Digital MediaVisitor Engagement in the Museum

Merel van der Vaart - @MerelVaartAmsterdam School for Heritage & Memory Studies

Allard Pierson Museum

PhD Research:

Mediating the Museum: The impact of on-gallery technology on visitors' engagement with museum objects

(How) can technology help visitors engage with museum objects?

meSchMaterial Encounters

with Digital Cultural Heritage

“meSch aims to co-design novel platforms for the creation of tangible digital exhibits

at heritage sites”

Digital Artifacts Tangible Interaction Co-creation

Part 1: Theory

• Technology & Museums

• The Museum Visit

• Technology & Visitor Engagement

Part 2: Practice

• Visit the exhibition Keys to Rome

Part 3: Reflection

• Discussion

Ross Parry & Nadia ArbachIn: Cameron & Kenderine (eds.) ‘Theorizing Digital Cultural Heritage’ (MIT Press: 2007)

online offline

off-site

on-site

Ross Parry & Nadia ArbachIn: Cameron & Kenderine (eds.) ‘Theorizing Digital Cultural Heritage’ (MIT Press: 2007)

websites 'outreach'

in-gallery internet connections / live labels

traditional museum visit

online offline

off-site

on-site

Ross Parry & Nadia ArbachIn: Cameron & Kenderine (eds.) ‘Theorizing Digital Cultural Heritage’ (MIT Press: 2007)

Responsive websites

'outreach'

in-gallery internet connections / live labels

traditional museum visit

Apps / social media

online offline

off-site

on-site

Ross Parry & Nadia ArbachIn: Cameron & Kenderine (eds.) ‘Theorizing Digital Cultural Heritage’ (MIT Press: 2007)

Responsive websites

'outreach'

in-gallery internet connections / live labels

traditional museum visit

Apps / social media

online offline

off-site

on-site

Visitors

information objects

Visitors

information objects

Museum Staff

Visitors

information objects

Museum Staff

Visitors

information objects

Museum Staff

online offline

off-site

on-site

http://kpnrijksmuseum.com/

Visitors

information objects

Museum Staff

“Visitors are under no obligation to engage with free-choiceexhibition environments…

… and yet they do.”

Tiina Roppola‘Designing for the Museum Visitor Experience’ (Routledge: 2012)

John H. Falk & Lynn D. Dierking‘The Museum Experience’ (Whaleback Books: 1992)

The Interactive Experience Model

Physical context

Social Context

Personal Context

Interactive Experience

“on average, visitors use exhibitions at a rate of

200 to 400 square feet / 18,6 to 37,2 m2 per minute.”

The museum visit is a continuous decision-making process.

On average, visitors’ pace is high, because they only stop at a small selection of all displays.

Beverly Serrell‘Paying Attention: The Duration and Allocation of Visitors’ Time in Museum Exhibitions’ in Curator: The Museum Journal 40/2 (California Academy of Science: 1997)

“attention is selective

(…)

attention has focusing power

(…)

the capacity of attention is limited.”

Stephen Bitgood‘The role of attention in designing effective interpretive labels’ in Journal of Interpretation Research 5/2 (National Association for Interpretation: 2000)

Visitors decide when and how they want to visit the museum.

Visitors have their own agenda when visiting the museum.

Visitors decide how to engage with exhibits & displays.

Some visitors like being guided, some don’t.

Visiting museums is exhausting & people know it.

Visitors have needs

information objects

Museum Staff have a message

Museum staff:

Rich content, complexity, multimedial, layered narratives,

visitor-led exploration.

Visitor:

What does it do & how will I benefit?

How does it work?

How much attention (time/energy) is required?

Touch screens: Depth & choice of information.

How do you see the museum’s perspective (message)?Show personal points of view on the objects, from different cultural perspectives. Provide some interactivity & show how different people interacted with the objects in different ways.

Are visitors’ needs met?Might work well for children, while providing grandparents with a role as well. Content need is not met (lacking depth). Could do with more interaction opportunities.

Compliments:Looked nice. Potential of multiple perspectives on 1 screen is great. Easy to use. Screens close to objects.

Advice: Use the screen to tell an aditonal story. Don’t repeat the same information that’s available on text labels.

Smart object: Tangible interface.

How do you see the museum’s perspective (message)?Give people a more complete understanding of object. Provide information in a visual way.

Are visitors’ needs met?Screen and smart object are too far apart. Because of the positioning it is impossible to look at museum object, smart object and screen at the same time. The three should be more integrated, because now the smart object lacks added value. It is not necessarily clear how the installation should be used.

Compliments:The installation provides a different type of (tactile) interaction.

Advice: Put the screen in a different position to make it more accessible. Place the object a bit higher. Might make it multi-user/game.

Revealing Flashlight: Mapping information onto object.

How do you see the museum’s perspective (message)?Reveal the original colour together with original object, allow visitors to compare the two.

Are visitors’ needs met?Nice to have extra layer on top of object. You can see contrast, because not all of the colour is revealed at the same time. It makes your curious to see the rest. The installation is difficult to start with. Hard to figure out how it worked. You need to see how others are using it & make an effort to figure it out.

Compliments:Like this installation best. Engaging & incorporating object & digital.

Advice:Make it more visible, it’s easy to miss. Provide better instructions & make it easier to use. This could be a good discussion starter & frame the way people might look at other objects on display.

Overall integration & visitor experience

Concept/idea of the three perspectives is nice!

It is not possible to compare the three perspectives.

The content of the iPads is perceived to offer very little to no added value.

Some 3D objects are of poor quality compared to real objects. However, virtual reconstruction offers added value.

Would have liked extra information with second layer objects.

The narrators of the three perspectives are not introduced.

We are not used to sharing screens & perspectives are personal, which makes visit less social.

The project (2013-2017) receives funding from the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme ‘ICT for access to cultural resources’ (ICT Call 9: FP7-ICT-2011-9) under the Grant Agreement 600851.