Combining Interaction Design and Gaming Technologies for the Development of Interactive Archaeological Content Presentation Systems

Our main objective is to produce state-of-the-art edutainment and serious game end-systems, which satisfy the requirements of all three parties involved in the development process: content experts, end-users and application developers. Their requirements are often cross disciplinary, as each party involved in the process requires solutions to a number of problems which need to be answered in a systematic and complete manner. The ultimate goal of this process is to introduce an efficient, extendable and aesthetically pleasing end-system. In order to achieve these goals, we address and attempt to resolve the most common presentation design issues that arise during the process of interaction design. Completion of this process enables the actual system development to commence with a precise and complete specification of content features and system characteristics

Introduction to location-based mobile learning

[About the book] The report follows on from a 2-day workshop funded by the STELLAR Network of Excellence as part of their 2009 Alpine Rendez-Vous workshop series and is edited by Elizabeth Brown with a foreword from Mike Sharples. Contributors have provided examples of innovative and exciting research projects and practical applications for mobile learning in a location-sensitive setting, including the sharing of good practice and the key findings that have resulted from this work. There is also a debate about whether location-based and contextual learning results in shallower learning strategies and a section detailing the future challenges for location-based learning

Augmenting the field experience: a student-led comparison of techniques and technologies

In this study we report on our experiences of creating and running a student fieldtrip exercise which allowed students to compare a range of approaches to the design of technologies for augmenting landscape scenes. The main study site is around Keswick in the English Lake District, Cumbria, UK, an attractive upland environment popular with tourists and walkers. The aim of the exercise for the students was to assess the effectiveness of various forms of geographic information in augmenting real landscape scenes, as mediated through a range of techniques and technologies. These techniques were: computer-generated acetate overlays showing annotated wireframe views from certain key points; a custom-designed application running on a PDA; a mediascape running on the mScape software on a GPS-enabled mobile phone; Google Earth on a tablet PC; and a head-mounted in-field Virtual Reality system. Each group of students had all five techniques available to them, and were tasked with comparing them in the context of creating a visitor guide to the area centred on the field centre. Here we summarise their findings and reflect upon some of the broader research questions emerging from the project

Designing with teenagers: A teenage perspective on enhancing mobile museum experiences

Teenagers are an understudied group within the Interaction Design and Children community. Museums and cultural heritage spaces offer solutions for young children but none that are specifically targeted to teenagers. The active involvement of teenagers in the design of interactive technologies for museums is lacking further development. This paper centres on the presentation and discussion of several design sessions deployed with 155 teenage participants aged 15-19. They were asked to ideate a mobile museum experience that they would enjoy. Through qualitative analysis, the disparities in suggestions about story-based apps vs. game-based apps show that teenagers might value gamification over narratives. This work generates design recommendations for mobile museum tour guides for teenagers, to be used by both curators and museum designers in engaging teenagers in museum exhibitions. We also contrast the game and narrative mechanics produced by teenagers with what is already known. Finally, we answer the questions of how these findings align with existing museum guides for teenagers and how other designers can design with teenagers for this domain.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Reflecting back, looking forward: the challenges for location-based learning

This final section of the report has been reproduced from “D3.1 The STELLAR Rendez-Vous I report and white papers”, published in 2009 by the STELLAR Network of Excellence. It is included here for completeness; we, as co-authors, felt that it was important to look back at the main contributions to theworkshop and also where the challenges lie for the future. This chapter addresses two critical questions: - What has been learned from this workshop, especially in respect to the STELLAR Grand Challenges (“Connecting learners”, “Orchestration” and “Contextualisation”)? - What are the new research questions and issues for location-based learning, with respect to the Grand Challenges (“Connecting learners”, “Orchestration”and “Contextualisation”)

Electronic Imaging & the Visual Arts. EVA 2019 Florence

The Publication is following the yearly Editions of EVA FLORENCE. The State of Art is presented regarding the Application of Technologies (in particular of digital type) to Cultural Heritage. The more recent results of the Researches in the considered Area are presented. Information Technologies of interest for Culture Heritage are presented: multimedia systems, data-bases, data protection, access to digital content, Virtual Galleries. Particular reference is reserved to digital images (Electronic Imaging & the Visual Arts), regarding Cultural Institutions (Museums, Libraries, Palace - Monuments, Archaeological Sites). The International Conference includes the following Sessions: Strategic Issues; New Science and Culture Developments & Applications; New Technical Developments & Applications; Cultural Activities – Real and Virtual Galleries and Related Initiatives, Access to the Culture Information. One Workshop regards Innovation and Enterprise. The more recent results of the Researches at national and international level are reported in the Area of Technologies and Culture Heritage, also with experimental demonstrations of developed Activities

