Studying the role of interactivity in museums: Designing and comparing multimedia installations

Abstract

Interactive installations for museums are a particular kind of interactive systems, the design of which has been the subject of several research studies. However, the aspects of a rich, cultural experience are easily overlooked in a technologically driven system design and there are few studies that actually compare the role of different interaction styles (such as touching versus walking) on the museums visitor's experience. We present our experience of designing a cultural interactive multimedia exhibition, comprised of four sensor-based interactive installations, and two non-interactive installations. Our results were organized around usability problems detected, social interaction issues and differences between interaction styles, and suggest that the most enjoyable installations are those which facilitate collaborative activities as well as those making a creative use of sensor-based technology. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.