Exploring the suitability of Virtual Reality interactivity for exhibitions through an integrated evaluation: the case of the Ename Museum Laia Pujol Tost1 Maria Economou2 ABSTRACT The characteristics of Virtual Reality seem to fit current museological trends, which understand the visit as an active immersion in a multimedia environment. However, this suitability remains theoretical and should be verified through empirical evaluations, especially because VR and exhibitions correspond to different communication paradigms. In fact, as previous studies indicate, the potential advantages of Information and Communication Technologies seem to be effectively used in the formal learning environment but have problems of integration in the informal one. The Ename Museum (Ename, Belgium) is used as a case study in order to evaluate the effect of ICT applications on visitors’ experience. This offers the opportunity to compare three kinds of ICT communicational formulae and evaluate their effectiveness. After an initial discussion about the theoretical relation between Virtual Reality and current museological trends, this paper presents the results of the evaluation conducted at the Ename Museum, focusing on the issue of interactivity. Its ultimate intention is to contribute to the construction of a wide-encompassing body of empirical knowledge and specific methodological standards aimed at guiding future designs and evaluations of exhibitions.
KEYWORDS: Virtual Reality, exhibitions, museums, interactivity, visitor studies, integrated evaluation methodology.
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1. INTRODUCTION The new social, communicational, and educational functions which have been assigned to museums since the last third of the 20th century have, respectively, highlighted their part in the leisure industry and their role as centers for community expression; they have emphasized the active role of visitors in exhibitions, and they have examined them as organizations pivotal for the visitors’ continuous learning and active construction of meaning. These influences have led to current museographic trends in the heritage field which advocate for new, more experiential, ways of presentation, in which the visit is understood as a physical, cognitive and emotional immersion in a social and multimedia environment with which visitors establish a dialectical relationship. Virtual Reality (VR), as a specific area of application within Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), seems to be theoretically suitable for this new framework because of its features. 1
Laia Pujol Tost is a Marie Curie EST research fellow at the Department of Cultural Technology and Communication of the University of the Aegean (Harilaou Trikoupi & Faonos St., 81100 Mytilene, Greece, Tel. +30 22510 36687, E-mail:
[email protected]). Her project is part of the international Cultural Heritage Informatics Research Oriented Network (CHIRON), 2005-2008, supported by the European Community's Sixth Framework Program, under contract number MEST-CT-2004-514539. Her PhD at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona examined the use of VR in museums and archaeological presentations. 2 Maria Economou is assistant professor (Museology and New Technologies) at the same university and coordinator of the CHIRON project. She held different positions as lecturer and assistant curator in the UK and has published extensively on museological issues and particularly on the application of new technologies and visitor studies.
Experimental studies conducted in the formal learning field have demonstrated the usefulness of Computer Assisted Learning Environments (CALE) in the classroom because of their specific advantages at emotional, perceptual, cognitive and metacognitive levels (see Economou and Pujol (2006) for a full summary and discussion about these evaluations). However, it is widely accepted that cultural heritage settings have particular features which should be taken into account in research studies (such as the social dimension of the visit; the integrated presence of other resources constructing a fully immersive and multi-sensorial environment; and the epistemological and cultural value of the original objects on display). Even in the case of single visitors, the experience of the exhibition visit consists of a permanent renegotiation between people and objects sharing the same space, in which the resources available in the room, those generated by people through body and verbal language, and visitors’ previous experiences are combined (Pujol and Economou, 2006). These particular features have now started to be taken into consideration as museums, with their increasing interest in evaluation, have started turning their attention into understanding the use and effectiveness of the new high-tech communication means. Bearing in mind that the presence of ICT in museums is already a fact but that we still know very little about their real effectiveness in specific situations, what is needed in the current context of museological research and practice is to start building a wide-encompassing body of empirical knowledge about their use in exhibitions. To that end, it is important to design a standard analytical/evaluative methodology, adapted to the special epistemological and communicational characteristics of VR. Both the empirical data and the methodology would ultimately allow the establishment of something that is starting to be increasingly requested by professionals and institutions within the field: guidelines for future museological design and selfevaluation. The present paper can be situated within this context because, apart from presenting a first reflection about the role of technological virtuality and interactivity with regard to the museum needs, it is aimed at providing new empirical data about the use of ICT in exhibitions (though focusing specifically on VR and interactivity) and at the same time presenting an evaluative methodology specifically designed to take into account all the factors involved in this use, and which until now had been analyzed separately: the interface features, the visitors’ personal characteristics and the context (spatial configuration and social interactions).
