Museum Visitor Experience Research Articles

Exploring the Role of Smellscape in Enhancing Landscape Perception: A Case Study in the University History Museum

As the cultural importance of universities continues to grow, university museums have become key platforms for promoting university heritage and values. However, enhancing the visitor experience in these museums remains challenging. This study examines the effectiveness of smellscape in enhancing the visitor experience in university history museums, with a focus on how various scents impact visitors’ emotions. Using the Fuzhou University History Museum as a case study, the museum was divided into three distinct zones: the Historical Evolution Zone (HEZ), the Contemporary Development Zone (CDZ), and the Thematic Exhibition Zone (TEZ). Specific scents were selected for each area to evaluate their emotional impact, and data were gathered using electroencephalography (EEG) indicators, emotional questionnaires, and scent pleasure scales. The results indicated that calming scents like sandalwood and agarwood, used in the HEZ, convey a sense of historical depth but may also evoke negative emotions, whereas sage enhances positive feelings. In the CDZ, rosemary and mint significantly improve emotional states, while lemongrass exhibits weaker pleasantness and appears less suited for this area. In the TEZ, scents such as patchouli and orange blossom align well with future-oriented themes, demonstrating high levels of pleasantness and emotional value. Smellwalk interviews further validated the experimental results, revealing notable differences in the emotional impact of smellscape across different exhibit zones. A thoughtful selection of scents can enhance the cultural expression of spaces and effectively regulate visitors’ emotional experiences, strengthening the cultural resonance of museum environments. Future designers may consider incorporating olfactory elements into landscape design.

Managing Visitor Experience in Museums: Aiming Towards Satisfaction Through Edutainment and Perceived Authenticity in Arts and Culture

This paper demonstrates the value of edutainment and authenticity when managing the visitor experience and satisfaction with a service. The study concentrates on the specific type of services that are provided by museums. Drawing on the social cognitive theory, the paper explores the relationship between edutainment (defined as the combination of education and entertainment provided through interactive content) and the three components of the perceived authenticity of museum visitor experience, 1) the museum, 2) the visitor, 3) the materials. Including edutainment and hedonic expectations as antecedents, with satisfaction as an outcome, the paper proposes a new model of perceived authenticity of visitor experience. The model was tested on a sample of 313 museum visitors (in Croatia). The results revealed that edutainment (as a second-order construct) positively influences perceived authenticity. Also, hedonic expectations positively influence one out of three components of perceived authenticity of museum visitor experience, i.e. self-authenticity of the visitor, but there was no influence on the other two components – museum and materials. Finally, perceived authenticity positively influences visitor satisfaction. Our research provides useful insights to museum managers and service managers in general who should consider using edutainment as a strategic approach to managing the visitor experience and satisfaction.

Small museums designing new visitor experiences: needs, limitations and opportunities

ABSTRACT In this article, we investigate how small museums running on volunteers deal with the challenge of innovation given that the future is becoming more digital. From the literature, little is known about the strategies and practices for designing innovative visitor experiences in small museums and about the skills needed for doing so. In particular, we were interested in understanding how professionals working in small museums design experiences that mainly appeal to and engage a younger public and how digital innovation can play a role in both attracting and keeping such audiences engaged with the museum. Our most important conclusion is that the question of “how to innovate” is misplaced and that small museums rather need to capitalize on the strong tie with the community they serve. Only in this way can they lower the threshold to access and connect to a broader public that is younger and more diverse.

Accessibility and expansion of the narratives’ space: convergent technologies and semiotics of exposition in an art museum

The development of convergent technologies opens up new horizons for expanding the sensory experience of museum visitors, especially the people with disabilities and alternative perception. We argue that augmented reality (AR) technologies, mainly used to develop applications that visually expand physical spaces, may serve not only as a tool of inclusion and immersion, but also an instrument of reviewing the narrative of art history delivered by a classical museum. Although AR technologies are focused mainly on visuality, detecting and localizing objects and images, as well as mapping and augmenting the visual space, they could be employed to expand the museum environment by other sensory modalities, such as sound and tactile sensations. Increasing the level of information accessibility of museum expositions and the independence of the development of exhibition space by people with disabilities is possible, among other things, by providing them access to context-aware information (MoMA, Tate, Garage and other institutions provide examples of such type of curatorship and exposition design).Furthermore, we argue that the issue of contextualization of knowledge received by the museum visitor is considered should be considered in a broader sense: we take the museum as a space of narration, where the main concepts of art history (with its conventional semantic accents and limitations) are shaped, consolidated and delivered. Having analyzed the logic of a classical art museum exposition, we review the alternative models for presenting art history narratives (in curatorial projects of A. Malraux, J.-H. Martin and F. Lyotard) and argue that new media may become a tool not only for inclusiveness and immersion, but also for a special type of subjectivation of the viewer involved in the process of creative rethinking of the history of art. Inclusiveness, immersion and semantic flexibility provided by new media makes museums a space for an open dialogue. Instead of outlined birders and «ready-to-use» senses an exhibition can show how «other things are possible». We argue that curatorial experiments and media applications dedicated to art can turn a museum into a zone of seeking that awakens the viewer to an independent search for subtle meanings and stories that exist on the periphery of the classical history of art. And the new media extensions of museum space, considered in the context of inclusion, may also be viewed as a tool for building new narratives and developing models for a more flexible and complex interpretation of art history in a multipolar world.

