FORMULATING DESIGN GUIDELINES FOR CULTURAL HERITAGE MULTIMEDIA SYSTEMS WITH BYZANTINE ART CONTENT C. Voutounos*, A. Lanitis and P. Zaphiris Dept. of Multimedia and Graphic Arts, Cyprus University of Technology, P.O. Box 50329, 3036, Lemesos, Cyprus, {c.voutounos, andreas.lanitis, panayiotis.zaphiris}@cut.ac.cy KEY WORDS: Byzantine Art, Multimedia Design Guidelines, System Evaluation, User-Centred Design ABSTRACT: The development of future multimedia systems for the presentation and preservation of Byzantine art necessitates the formulation of special design guidelines, which brings Byzantine art and new technologies in a constructive technocultural symbiosis. The e-learning and pedagogical effectiveness of multimedia projects with Byzantine art content, the visualisation of Byzantine imagery, the deeper and devoted research in issues like the aesthetics of Byzantine art, the spiritual communication of Byzantine art promote the need of a technocultural approach synthesized by two ���distinct��� elements, multimedia and Byzantine art. With a proposed evaluation experiment for a website with a Byzantine theme, we investigate the reactions and perceptions of young people for Byzantine art, in order to create design guidelines applied on future projects with relevant content. The results of this survey evaluation study, targeting a group of Cypriot young people 15-30 age, superimpose the argument that multimedia e-learning projects specialising in Byzantine art, should promote design strategies that will enchase the communication of Byzantine art in new media. 1. INTRODUCTION Multimedia information systems are being used in a large range of information dissemination applications such as educational applications, entertainment, news, health, military - civil defence, tourism and cultural applications. According to the application domain, the design of a multimedia information system should address special issues related to the nature of the information presented and the needs and abilities of the anticipated users. For this reason the design of successful multimedia information systems needs to be based on design guidelines derived through careful analysis of the needs of the target group (Shneiderman, 1998) in relation to the application domain. Due to its importance, the general topic of establishing guidelines that enable user-specific design guidelines for general applications received considerable interest in the literature (Nielsen, 2000). A special case of multimedia information systems are involved with applications that require concentration, spiritual involvement and deep engagement of the user in order to maximise the attractiveness of the application, maximizing in that way the educational impact and the level of spiritual interaction offered. Typical examples of such applications include multimedia systems for presenting artefacts and/or artefacts with symbolic meanings as part of information dissemination in cultural heritage applications. Such applications may require special design strategies so that the end result fulfils the expectations and needs of the target users. To the best of our knowledge, the formulation of customized design guidelines for multimedia applications that require the spiritual and emotional engagement of the user was not addressed in a systematic way so far. With our work we aim to derive design guidelines that can be used for developing multimedia systems for the presentation and preservation of Byzantine art, enabling in that way the maximization of the user satisfaction in relation to the material absorbed by the user. As part of our work we presented to a number of young volunteers the web site (www.culture.gr/mystras-edu) containing information about Byzantine art and asked the users to complete a number of tasks/scenarios that enabled them to experience different features of the system. The experience of the users was then evaluated through a customized questionnaire that aims to assess key aspects of the system. The results obtained are analyzed and a set of design guidelines related to the development of multimedia systems for presenting and visualizing Byzantine art are derived from the results. While many multimedia projects with archaeological and cultural heritage interest promote effective design practices that engage the potential users, we notice that multimedia projects specializing on Byzantine art, rarely promote the aesthetic and spiritual qualities of Byzantine art. We argue that the narrative potential of new technologies provides us the content creation tools for a successful aesthetic interpretation of Byzantine art and the effective engagement of perspective users. However the exigent factor for a success of such a system relies on a focused design, which especially applies design guidelines for multimedia design with Byzantine art content. Our research indicates that the specific issue of formulating system design guidelines for the sector of Byzantine art has not been studied in the literature so far. On the other hand, HCI is a very important field of study towards the implementation of content oriented design guidelines. Accepting the principle that user engagement is depended upon the design of specific application (Nielsen, 2000) and the usability based on age centred design (Zaphiris, 2005) content oriented design also requires a careful understanding of needs and abilities of users. For justifying this argument we needed firstly to identify the background of young teenagers - adults on Byzantine art, and secondly to address their needs on using multimedia systems with Byzantine art content. Initially we directed our interest on a special age group of Cypriot population in order to derive design guidelines that reflect young age perceptions. The work described in this paper presents the initial stages of our ultimate task that involves the development of a multimedia information system for the narrative presentation and aesthetic communication of

