Use of Mobile Technology Among Museum Visitors: A Case Study

Museums have employed mobile modes of communication for decades: pamphlets and audio tours. The popularity of mobile technology prompted museums to integrate mobile experiences with personal devices. A survey collected information from the Memorial Art Gallery (MAG) email list to understand adoption of MAG\u27s mobile experience through the lens of the technology acceptance model to learn how perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use influence visitors use or intent to use MAGart 2.0. The study proposed two museum specific variables, MAG frequency of visitation and MAG engagement, to examine adoption of MAGart 2.0. Results suggest behavioral intention and actual use of MAGart 2.0 are positively related to perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, MAG frequency of visitation, and MAG engagement

Optical Heritage Museum: An Interactive Touch

Optical Heritage Museum (OHM) was established in 1983 with the aim to preserve, promote and display historical artifacts of the optics industry and educate all of its vital role optics has played in societal development. Over the years, the museum has grown in its physical space along with exhibit development to engage audiences in innovative, effective methods. Clark University’s School of Professional Studies department and curator of Optical Heritage Museum, Mr. Whitney’s Whitney, have establish a collaboration that has spanned over two semesters with the goal to support and aid in improving OHM. Our capstone group was assigned the task of improving marketing strategies for OHM, which altered its focus on developing strategies and knowledge on improving the museum’s interactivity amongst its exhibits

Enhancing the Visibility of the Maria Mitchell Association

The Nantucket Maria Mitchell Association (MMA) is a science organization with multiple sites dispersed around the island. Visitors have difficulty navigating between sites and understanding how the sites relate to the MMA’s mission. The goal of this project was to determine steps the MMA could take to improve visitor wayfinding and clarify its identity. Our team identified and evaluated wayfinding and identification strategies used by the MMA and other organizations. Through our own observations on the island and interviews with various stakeholders, we identified areas for improvement. We developed recommendations for the MMA’s branding, marketing strategies, signage, and online presence to promote a consistent identity for the MMA and improve visitor wayfinding

Reinvigorating the “In Their Shirtsleeves” Industrial Exhibit at the Worcester Historical Museum

The goal of this project was to reinvigorate the “In their Shirtsleeves” exhibit to update the historical timeline, and make the experience more engaging and memorable. To meet this goal, we conducted a site assessment, investigated recent economic developments in Worcester, interviewed industrial professionals, researched “best practices” through case studies, and visited other museums to observe interactive technologies and visitor trends. Our analysis suggests that the application of interactive technology provides options for a small museum including increased visitor engagement, understanding, and interest. Based on these findings and results, we recommended strategies that the museum can use to develop an interactive and engaging exhibit that encompasses recent industrial trends

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

ICTs, disruptive forces and the production paradox in tourism: Present and future issues in the Visitor Attraction sector

En el marco de colaboración entre la Glasgow Caledonian University (Escocia, Reino Unido) y la Universidad de Alicante (España) y con el objetivo de dar a conocer la producción investigadora de docentes e investigadores involucrados en el convenio de colaboración entre ambas universidades, publicamos este libro como medio de difusión científica para visibilizar, compendiar y compartir las investigaciones. El valor fundamental de la obra es el carácter internacional y multidisciplinar de las investigaciones en el área de ciencias sociales y económicas, enfocadas en temáticas tan diversas como el marketing, la economía, la comunicación o la moda, entre otras.As part of the cooperation between Glasgow Caledonian University (Scotland, United Kingdom) and the University of Alicante (Spain) and in order to publicize the research production of teachers and researchers involved in the collaboration agreement between the two universities, we publish this book as a means of scientific dissemination to visualize, summarize and share research. The fundamental value of the work is international and multidisciplinary research in the area of social and economic sciences, focused on topics as diverse as marketing, economics, communication and fashion, among others

Panoramic Virtual Museum Website

Panoramic virtual museum website refers to the idea of displaying and promoting artifacts virtually with 360 degree view using the digital or electronic devices to wide public. Even though there are many panoramic virtual museums existed throughout the world, but the number appearance of this technique within Malaysia is considered few. A panoramic virtual museum website is developed as an alternative way of museum visitation for visitors who find some difficulties due to the insufficient of accessibility and etc. It also produces a simple but complete self guided virtual tour through panoramic virtual reality technology for local museum, Pasir Salak Historical Complex. The website comes out with an immersive virtual environment displayed that makes visitors feel as if they are physically present in the museum. Audiences can manipulate the scene up to 360 degree rotation, move, resize, set an automatic rotation and turn it into full screen mode. This website also provides the tour that consist “hotspot” which enable to link from one section to another while providing the popup information and narrations for the objects shown. The project has implemented with water fall methodology which identified as a suitable method in developing the panoramic virtual museum website. It consists of many series of the definite phases that run with an intended to start sequentially after another. This method provides an easily maintaining and iterating function when the requirements are changed. Panoramic virtual museum website of this project has not been implemented yet by any museum websites in Malaysia before; furthermore, the study of general community’s interest has shown good responses and direction for its development supports by good feedback from assistant curator of the respective museum (Pasir Salak Historical Complex), the website is worth being developed. With these, the panoramic virtual museum website not only standing as a medium of interaction between general public and museum but also able to enhance status of technological used by museum in Malaysia as well

Evaluating digital cultural heritage 'in the wild': The case for reflexivity

Digital heritage interpretation is often untethered from traditional museological techniques and environments. As museums and heritage sites explore the potentials of locative technologies and ever more sophisticated content-triggering mechanisms for use outdoors, the kinds of questions digital heritage researchers are able to explore have complexified. Researchers now find themselves in the realm of the immersive, the experiential, and the performative. Working closely with their research participants, they navigate ambiguous terrain including the often unpredictable affective resonances that are the direct consequences of interaction. This article creates a dialogue between two case studies which, taken together, help to unpack some key methodological and ethical questions emerging from these developments. Firstly, we introduce With New Eyes I See, an itinerant and immersive digital heritage encounter which collapsed boundaries between physical/digital, fact/fiction and past/present. Secondly, we detail Rock Art on Mobile Phones, a set of dialogic web apps that aimed to explore the potential of mobile devices in delivering heritage interpretation in the rural outdoors. Looking outward from these case studies, we reflect on how traditional evaluation frameworks are being stretched and strained given the kinds of questions digital heritage researchers are now exploring. Drawing on vignettes from experience-oriented qualitative studies with participants, we articulate specific common evaluative challenges related to the embodied, multimodal and transmedial nature of the digital heritage experiences under investigation. In doing so, we make the case for reflexivity as a central - and more collaborative - feature of research design within this field going forward; paying attention to, and advocating, the reciprocal relationship between researchers and the heritage experiences we stud

Designing an Immersive Experience Using Georgia O\u27Keeffe\u27s Works and Effects

This project aimed to design an immersive experience for the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, to improve visitorship and to showcase more museum holdings and collections unable to be displayed due to space limitations. Our team sought to do this by extending the museum experience to the landscapes in Northern New Mexico that Georgia O’Keeffe made famous in her paintings. We did extensive research in the O’Keeffe library and archives, documented sites around Northern New Mexico where she painted, and designed an app prototype as an immersive experience that incorporated our findings in a user-friendly format