2. VIRTUAL REALITY AND THE MUSEUM According to a recently proposed definition (Pujol, in press), VR is a cognitive environment, created by computational technology, which operates through the interactive simulation of some aspects of reality (mainly iconic and auditory) in order to obtain knowledge, communicate or create art works. Depending on the aims it can take different shapes: Augmented Reality, Immersive Virtual Reality, “Window on a World” and Hybrid Reality. This definition covers all the possible approaches, interfaces or goals and stresses the main features of this technology: it supports a multimedia (though mainly visual) form of communication, is immersive, virtual, computational, dynamic and interactive. This will serve as a basis to define the theoretical intersection between this technology and current museological trends. VR is mainly an iconic means of information transmission. It has been demonstrated (Loftin, Engelberg, et al., 1993; Scanlon, Tosunoglu, et al., 1998; Panagiotakopoulos and Ioannidis, 2002; Song and Lee, 2002; Lee, Park, et al., 2005) that graphics are very appropriate for learning abstract, dynamic or non-intuitive phenomena; and by virtue of the isomorphism principles, they are better than verbal or numerical expressions for understanding spatial relationships. On the other hand, the Museology e-journal, Issue 4, 2007 © Department of Cultural Technology and Communication, University of the Aegean
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visual channel is the main way of communication in exhibitions because traditionally the message was conveyed through texts, images, objects and reproductions and it was only later that other senses were introduced, for example, through dioramas, reproductions and hands-on activities. Moreover, the influence of constructivist ideas helped to build a new concept of exhibition: visitors are immersed in a scenographic environment, which provides information and stimulates actions, sensations and/or feelings through diverse resources. This fits VR because as a simulation of reality, it was intended since the beginning to be fully immersive, which means the total insertion (both physical and emotional) of the user in the simulated world. Nevertheless, the essential characteristic of VR is that it is virtual. The lack of physical entity does not imply an opposition with the real but with the actual (Lévy, 1995), that is, with the realization of a potential contained in the computer. From this point of view, VR contains three different ontological levels: the interface (real, composed of the binary code of electromagnetic impulses), the simulation (virtual, consisting of the images appearing on the screen) and the evocated reality (a real entity, situated in a second level of virtuality). This precision is very important because the transcendent point about VR is that it has a computational virtuality, which means that it comes from the original purpose of computers (Heim, 1993): the translation of an input into an abstract binary code in order to be mathematically manipulated and then offer an output with the new results. Apart from implying the necessary interactivity between the user and the machine, this contains the seed for dynamism, which could be defined as the capacity to transform the model in real time and, from an epistemological perspective, it is useful for the exploration of spatio-temporal phenomena (like in most virtual reconstructions). Another advantage of combining the non-physical entity and the abstraction capacity is that VR stands between abstract mental images and external or physical images and consequently partakes of the flexibility of the first and the iconicity of the second (Pujol, 2006). This has three main advantages for the formal and especially the informal learning environment. First of all, it is flexible, which means it can combine different communication strategies and superimpose a layer of virtual information to a real space. This seems suitable for museums because the exhibition is also a multimedia environment and because this layer can help to anticipate the movement in space and be freer to concentrate in the content (Falk and Dierking, 1992), for which the superimposed layer can provide contextual (with regard to objects) and interpretative (with regard to the integrated interpretation of several exhibits) information. On the other hand, this is also suitable for visitors because it allows personalization or, in other words, the adaptation to personal interests, learning styles and cognitive skills, which is now widely accepted (Beltrán, García Alcañiz, et al., 1987; Clariana, 1994) to be fundamental for learning. Nonetheless, the most important feature of VR is interactivity, not only because it is