Fighting fires and powering steam locomotives: Distribution of control and its role in social interaction at tangible interactive museum exhibits

Abstract

We present a video-analysis study of museum visitors' interactions at two tangible interactive exhibits in a transport museum. Our focus is on groups' social and shared interactions, in particular how exhibit setup and structure infuence collaboration patterns. Behaviors at the exhibits included individuals focusing beyond their personal activity towards companions' interaction, adults participating via physical interaction, and visitors taking opportunities to interact when companions moved between sections of the exhibit or stepped back from interaction.We demonstrate how exhibits' physical confguration and interactive control engendered behavioral patterns. Systematic analysis reveals how diferent confgurations (concerning physical-spatial hardware and interactive software) distribute control diferently amongst visitors. We present four mechanisms for how control can be distributed at an interactive installation: functional, temporal, physical and indirect verbal. In summary, our work explores how mechanisms that distribute control infuence patterns of shared interaction with the exhibits and social interaction between museum visitor companions.