Increasing the Museum Visitor’s Engagement Through Compelling Storytelling Based on Interactive Explorations

Abstract

Today, technology offers exciting and news possibilities to bring visitors closer to museums. The museological universe has developed a lot over the last years, presenting today with innovative characteristics thanks to the digital realms, losing the characteristics of traditional and static museums. As a result of this development, the requirements of visitors increased. In this paper, we introduce a new approach to making the visitor experience more immersive and engaging. We present “StoryWall”, a tangible user interface. We created a sensorial experience by presenting the content through touch, vision, and sound. As the main contribution to HCI in museums, we report on the utilization of this interactive installation as a case study. Preliminary results bring important design implications for this context: how can one develop and implement innovative technology in museums without disturbing the traditional environment and other constraints? We also report on how designers can balance the impact brought by technology in museums and ways to inspire exploratory behaviors as well as promote collaboration among visitors.