Using dates as contextual information for personalised cultural heritage experiences

We present semantics-based mechanisms that aim to promote reflection on cultural heritage by means of dates (historical events or annual commemorations), owing to their connections to a collection of items and to the visitors’ interests. We argue that links to specific dates can trigger curiosity, increase retention and guide visitors around the venue following new appealing narratives in subsequent visits. The proposal has been evaluated in a pilot study on the collection of the Archaeological Museum of Tripoli (Greece), for which a team of humanities experts wrote a set of diverse narratives about the exhibits. A year-round calendar was crafted so that certain narratives would be more or less relevant on any given day. Expanding on this calendar, personalised recommendations can be made by sorting out those relevant narratives according to personal events and interests recorded in the profiles of the target users. Evaluation of the associations by experts and potential museum visitors shows that the proposed approach can discover meaningful connections, while many others that are more incidental can still contribute to the intended cognitive phenomena

1001stories+: An effective and affordable multi-media, multi-format communication framework for cultural heritage institutions

Over the last decade, there has been an increasing number of technologies and devices (including smartphones, tablets and alike) able to provide new perspectives for the use of multimedia applications in the field of Cultural Heritage. This work arises from the interest in providing better authoring/delivery possibilities to cultural heritage institutions (small and medium sized in particular). Indeed, often medium and small sized museums do not have the necessary resources to create high quality multimedia productions. Not only have they faced short time and low budget, but a shortage of dedicated staff. Based on an interdisciplinary approach, this thesis focuses on the development of an effective and affordable multi-media, multi-format communication framework. The framework provides institutions with guidelines and methodologies and it is based on an innovative authoring tools (not developed in this thesis, but available). Specific concerns of the framework are: developing multimedia content within a short time span, developing multimedia content with a limited, low-budget, adapting multimedia content to different technologies and to different user experiences, making possible to “reuse multimedia content” (e.g. from websites, to audio guides, to multimedia guides, to YouTube or to paper brochures) This research has been conducted throughout parallel and intertwined processes, requiring a take of perspective. One the one hand, a general investigation (about multimedia formats, technologies and methodologies for production) has been conducted. On the other hand, an empirical work on real-life multimedia productions has been undergone. Indeed, the merging of theoretical knowledge and real fieldwork remains the main characteristic of this study’s methodological approach and of its strength. Its overall result is a fully developed framework (named 1001stories +), providing: multi-media, content information is presented throughout different media, including images, text, audio, and video; effective, the content can have the desired impact on the audience; affordable, content can be created in a short time, within low budget, and can be reused; multi-technology, content is available on different channels (web, smart phones, tablets, You tube, etc…); multi-format, content can be reorganized into various solutions, generating different formats for different user experiences. A more conceptual contribution of this thesis is about consideration of what communication in the Cultural Heritage domain is about, what its purposes are, and what the most appropriate means to reach the potential audience may be

A format to design narrative multimedia applications for cultural heritage communication

In this paper we introduce the "Instant MultiMedia" (IMM) approach to ICT-based communication. IMM is characterized for being quick (30 days to deliver the application) and low cost (5,000 US dollars for a medium-sized applications). It is therefore a suitable solution in a number of occasions: when a sudden communication need arises, in the case of small institutions with scarce resources, when niche target and content are to be addressed etc. We will introduce a concrete case-study, "Enigma Helvetia tales", a multimedia (text, images, audios) and multichannel (web, CD-rom, podcast) application that was developed in spring 2008 in the occasion of an art exhibition held in Lugano (CH). An extensive user study - involving more than 200 users - proved the efficacy of the approach in terms of satisfaction, better understanding of content, knowledge retention and enhanced curiosity towards the event. © 2010 ACM

The development of a quality function deployment (QFD) model for the implementation of a mobile augmented reality (AR) tourism application in the context of urban heritage tourism

