Experience, engagement and social interaction at a steam locomotive multimodal interactive museum exhibit

This paper describes the on-going study of an interactive multimodal museum exhibit about a steam-powered locomotive at the Riverside Transport Museum in Glasgow, UK. We examine the role of multimodal interaction relating to effects on (1) visitors' experience of the exhibit, (2) engagement with the subject matter, (3) social interaction and (4) engagement with the exhibit itself. We discuss key questions of our study, a set of initial findings, reflections and future work

Development of a Mobile Website for the Worcester Art Museum

The Worcester Art Museum is looking to deploy interpretive technologies within galleries to increase visitor engagement throughout the museum. Through interviewing, brainstorming, and collaboration with museum professionals, we decided the best course of action for this project was to implement a WAM Mobile Website with top features being an exhibit viewer, audio tours, and an interactive map. Implementation involved an iterative design process, learning three web development languages, and refinements to the website design. The project culminated in the mobile website, a promotional video, recommendations, and a set of guides to sustain the mobile website

ENGAGING THE VISITOR WITH DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY IN THE ARMS AND ARMOR COLLECTION

The Worcester Art Museum is seeking to incorporate the Higgins Armory collection into its galleries and simultaneously increase visitor engagement by implementing technologies appropriate to the exhibit and target audience. In addition to developing an iPad implementation, our project provided recommendations for accomplishing this in the Meyer Idea Lab and the Medieval Gallery. To accomplish our goal, we visited museums with interactive exhibit designs, interviewed museum staff, observed visitors, and surveyed visitor responses to the available media. Our project culminated with a promotional video on arms and armor, the informational iPad implementation, analysis of visitor survey data, and recommendations for future exhibits at the Worcester Art Museum

A Bug’s-Eye View: Examining the Impact of The Bug Squad Exhibit at a Local Children’s Museum.

Hands-on playing is vital in the development of children, as it promotes their ability to progress socially, emotionally, and cognitively (Ginsburg, 2007). While children’s museums are designed to support such progress, it is important to consider how specific interactive exhibits may play a role in supporting children’s engagement and development. The purpose of this mixed-methods research study was to analyze how children, ages 2-12, at a local children’s museum engaged with the new exhibit, The Bug Squad, and how it influenced parents’ decisions to return. Data was collected through observation of children’s engagement in an interactive exhibit and a short survey to understand parents’ points of view. Initial results from observations indicated that certain elements of the exhibit such as the “Chrysalis Spinner” or “Pollinator Power” were more popular amongst the children than others, and we hypothesized this would remain consistent throughout the remainder of the observations. These potential findings can contribute to the sustainability and retention rate of other interactive exhibits to support the social, emotional, and cognitive development of children.https://orb.binghamton.edu/research_days_posters_2023/1025/thumbnail.jp

Updating the art history curriculum: incorporating virtual and augmented reality technologies to improve interactivity and engagement

Master's Project (M.Ed.) University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2017This project investigates how the art history curricula in higher education can borrow from and incorporate emerging technologies currently being used in art museums. Many art museums are using augmented reality and virtual reality technologies to transform their visitors' experiences into experiences that are interactive and engaging. Art museums have historically offered static visitor experiences, which have been mirrored in the study of art. This project explores the current state of the art history classroom in higher education, which is historically a teacher-centered learning environment and the learning effects of that environment. The project then looks at how art museums are creating visitor-centered learning environments; specifically looking at how they are using reality technologies (virtual and augmented) to transition into digitally interactive learning environments that support various learning theories. Lastly, the project examines the learning benefits of such tools to see what could (and should) be implemented into the art history curricula at the higher education level and provides a sample section of a curriculum demonstrating what that implementation could look like. Art and art history are a crucial part of our culture and being able to successfully engage with it and learn from it enables the spread of our culture through digital means and of digital culture

‘Engage the World’: examining conflicts of engagement in public museums

Public engagement has become a central theme in the mission statements of many cultural institutions, and in scholarly research into museums and heritage. Engagement has emerged as the go-to-it-word for generating, improving or repairing relations between museums and society at large. But engagement is frequently an unexamined term that might embed assumptions and ignore power relationships. This article describes and examines the implications of conflicting and misleading uses of ‘engagement’ in relation to institutional dealings with contested questions about culture and heritage. It considers the development of an exhibition on the Dead Sea Scrolls by the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto in 2009 within the new institutional goal to ‘Engage the World’. The chapter analyses the motivations, processes and decisions deployed by management and staff to ‘Engage the World’, and the degree to which the museum was able to re-think its strategies of public engagement, especially in relation to subjects,issues and publics that were more controversial in nature

The imperial war museum’s social interpretation project

This report represents the output from research undertaken by University of Salford and MTM London as part of the joint Digital R&D Fund for Arts and Culture, operated by Nesta, Arts Council England and the AHRC. University of Salford and MTM London received funding from the programme to act as researchers on the Social Interpretation (SI) project, which was led by the Imperial War Museum (IWM) and their technical partners, The Centre for Digital Humanities, University College London, Knowledge Integration, and Gooii. The project was carried out between October 2011 and October 2012

Place-centred interaction design: situated participation and co-creation in places of heritage

This paper argues that the design of interactive installations for museums and other heritage sites should be concerned with understanding, supporting and augmenting visitors 19 lived experiences in context, thus their ability to actively participate in an exhibition. We use the concept of 18place 19 to refer to the physical environment as it is invested by the qualities of human experience, and to placemaking as the active process of connecting and relating to locations that become meaningful in our lives. We will discuss some of the limitations of existing heritage technologies in considering aspects of active place experience, and will argue how a place-sensitive approach can lead to successful interaction design whereby people establish meaningful and active connections at personal, cultural, social and physical levels to the places of heritage they experience