Abstract

A multitude of challenges comes into play when attempting to design (and evaluate) an interactive digital storytelling experience for use by visitors in a museum. This paper reports on the evaluation of the prototype mobile-based storytelling “guides” designed, developed and deployed as part of a research project at the Acropolis Museum in Athens, Greece. Experiences designed for different visitor profiles were evaluated several times throughout the iterative design process, in a number of on-site studies, and with more than 180 museum visitors of all ages (with this paper reporting on two studies conducted with a total of 53 users visiting individually or in pairs). The evaluation methods included ethnography (i.e., observation of visitors in the Museum’s galleries), pre- and post-experience in-depth interviews and questionnaires to measure the Users’ Experience (UX), as well as data logging. The analysis of the data focused on themes representing components of the experiences, such as interactive story plot and narration, staging and way-finding in the physical space, personalization and social interaction. Our findings confirmed that understanding UX and what makes it effective or not in the rich context of a cultural setting is a complex endeavor. The paper discusses our findings and proposes relevant recommendations for the design of digital experiences for cultural, educational, and recreational purposes.

Highlights

  • IntroductionThe experience economy [1] has led to an increasing adoption of the notion of ‘user experience’ by cultural institutions such as museums, which compete with other venues for visitors’ recreational time.In their attempt to broaden their offer and attract new audiences, cultural institutions are embracing the design of experiences for their visitors; that is, holistic, meaningful, personally encountered events or stories “emerging from the dialogue of a person with her or his world through action” [2] and involving a mesh of psychological, social and physiological qualities with a particular emphasis on emotions [3].Storytelling is seen as an interpretive technique that, when used appropriately, can communicate value, cultivate experiences with emotional resonance, encourage empathy, trigger visitor’s attention and meaning-making [4,5,6].Digital technology, especially mobile, plays a significant role in helping cultural institutions shape storytelling experiences for visitors

  • Data collection as well as the analysis of the collected data were structured around the following set of themes, which were articulated as key questions during the interviews: 1

  • Our work builds on a growing body of research and practice that strives to enrich museum visits by digital means

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Summary

Introduction

The experience economy [1] has led to an increasing adoption of the notion of ‘user experience’ by cultural institutions such as museums, which compete with other venues for visitors’ recreational time.In their attempt to broaden their offer and attract new audiences, cultural institutions are embracing the design of experiences for their visitors; that is, holistic, meaningful, personally encountered events or stories “emerging from the dialogue of a person with her or his world through action” [2] and involving a mesh of psychological, social and physiological qualities with a particular emphasis on emotions [3].Storytelling is seen as an interpretive technique that, when used appropriately, can communicate value, cultivate experiences with emotional resonance, encourage empathy, trigger visitor’s attention and meaning-making [4,5,6].Digital technology, especially mobile, plays a significant role in helping cultural institutions shape storytelling experiences for visitors. The experience economy [1] has led to an increasing adoption of the notion of ‘user experience’ by cultural institutions such as museums, which compete with other venues for visitors’ recreational time In their attempt to broaden their offer and attract new audiences, cultural institutions are embracing the design of experiences for their visitors; that is, holistic, meaningful, personally encountered events or stories “emerging from the dialogue of a person with her or his world through action” [2] and involving a mesh of psychological, social and physiological qualities with a particular emphasis on emotions [3]. In particular, are credited for ensuring access to vast amounts of information, catering to differing visitor styles, interests and needs [7] They are perceived by the cultural institutions themselves [8,9,10] as a means to bring multiple and new voices

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