Technology has been widely implemented in tourism to enhance the tourism product and tourist experience. However, it remains a challenge for many tourism businesses in urban heritage areas to identify technological solutions and successfully implement them into their business strategy. Particularly for urban heritage sites, it is often challenging to provide information within and around a heritage site without disturbing or destroying the heritage image. Augmented Reality (AR) was identified as a suitable technology to overcome this challenge. However, while AR is not considered a new technology in many industries, and mobile tourism applications with AR functions exist, it has provided limited benefits to tourists due to the lack of using AR functions meaningfully. In addition, the development of wearable devices is increasingly focused on the use of augmented and virtual reality to enhance the user experience. Therefore, there is a need to explore methods of meaningful implementation of such technologies for the tourism industry. This study will investigate current standards of AR technology and tourist requirements in order to examine how to develop meaningful mobile AR tourism applications. For the development of a beneficial product, Quality Function Deployment (QFD), as a tool within Total Quality Management (TQM) was identified as the suitable theoretical background for the purpose of this study. QFD was developed in the theory of quality management, in particular TQM. QFD has since been employed across many industries including the hospitality and tourism sector in a number of studies. However, it has not yet been implemented in the urban heritage tourism context, presenting a knowledge gap. As QFD is designed to incorporate the customers’ view into the product design stage, the aim is to design a meaningful product that is valuable for the visitor and benefit the destination. Therefore, this research aims to eliminate the gap by generating a QFD model for the development of mobile AR tourism applications in the context of urban heritage tourism. Dublin was selected as the research site due to its rich urban heritage. After Dublin’s re-branding strategy in 2013, it has marketed itself with the brand image of ‘Digital Dublin’ in order to encourage the implementation of technology for the purpose of promoting urban heritage tourism. Therefore, Dublin was considered as the suitable research site for the purpose of this study. To achieve the research aim, a mixed method approach was employed for the primary research including semi-structured interviews, focus groups and questionnaires. The study was divided into three research phases. Research phase 1 investigates requirements of tourists, mobile AR application developers and industry experts from Dublin’s tourism industry for the development and use of mobile AR tourism applications in urban heritage tourism. 26 in-depth interviews were conducted with international tourists visiting Dublin in addition to 9 interviews with mobile AR application developers and industry experts from Dublin. Findings were analysed using thematic analysis, providing the knowledge base for Research Phase 2 – focus groups. The second research phase was conducted with tourists as a post-experience study. It aimed to confirm identified tourist requirements from the literature and Research Phase 1, and examine additional findings to design the questionnaire for the quantitative Research Phase 3. Research Phase 3 was conducted with domestic and international tourists in Dublin and provided an importance rating of identified tourist requirements for the development of the final QFD model for mobile AR tourism applications in the urban heritage tourism context. The outcomes from the quantitative research were analysed using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to reduce tourist requirements for the final QFD model. By identifying tourist requirements and translating them into respective technical characteristics, this study provides a set of technological elements in hierarchical order for the design of meaningful mobile AR tourism applications in urban heritage tourism. The final 18 requirements are in close alignment with the outcomes of the qualitative research of this study highlighting the need of immediate access to information regardless of time and place, while being able to filter the available information to the tourists’ interest and needs. The final QFD model for the development of mobile AR tourism applications in urban heritage tourism was presented as the outcome of this research. The main contribution to theory is the extension in the identification process of customer requirements for the QFD model. While previous studies in QFD have mainly focused on product functions, such as software and hardware capabilities, the QFD model in this study aims to provide a balance between functional requirements and behavioural characteristics of tourists that are driven by psychological aspects. This study not only explored tourist requirements as in previous studies, but furthermore user resistance factors that would result in avoiding mobile AR tourism applications in urban heritage tourism. Including these criteria as customer attributes in the HOQ, the QFD model was extended to include behavioural and psychological attributes of customers, which is valuable for further implementation of QFD particularly in social studies. This research will furthermore contribute to professionals, Destination Marketing Organisations (DMO) as well as mobile AR application developers alike, by providing a model for the development of mobile AR applications in the context of urban heritage tourism that has incorporated tourist requirements as well as mobile AR application developer considerations. Furthermore, it needs to be acknowledged that the requirements are not limited to mobile AR applications, but are considered particularly valuable for further research in the area of mobile application development for tourism purposes and are expected to be partially transferable to other technology implementations for tourism products