, some crafts relating to the time peroid would be nice and if they came from the area that would be double nice.

Ever go to the National Building Museum in Washington, DC? It features cool exhibits about stuff like parking garages and infrastructure development, colossal structural columns in a huge ballroom, and a kickass museum store.

I really want to thank you all for your responses and for the thought that went into this question. This feeds into a pretty meaningful project at work, and I'm happy to be able to provide such detailed and honest feedback from exactly the kinds of people we hope our museum would please most. I'll report back...and thanks again. This was just great and so thoughtful. People do really care about museums and their experiences there -- something you'd be surprised not museum staff are not always so keyed into. This really helps.

an "after hours" night with drinks and an event-like atmosphere is great, it turns the museum into a hang-out-like destination "Oh hey after work lets get drinks at The Museum and look at stuff" kinda thing.
This would be awesome - it might be too specific to where I live/work, but most people don't live anywhere near our largest museum, so it's a whole trip into the city on a weekend, pay for parking, make sure you can afford to get the kids a snack (or pack them and lug them around with you) etc etc. If I could wander over to the museum after work with a few co-workers for a drink and a bit of culture, that would be fantastic.

Not necessarily practical, of course, liquor licensing, possible security issues if people drink too much etc makes it understandable why this would be hard to do.