an essential quality, closely associated to its computational origin and virtuality, but because it is also a central pillar in learning and museological theories, although as demonstrated somewhere else (Pujol, 2005), the concept has slightly different meanings in each field and this might originate some conflicts. The computational interactivity defines a universe of contents and activities within the limits of programming and allows a multi-user communication inside the cyberspace or a bidirectional communication with the real world, in which the machine responds to the user’s actions. This can be positive because it allows to some extent the fulfillment of constructivist ideas (self-control of the learning process, explorative learning and collaboration) and also the satisfaction of museum requirements from the perspective of the flow experience (Csikszentmihályi and Hermanson, 1995) or the contextual model of exhibitions (Falk and Dierking, 1992): as a learning tool, it has a low level of abstraction, a high manipulative and scenographic component, it is flexible, intuitive, motivational, allows personalization, offers immediate results without the fear of error, and supports autonomy, control over the user’s own actions and encourages the Museology e-journal, Issue 4, 2007 © Department of Cultural Technology and Communication, University of the Aegean
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visitors’ personal growth thanks to the development of formal thought. From a more traditional point of view, the museum has a long tradition of “substitutes” used to protect (default substitutes) and to improve the understanding (analogical and analytical substitutes) of objects (Deloche, 2001). VR continues and surpasses this tradition because as an interactive image, it can improve the analytic function through the scientific simulation of reality. In conclusion, the basic components of VR make it theoretically suitable for museums but its computational virtuality imposes certain features that might not fit or match exactly the exhibition context: linear exclusive communication versus social, environmental interaction; audio-visuality versus multi-sensoriality; partial realism versus full realistic immersion; and finally, personalization but lack of full adaptivity in comparison with human guides. This has been evidenced by recent in situ evaluations aimed at verifying the suitability of technological displays in the exhibition context, which demonstrated the need to continue accumulating and interpreting information about visitors’ opinion and use of ICT in museums in order to understand their suitability for this specific context and to design new exhibits appropriately.
3. EVALUATION OF VR INTERACTIVITY IN THE EXHIBITION CONTEXT 3.1. THE ENAME MUSEUM AND THE EVALUATION SURVEY In order to understand the contribution of computational virtuality to heritage presentation in museum settings, we conducted an in-depth evaluation at the Ename Museum at the village of Ename, near Ghent in Belgium. This museum was opened in September 1998 as an interpretation centre of the architectural monuments (Saint Laurentius church) and the archaeological site (Ename’s abbey), considered as outstanding witnesses of the village’s economical and political role in the past, which could therefore explain Ename’s historical identity. This museum was selected as it offers an interesting case study where three different types of museographical solutions, offering different kinds of interaction, are used in order to approach Ename’s history and singularity through the material culture which survived.
Fig.1: Image of “Timeline” at the Ename Museum.
After the entrance to the Museum and a winding corridor with old photographs of Ename’s inhabitants and views over the village, the visitor encounters the first exhibition gallery. This room contains [fig. 1] a sinuous sequence of showcases and texts aimed at explaining the historical evolution of Ename and the abbey. At the opposite wall, we find the “Timeline”, a touch-screen application aimed at contextualizing some of the main archaeological findings within a virtual reconstruction of Ename with the abbey as the main protagonist. The reconstruction can be rotated in space through a horizontal movement and in time through a vertical movement of the Museology e-journal, Issue 4, 2007 © Department of Cultural Technology and Communication, University of the Aegean
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finger. The digital images of the objects are located at a third level in the electronic application, after the user has activated the zoom function, and are shown by pressing on the screen icons of archaeological sticks which indicate the place of the findings on the virtual model.