Byzantine artefacts. We are conceived that the presented design guidelines will be of utmost importance towards the development of a system that fulfils the expectations of the perspective users, contributing in that way to a more usable, enjoyable and effective distribution of information and knowledge related to Byzantine art content. Although our work is mainly dedicated towards the design of systems with a Byzantine theme, we anticipate that the end results and the proposed methodology will be applicable for the design of similar cultural heritage related systems that require the spiritual engagement of the users. The remainder of the paper is structured as follows: In section 2 a brief history of Byzantine art is presented. In Section 3 issues related to Byzantine art and multimedia are presented in order to justify the reasons that the design of relevant multimedia systems requires customized design principles. The methodology adopted, the results obtained and conclusions about our work are presented in sections 4, 5 and 6 respectively. 2. BYZANTINE ART 2.1 Historical Evolution Substantially Byzantine art begins around 330 A.D. when the capital of Roman Empire is transported in Byzantium. Byzantine art from the catacombs time has been progressively shaped in a particular form of art with concrete characteristics and special formality. Initially samples of early art depictions adorned the catacombs with wall paintings that presented portraits of Saints, representations from the life of Christ, as well as symbolic representations. This special form of art evolved throughout the ages in the spirit of the church and tradition accepting however exterior effects, for example Hellenic naturalistic elements or even Egyptian art abstractive elements. Byzantine art was formed to its characteristic Byzantine image and language identity at the beginning of the 6th century (Popova, 2002). After the Joustinian era (527-565), the early flourishing period of Byzantine art is followed by the Middle Byzantine period. The second flourishing art production period peeks during the Macedonian dynasty (867-1055) when Byzantine art has taken a more canonical form. From the middle of the eleventh century till the taking of Constantinople by Crusaders in 1204, Byzantium is ruled by Comneni and Angeli. The Comnenian era leaves a special technotropy style in Byzantine art, the Comnenian style (Yuri, 2000). During the last dynasty of Byzantium the Palaeologan, lasting from the revival of Byzantine Empire in 1261 till the fall of Constantinople in 1453, Byzantine art underwent a renewed flourishing known as the ���Palaeologan Renaissance���. Also in the Post Byzantine period Byzantine art is not extinguished but is flourishing in the island of Crete (with the famous Cretan school) and in many other Orthodox centres including Cyprus. 2.2 Theoretical foundation of Byzantine art While Byzantine art ���style��� varied considerably during different periods the overall style remained stable. The various styles of Byzantine art are expressed through Byzantine aesthetic ideas determined by the Christian religious consciousness (Popova, 2002). In regards to Byzantine icon-painting the Byzantine image uses a particular language, which expresses irreproachably the doctrines and the commands of Orthodox Church. It is an art of spirituality which is expressed with the tools of painting without being just a painting. The Byzantine iconography - ���Agiografia��� portrays Saints in pictures, ���writing��� their narrative depicted Hagiographies. In contrast to the naturalistic religious painting of the West a Byzantine image does not imitate human physiognomies. Characteristics of Byzantine iconography like big eyes, small mouth, big nose, tall - thin figures, do not present Saints in their absolute physiognomies representations. Historical realities are rather expressed with perfect symbols in various Byzantine art compositions. While historical reality constitutes the most important question for the church, Byzantine art proposes a transcendental, exceeding the borders of time, revelation (Clement). These values apply in all traditional mediums of Byzantine art (icons, murals, mosaics, illuminated manuscripts, engravings, liturgical objects) and in Byzantine architecture. The religious and pedagogic extensions of Byzantine aesthetics are considered major cultural qualities of the theoretical foundation of Byzantine art (Michelis, 1967). Unfortunately these qualities are very often neglected by stakeholders of Byzantine art���s visual reproduction in new media. 3. BYZANTINE ART ON MULTIMEDIA 3.1 The problem on presenting Byzantine art in multimedia In general, virtual heritage scientific community faces a relevant critical question. This concerns the credibility and validity of disseminated cultural heritage information. Very often the documentation and validation methodologies applied are in question by professionals who have a stake in this field, for example archaeologists. Their expressed concerns for the Virtual Archaeology field raise questions on the reliability and the motivations behind many Virtual Archaeology projects (Ryan, 2001). The ���spectacular��� presentation of heritage material, in opposition to the archaeological consideration, is a basic argument for archaeologists who feel that virtual heritage is taking control out of their hands. For these reasons, even for the demanding field of 3d visualisations, newer approaches (Pletinckx, 2008) promote interpretation tools for heritage visualisations according to the requirements of the content. But where the problem lies as far as Byzantine art heritage interpretation in multimedia is concerned? In regards to the World Wide Web presentation of Byzantine art, for plain reasons of ownership, museums holding Byzantine art heritage usually promote their artefacts and disseminate information of academic level in a limited way in the web. Also this information is mainly intended for general public (Foskolou, 2007). In terms of Byzantine art aesthetics which is a subject equally important for pilgrims, Byzantine art students and specialist researchers, most usually church websites provide that kind of spiritual, cultural and academic content information (www.art.solidarity.gr/). In recent VR ( applications, scientists propose innovative imaging techniques for the 3d virtual reproduction of Byzantine monuments (http://byzantinecyprus.com/) and realistic computer graphic simulations for Byzantine art based on cultural heritage sites and objects environmental illuminations (Happa, 2009). But apart from the imaging innovations in Virtual Heritage the exploitation of spiritual cultural elements eg rituals and sacraments (in relation to sacred art) in virtual environment design, is rather rare. While some researchers are interested in recreation of intangible cultural heritage elements (eg, dance, religious services, music), (Papagiannakis, 2002) the typical