Enhancing Museum Experiences: A Multi-Institution Mobile Multimedia Delivery System Using BLE Beacons

This paper presents a solution using Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacon technology to enhance visitor experiences in museums, both indoors and outdoors. Organizations using the developed mobile service can associate text, images, video, and audio content to specific exhibits, providing a dynamic and engaging encounter for visitors. This innovative approach extends applicability to a wide range of organizations, not just museum environments.

Visitor Experience in Digital Museums: Dimensions, Scale Development, and Validation

Visitor Experience in Digital Museums: Dimensions, Scale Development, and Validation

가상현실(VR)이 박물관 관람객 참여도에 미치는 영향 분석

First, a review of current research has found that virtual reality technology can greatly enrich the experience of museum visitors and enhance their participation and interaction. It also provides recommendations for future research in this field. This study constructed a model for evaluating museum user experience to provide important theoretical guidance for the exploration of VR in museum user experiences. By referring to the APEC model framework for user experience, a structural equation model was proposed to evaluate museum user experience based on three variables: emotional experience, cognitive experience, and interactive experience. Seven related hypotheses were analyzed and verified through surveys, revealing that the emotional, cognitive, and interactive experiences of users in VR museums positively impact user experience. Additionally, user experience serves as a mediating variable, showing mediating effects between emotional experience, cognitive experience, interactive experience, and user engagement.

Enhancing museum experience through deep learning and multimedia technology

Amidst the swift progression of artificial intelligence (AI) technology, the museum sector has witnessed a notable inclination towards its adoption. This manuscript endeavours to amplify the interactive milieu of contemporary museum patrons by amalgamating a deep learning algorithm with multimedia technology. The crux of our investigation is the exploration of an adaptive convolutional neural network (CNN) to enrich the interactive engagement of museum visitors. Initially, we leverage the adaptive CNN for the image recognition chore pertaining to museum artifacts and exhibits, thereby facilitating automatic recognition and categorization. Furthermore, to surmount the constraints of conventional pooling algorithms in image feature extraction, we suggest an adaptive pooling algorithm, grounded in the maximum pooling algorithm paradigm. Subsequently, multimedia algorithms are amalgamated into the interactive apparatus, enabling visitors to immerse in exhibits and avail more profound information and experiences. Through juxtaposition with traditional image processing algorithms, the efficacy of our proposed algorithm within a museum ambiance is assessed. Experimental outcomes evince that our algorithm attains superior accuracy and robustness in artifact identification and classification endeavours. In comparison to alternative algorithms, our methodology furnishes more precise and comprehensive displays and interpretations, accurately discerning and categorizing a myriad of exhibit types. This research unveils innovative notions for the digital metamorphosis and advancement of modern museums. Through the incorporation of avant-garde deep learning algorithms and multimedia technologies, the museum visitor experience is elevated, proffering more enthralling and interactive displays. The elucidations of this manuscript hold substantial merit for the continual evolution and innovation within the museum industry.

Visitor experience as translation

Abstract This paper explores the museum visitor experience as a form of translation. It argues that if a given exhibition can be seen as a cultural translation, then it is also true that the visitor’s reading of that exhibition constitutes a further layer of translation, as the visitor enacts their own transformation of the culture on display. The paper draws on intertextuality as a means to understand the ways in which this transformation occurs. It delineates a three-level typology of intertexts employed by the visitor and considers how the use of such intertexts constructs the visitor’s positionality in regard to the exhibition. The paper focuses on data from a diasporic museum, the Museum of Chinese in America, and applies a methodology involving analysis of TripAdvisor reviews and post-visit diaries to the online museum. The paper concludes that diaspora museums are a case in which the particular nexus of identity issues at work provide a more complex view of the visitor experience as translation.