Fig.2: Image of the “Feast of a Thousand Years” at Ename Museum.
The second room is occupied by the “Feast of a Thousand Years”, an exhibit composed of different resources. At the entrance, the main exhibit is a round interactive case covered by a transparent “bubble” containing twenty-four archaeological objects which can be chosen by pressing the buttons positioned around the case [fig. 2]. Each one of these objects is linked with one of the twenty-four threedimensional mannequin figures dressed in period costumes in the nearby diorama. The figures sitting at the same feast table represent historical or social characters from Ename’s history (spanning about one thousand years from the present), whose personal story is narrated by real actors dressed in period costumes and performing in short video segments projected on the big screen behind the table. The audio elements are in Flemish, but buttons on the wall allow visitors to also select English or French. A light illuminating the specific museum object which has been selected from the round display case, a similar spotlight highlighting the related mannequin figure, a wall panel and an additional printed sheet help to link all the elements. The “Feast of a Thousand Years” (from now on, the Feast) is like a trip back in time, which tries to bring the objects to life, show the personal stories hidden behind them, but always alluding to the historical context and emphasizing by means of the museographical design that knowledge goes from the archaeological remains to the “uncertainty” of the past.
Fig.3: Image of the “Archaeolab” at Ename Museum.
In the last room of the Ename Museum we find the “Archaeolab”, a hands-on area aimed at showing the basic techniques and methodologies used to obtain the information presented in the museum. This knowledge is conveyed through some Museology e-journal, Issue 4, 2007 © Department of Cultural Technology and Communication, University of the Aegean
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explanative texts and wall panels, an exhibit about archaeological stratigraphy, and finally a reproduction of an ideal archaeological lab, containing all the “auxiliary” sciences involved in the research process. With our evaluation we wanted to know if visitors understood the exhibits (what they obtained from them), their opinion with regards to some characteristic features (such as interactivity, usability, engagement, etc.), their level of satisfaction, the real use of the resources and exhibition elements and compare these results in order to evidence which is, in the particular case of Ename Museum, the specific contribution of the technological applications. In this paper we will interpret the survey conclusions from the specific perspective of interaction. From this point of view, the Timeline application has a computational interactivity, which has been stressed in several publications (Neuman, 1989; Bricken and Byrne, 1993; Schroeder, 1997; Shaw and Marlow, 1999; Wheeler, Waite, et al., 2002; Yu, Chang, et al., 2002; Chou and Liu, 2005; Di Blas, Gobbo, et al., 2005) as offering considerable advantages with regard to engagement, motivation and personalized learning. The Feast invites a very simple physical interaction and conveys its message through empathic immersion – known in the psycho-pedagogic field as a strong motivational element (Clariana, 1994) – and integrated interpretation of the resources. In the case of the “Archaeolab”, it is handson interaction which is the operating element following the principle widely accepted by current learning theories (Piaget and Inhelder, 1948; Vygotsky, 1978; Novak, 1986) that direct interaction with objects within a collaborative environment is the best way to learn about a topic. The comparative analysis of visitors’ reaction to the different kinds of settings allowed us to record some particularities of computational and nontechnological interactivity within the exhibition context and to provide the first explorative conclusions about its suitability for heritage presentation in museums.
