When museum directors consider what exactly makes their museums successful, they tend to look at their many objectives. These objectives typically include the conservation of their collections, education value of their exhibits, and public enjoyment. What exactly museums consider quality and success may vary from museum to museum, depending on their exact mission statement. However, the museum director's perspective differs widely from the public's point of view. For the public, a museum is successful if the visitor leaves with a lasting impression of the museum's contents and intent. While the collected objects in the exhibition are the focusing point of a typical museum visit, other factors such as architecture and other design elements can enhance or diminish the visitor's museum experience. In particular, the buildings museums occupy establish the way in which a visitor experiences the exhibition. The structure of a museum can guide visitors through exhibits by moving them along carefully connected rooms and corridors, or allowing them to move freely through open space.

E.T. Linenthal's book Preserving Memory examined how the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. guides their visitors through an exhibit which advances the narrative of the Holocaust as the visitor progresses through the museum. This method of moving visitor's through an exhibit work well in this instance, since the Holocaust Museum has a narrative to present that the visitors move through. But such an orderly and structured system is not as conducive for the objectives other museums. Art museums, for instance, might want their attendants to take their time as and appreciate the art on display in the museum, and might find moving their visitors through their museum like cattle contradictory to their objectives. Instead, an art museum might consider large open galleries, like those in the Seattle Art Museum. The large open spaces and allows visitors to take their time with any given gallery or pieces of work, without having visitors feel like there is something they need to see next or move on to. Both methods are very effective at achieving the goals their museums have set, it is important to remember how the structure of an exhibit, and the museum as a whole, affects the experience of the visitors.