Artworks at our fingertips: A solution starting from the digital replication experience of the Annunciation in San Giovanni Valdarno

The Annunciation is a remarkable artwork painted in the early 1430s by the Dominican friar Giovanni da Fiesole, better known as Beato Angelico, and now preserved at the Museum of the Basilica of Santa Maria delle Grazie in San Giovanni Valdarno, Italy. It is a wide tempera painting with some fine gold foil placed on a wooden support, representing many symbolic details hard to be fully appreciated at a distance by the observer. To enhance the museum's visitor experience on it, as well as providing scholars with a tool to help deep investigations, a digital high-resolution Digital Twin of the painting was developed. This paper summarizes the outcomes of the process, introducing the custom software applications and hardware solutions that were customized for the artwork's digital replication. Exploiting digital photogrammetry and photometric stereo techniques, the model was prepared to host colorimetrically corrected maps at Gigapixel resolution, reaching a high-definition measurable detail threshold and following a well-established process refined over time by the authors. The fruition of such a complex model was performed through a custom process ending in AnnunciatiOn App, a solution integrated by both graphical and physical touch interfaces, whose features grant a deep interaction with the Digital Twin on kiosks destined to exhibitions. The results feed the discussion on the production and communication of digital replicas of artworks in museum collections and how they can be upscaled to be targeted to simple visitors as well as scholars and restorers.

Exploring the Impact of an IoT-based Game on the Experience of Visitors at a Natural Science Museum

The use of Internet of Things (IoT) technology to improve access to cultural heritage sites and enhance visitor engagement has become increasingly popular. Nevertheless, there is a lack of studies evaluating the actual benefits of such technology on visitors’ experiences, which is crucial to improve the IoT adoption in this field. To address this issue, we present an exploratory study we performed to understand whether and how an IoT-based game affects the experience of museum visitors. The game is played after a traditional guided tour; it was created following a meta-design approach to enable domain experts, such as museum professional guides, to adapt the game to specific visitors and/or situations. The study involved a total of 18 participants who took a guided tour of the Museum of Natural Sciences of the University of Bari and played the game afterward. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected. The study results show that playing the IoT-based game positively affects the experience of visitors and, in particular, their emotions. Visitor workload was also found to be greater than that of a guided tour, but this had no negative impact on visitor experience. The study findings have implications for the design and development of future IoT games to enhance engagement and to improve the experience of visitors at cultural heritage sites.

Application Research on Integrating Digital Garden Culture into Exhibition Space Design of Science and Technology Museum

Application Research on Integrating Digital Garden Culture into Exhibition Space Design of Science and Technology Museum

Determining the experience of museum visitors by text mining: example of Topkapı Palace museum

Determining the experience of museum visitors by text mining: example of Topkapı Palace museum

The impact of sound and immersive experience on learners when using virtual reality and tablet: A mixed‐method study

Multisensory‐rich VR experiences, which encompass visual, auditory, and haptic stimuli, have the potential to enhance engagement, motivation, and learning. However, extensive sensory stimuli could also compromise learning through sensory overload. In museum settings, visitors who are inundated with excessive stimuli such as unrelated background music or competing visual options may not experience optimal learning. This mixed‐methods study addressed this potential problem by exploring the impact of sound on learning, enjoyment, sense of presence, and the development of interest among museum attendees (N = 255) who used two different types of technology: high‐immersion VR or a tablet. Results from a one‐way MANOVA revealed that learning and sense of presence were unaffected by the technology used unless sound was added. Using a tablet with sound lowered the sense of presence. Participants in the VR condition with or without sound had significantly higher enjoyment scores than those in either tablet condition. The development of interest was not significantly affected by any condition, regardless of whether sound was used. The research findings have implications for implementing VR for learning in museum settings. For instance, VR can enhance a sense of presence in museum exhibits, but a sense of presence may be significantly diminished when museum visitors use tablets with sound. Additional recommendations for the use of multimodal VR in museums are provided. Practitioner notesWhat is already known about this topic VR can support an immersive and engaging experience for users. VR is more immersive than tablets. When designed effectively, sound can increase immersion and engagement. When integrated into the visual environment, sound can add authenticity to the learning content. VR can complement museum exhibits as it allows museum visitors to extend their learning experiences. What this paper adds VR enriched with sound can significantly and positively impact sense of presence. Compared with a soundless VR exhibition, VR enriched with sound enhances engagement of museum visitors by drawing their attention to the content of the exhibits. VR with and without sound can support learning and add enjoyment to museum visitor experiences. Implications for practice and/or policy Developers interested in adding sound to VR should ensure that the visual and auditory experiences are directly related to the desired content delivery. Museum exhibit creators and curators should consider the use of VR to provide dynamic learning experiences that increase enjoyment and presence.

