Design and evaluation of a visitor guide in an active museum

Abstract

Most often visitors come to a museum with limited time available and want to get the right information for their interest. In such scenario, where there is an overload of information to be delivered in a relatively short time, technology may play a crucial role in supporting museum visitors and enhancing the overall visit experience. Content preparation and delivery must be organised in a way that will provide relevant information to the visitors and at the same time allow them to get the level of details and perspectives they are specifically interested in. The user interface should be intuitive and guarantee focus on the exhibit. Personalization can play a key role in providing relevant information to museum visitors. Moreover, since visitors tend to visit the museum in small groups, supporting the group and not only the individual is another aspect where technology may contribute, whether by during-the-visit communication or post-visit group interaction. The project applied recent research results and infrastructure of the PEACH project at the Hecht Museum at the University of Haifa, and extended them with further results, and in particular has provided the first elements of a an attention shift in the direction of small groups of visitors. Evaluation with users substantiated several aspects of the design and in some cases yielded unexpected results.