User Categories for Digital Cultural Heritage

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The role of language skills in interactive social book search sessions

When searching for books, people frequently have to deal with content that is in a language different from their own. However, research on multilingual systems has generally focused on the user interface's language rather than the content language. In this paper, we describe and compare early results from the multilingual aspects in the Interactive Social Book Search (iSBS) task at CLEF 2014 and 2015. A preliminary analysis of usage patterns for native English and non-native English speakers indicates an influence of language skills on search behaviour during goal-oriented and casual leisure tasks. Based on previous experiences and results, strengths and challenges of IIR studies are discussed

User-Centred Design to Support Exploration and Path Creation in Cultural Heritage Collections

In this paper, we present the results of the user requirements and interface design phase for a prototype system, designed to enhance interaction with cultural heritage collections online through means of a pathway metaphor. We present a single user interaction model that supports various work and information seeking tasks undertaken by both expert and non-expert users within the context of collection exploration and path creation. The user interaction model is shown to enable seamless movement between interaction modes, with the potential over time to encourage deeper engagement and learning

Just looking around: Supporting casual users initial encounters with Digital Cultural Heritage

ABSTRACT Cultural Heritage institutions have developed numerous ways of supporting visitors who have simply wandered in through the front door. However, for their digital collections, the CH institutions mostly provide a simple search-box, which supports the expert user, but which does not support the casual user who has just stumbled across the collection. These casual users frequently have no goal or topic in mind, but just want to have a look around what is available in the collection. For these users the blank search-box presents a significant obstacle, as without a goal or topic it is very difficult to formulate an appropriate query. In this paper we propose extending current exploratory search and information seeking models to support the initial interaction between the casual user and the collection

Satisfying personal needs at the museum: The role of digital technologies

This paper investigates how museum visitors use digital technologies to mediate their general meaning-making process about artworks and other information they encounter throughout their museum experience. Concluding from a case study at the National Gallery of Denmark in Copenhagen, this study suggests that visitors use digital technologies as a vehicle for satisfying one or more personal needs. In order to gain control over their experience, visitors used not only digital technologies provided by the museum but also their personal technologies. The article argues that both museums and visitors will derive great benefits by understanding the ways in which people process multimedia messages and by implementing these principles of multimedia learning into the design of digital technologies at museums. The data also suggest that museums should especially support visitors in using technology with which they are already familiar and embed it in the museum experience

Exploring digital cultural heritage through browsing

Digitisation of our cultural heritage has created vast digital archives, many of which are publicly accessible via the web. However, publicly accessible does not necessarily mean that the content of the collection is truly accessible to the wider public. The reason for this is that the standard interface for accessing the collections is the search box. This is very effective for experienced users who have the information seeking skills and domain knowledge to formulate appropriate queries, but for the less knowledgeable users the white search box represents a significant hurdle. This group of users require a generous interface that provides them with an overview over the collection and the ability to explore it, without having to explicitly enter a search keyword. In this chapter we discuss a range of existing approaches that have been used to provide less knowledgeable users with such interfaces and then present the Digital Museum Map, an algorithm and interface for automatically generating a virtual museum interface for an unstructured collection, that can then be explored by browsing through the virtual museum

From #MuseumAtHome to #AtHomeAtTheMuseum: Digital Museums and Dialogical Engagement beyond the COVID-19 Pandemic

The novel coronavirus spurred a keen interest in digital technologies for museums as both cultural professionals and the public took notice of their uses and limitations throughout the confinement period. In this study, we investigated the use of digital technologies by museums during a period when in-person interaction was not possible. The aim of the study was to better understand the impact of the confinement period on the use of museum technologies in order to identify implications for future museum experience design. We compared museums across four countries – France, Japan, Luxembourg, and the United States – by conducting an international survey in three languages on the use of digital technologies during the early phase of the pandemic. Additionally, we analyzed the Facebook activity of museums in each country and conducted a series of interviews with digital museology professionals in academia and the private sector. We found that despite a flurry of online activities, especially during the early phase of the pandemic, museums confronted a number of internal and external challenges that were often incongruent with their ability to offer new forms of digital engagement. In general, digital solutions served only as a temporary substitute for the museum experience rather than as an opportunity to usher in a new digital paradigm for cultural mediation, and many cultural professionals cited a lack of digital training as a limiting factor in robust ICT implementation. We also argue that the most successful digital engagement came from those activities that promoted a sense of community or an invitation for self-expression by visitors. We conclude with a framework that describes a ‘virtuous circle of museum participation’, aiming to support public engagement with museums through the development of content that builds on the interconnectedness of on-site and online interactivity