On-site Learning in Museums: Re-conceptualizations and Re-directions for Museum Education in the Post-pandemic Digital Age

As the digital age introduces an increasing amount of media technologies to traditional museum settings, a wealth of literature has found that these technologies are exerting prominent effects on museum visitor experiences. Such technical shifts in essence imply a growing part of communication activities, metaphors of media culture, and implications for technology-empowered learning based on museum institutions. New emphasis is being placed on state-of-the-art definitions of museum-technology, museum-learner, and museum-society relationships, appealing for re-conceptualizations of Museum, Museum Communication, and Museum Education, and therefore inviting communication and media culture scholars to join this discourse. Reviewing upon on-site learning issues discussed in previous museum research, this paper addresses the theoretical needs for present on-site educational practices in museums with re-conceptualizations of several important and operationalizable terms and proposes an interdisciplinary, learner-centred agenda for future museum education research and practices that are facing challenges and potential opportunities from e-learning and digital culture.

Bridging the Gap Between Education and Experience: A Comparative Analysis of IPB University Museum's Visitor Experience

Bridging the Gap Between Education and Experience: A Comparative Analysis of IPB University Museum's Visitor Experience

Determining the experience of museum visitors by text mining: example of Topkapi Palace museum

Determining the experience of museum visitors by text mining: example of Topkapi Palace museum

Mobile Serious Game for Enhancing User Experience in Museum

Mobile technology offers new opportunities to enhance the visitor experience in museums. Mobile serious games can support experiential learning with authentic exhibits in an authentic museum environment based on the contextual learning model with the interaction between the personal, socio-cultural, and physical context. In developing the game, we wondered whether it could appropriately motivate and engage different age groups in the museum experience with its challenges of different difficulty levels; whether a mobile game could, through its challenges interacting with the museum environment, prevent “head-down” behavior; and whether museum exhibits could be better recalled by visitors participating in a tour with a mobile game than in two other traditional tours (i.e., guided tours, tours with museum brochures). The results of the study showed that a tour with a mobile serious game with challenges of different difficulty levels is suitable for visitors of two target groups (i.e., families and students). Since each challenge encourages interaction with the museum environment, it could largely prevent “head-down” behavior. The results also show that a tour with appropriately planned multisensory challenges motivates visitors to actively engage with the museum environment, resulting in slightly better recall of exhibits compared to other tour types. The results of this study can help bring museums and the history they represent closer to digital generations, 1 and popularize modern informal learning methods associated with incidental and experiential lifelong learning that can take place anytime, anywhere, and help achieve higher taxonomic knowledge levels.

Assessing visitor experiences at the Iron Gates hydro-electrical power plant (Romania)

Guest books are acknowledged as a means of public dialogue and have been used as a source of information regarding visitor experiences in museums. The current paper focuses on an exploratory case study, namely the experiences visitors have at the Iron Gates Hydro-electrical power plant in Romania. According to the classification of Pekaric et.al. 1999 and using the entries in the visitor books for 12 months, the study highlights the fact that while Object experinces are dominant, there is no doubt that for quite many visitors, there is a feeling of pride and ownership obvious in their short narratives.

THE IMPACT OF INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY ON ENHANCING MUSEUM’S VISITOR EXPERIENCE: THE CASE OF THE SHARJAH MUSEUM OF ISLAMIC CIVILIZATION

Museums are progressively using ICT to reinforce cultural and heritage tourism. Museums are vital in transmitting cultural values, propagating traditions, and linking current generations to their heritage. ICT has recently gained prominence for its ability to stimulate creative approaches. The use of ICT in museum operations is widespread, particularly in the areas of presentation and preservation. Museums, according to previous research, use a range of ICT tools to enhance the visitor experience (VX) through modernizing their exhibits and object interpretation. The purpose of this paper is to gain a better understanding of the VX as well as to evaluate the visitors' standpoint on ICT in museums. The research was applied to the Sharjah Museum of Islamic Civilization. Two primary approaches were used, which include qualitative data such as literature reviews and interviews, as well as quantitative data as the main ways that employ questionnaires. Findings indicate that integrating technological tools can enrich the VX in museums by allowing for the usage of a variety of digital media types.