The Construction of Locative Situations: the Production of Agency in Locative Media Art Practice

This thesis is a practice led enquiry into Locative Media (LM) which argues that this emergent art practice has played an influential role in the shaping of locative technologies in their progression from new to everyday technologies. The research traces LM to its origins at the Karosta workshops, reviews the stated objectives of early practitioners and the ambitions of early projects, establishing it as a coherent art movement located within established traditions of technological art and of situated art practice. Based on a prescient analysis of the potential for ubiquitous networked location-awareness, LM developed an ambitious program aimed at repositioning emergent locative technologies as tools which enhance and augment space rather than surveil and control. Drawing on Krzysztof Ziarek\u27s treatment of avant-garde art and technology in The Force of Art , theories of technology drawn from Science and Technology Studies (STS) and software studies, the thesis builds an argument for the agency of Locative Media. LM is positioned as an interface layer which in connecting the user to the underlying functionality of locative technologies offers alternative interpretations, introduces new usage modes, and ultimately shifts the understanding and meaning of the technology. Building on the Situationist concept of the constructed situation, with reference to an ongoing body of practice, an experimental practice-based framework for LM art is advanced which accounts for its agency and, it is proposed, preserves this agency in a rapidly developing field

Supporting improvised games for young people in public spaces

PhD ThesisResearchers looking at technologically mediated play and games have explored how games can be taken away from the computer screen and played in outdoor spaces. This has resulted in new pervasive games that benefit from the opportunities for rich social and physical interaction in new mobile contexts. However, we have only just begun to explore these opportunities; game designs should bring young people together in these new contexts in play that is appropriate, meaningful, and can be enjoyed on their own mobile devices. The research in this thesis explores how game designers and interaction designers can design more playful mobile games for young people that can be played together in public spaces. This work draws upon a research through design approach that has been informed by the researcher’s own practice of game design and working co-creatively with custodians of public spaces. The contributions are based on the analysis of empirical data collected from two case studies in a community library and a country house, while additionally drawing upon three further game designs made in collaborations with other partners. This work contributes a game design framework that provides an approach, a step by step method, guidelines and a software library for making mobile games with more open, spontaneous, and improvised styles of play. The mobile games are designed with and based on a simplistic game system that presents digital playing cards to provide the game structure and bound play, while the mobile device is also used to configure the play space and sustain play. The intention is to provide designers with a practical and evidence-based approach to designing digital games for new mobile contexts. This work will appeal to game designers who are motivated by an interest in play and playfulness that will resonate with our childhood memories of play.UK AHRC KE Hub for the Creative Economy (ref: AH/J005150/1 Creative Exchange

The Internet of Things supporting the Cultural Heritage domain: analysis, design and implementation of a smart framework enhancing the smartness of cultural spaces

Nowadays embedded systems have reached a great level of maturity and diffusion thanks to their small size, low power consumption, large connectivity and variety of application in everyday contexts. These systems, if properly structured and configured, can signifi- cantly increase the smartness of the environments where they are deployed, monitoring and continuously collecting data to be processed and elaborated. In this perspective, the Internet of Things (IoT) paradigm supports the transition from a closed world, in which an object is characterized by a descriptor, to an open world, in which objects interact with the surrounding environment, because they have become ”intelligent”. Accordingly, not only people will be connected to the internet, but objects such as cars, fridges, televisions, water management systems, buildings, monuments and so on will be connected as well. The Cultural Heritage represents a worldwide resource of inestimable value, attracting millions of visitors every year to monuments, museums and art exhi- bitions. Fundamental aspects of this resource to be investigated are its promotion and people enjoyment. Indeed, to achieve an enjoyment of a cultural space that is attractive and sustainable, it is necessary to realize ubiquitous and multimedia solutions for users’ interaction to enrich their visiting experience and improve the knowledge transmission process of a cultural site. The main target of this PhD Thesis is the study of the IoT paradigm, devoted to the design of a smart framework supporting the fruition, enjoyment and tutelage of the Cultural Heritage domain. In order to assess the proposed approach, a real case study is presented and discussed. In detail, it represents the deployment of our framework during an art exhibition, named The Beauty or the Truth within the Monumental Complex of San Domenico Maggiore, Naples (Italy). Following the Internet of Things paradigm, the proposed intelligent framework relies on the integration of a Sensor Network of Smart Objects with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth Low Energy technologies to identify, locate and support users. In this way technology can become a mediator between visitors and fruition, an instrument of connection between people, objects, and spaces to create new social, economic and cultural opportunities