3.2. TECHNOLOGICAL INTERACTIVITY IN EXHIBITIONS The advantages and disadvantages of computational interactivity, both from the individual and the social perspective, have largely been analyzed in the formal learning field through experimental studies regarding Computer-Assisted Learning Environments (CALE). However, when we examine the adoption of these technologies by museums we need to take into consideration the introduction of new variables, namely the museographic context (originated by the exhibition space and design), but also the change in the status of other variables, like the social context, which now becomes essential. From this perspective, previous evaluations have shown that high-tech exhibits have problems of integration in exhibitions at three main levels. The first level corresponds to the conflict with single exhibits (one-to-one interaction): ICT interfere with the audience’s experience and approach of original objects, which still own a high status because of their artistic, epistemological and/or historical value (Asensio and Pol Méndez, 1997; Sanders, 2002; Jovet, 2003; vom Lehn and Heath, 2003). In the case of mobile devices, which are supposed to be less pervasive than computer stations, several evaluations demonstrated that visitors had problems to establish transferences between the real object and the virtual information when there were no reference points to allow the superposition of the two kinds of explanation (Hsi, 2003; vom Lehn and Heath, 2003; Alzúa-Sorzábal, Linaza, et al., 2005; vom Lehn, Heath, et al., 2005). One adduced reason is that ICT are more complex than the message they are supposed to transmit, and consequently visitors have to deal with two problems: decipher the message and additionally, the function of the intermediary (Asensio and Pol Méndez, 1997). Evaluation studies have shown that even the most evident and basic interactive non-technological exhibits can cause problems – for example, depending on the way visitors approach the resource (vom Lehn, Heath, et al., 2002). This indicates that the usability of the interface constitutes a major problem especially for those with little Museology e-journal, Issue 4, 2007 © Department of Cultural Technology and Communication, University of the Aegean
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experience or a negative attitude towards computers, because it is usually neither evident nor natural, as this and other evaluation studies have demonstrated (Brosnan, 1998; Ronen and Eliahu, 1999; Shaw and Marlow, 1999; Vance Wilson, 2000; Pujol and Economou, 2006). The second level corresponds to the integration with other exhibits, both from the strictly physical as well as the cognitive perspective (when visitors understand the exhibition message through the combined interpretation of several exhibits). In the first case, Viviane Jovet (2003) demonstrated that depending on its location in the exhibition, the application can break the traditional linearity of the visit by creating a surrounding activity area (parallel to the observation of objects) which, because of its interactivity, generates emotional and physical responses that can still today be perceived as inappropriate inside the exhibition. In the second case, mobile devices are still not sufficiently flexible or transparent and tend to absorb the attention of visitors, who concentrate more on the interface than on the rest of the exhibition (Hsi, 2003; vom Lehn and Heath, 2003; vom Lehn, Heath, et al., 2005). One of the suggested reasons is that they are a very specific tool; an autonomous and very particular communication system located inside a bigger one that, contrary to the foregoing, is contextual and already owns other completely integrated resources (Jovet, 2003). The third level corresponds to synchronous manipulation (many-to-one). It has been shown by early and recent studies that, in most cases, visitors try to use hightech exhibits collaboratively, as they would do normally with the rest of resources (Morrissey, 1991; McManus, 1993; Economou, 1998; Heath and vom Lehn, 2002; Pujol and Economou, 2006). Trying to satisfy this demand, the Science Museum of London, designed and tested a multi-user technological exhibit. Yet, evaluations demonstrated that not even these systems are yet able to deal with the richness of real world collaboration because they need to internally sequence all inputs in order to give a response, and therefore oversimplify and hide visitors’ different contributions and feedbacks (vom Lehn, Heath, et al., 2002). The basic explanation (vom Lehn, Heath, et al., 2002; vom Lehn, Heath, et al., 2005) is that all technological exhibits – even Augmented Reality mobile devices and multi-user interfaces – are based on the traditional computer paradigm, which establishes a one-to-one sequential interaction between the user and the machine in order to complete a task. This linear exclusive dialogue prevents real co-participation or even collaboration to take place, though it has been demonstrated that in the formal learning environment the key point with regard to learning is not the presence of the technology per se but the equality of conditions when interacting with the content in order to allow a fully developed cooperation between users (Johnson, Roussou, et al., 1998; Scott, Mandryk, et al., 2003).
3.3. METHODOLOGY Bearing in mind these findings and considerations, we carried out a visitor study at the Ename Museum during September and October 2006. The survey consisted of the collection and integrative analysis of different kinds of complementary data about the interaction of visitors with the exhibits. We used three different methods for the data collection: •
Observation: a standardized observation sheet was designed including the museum’s floor plan and aimed at drawing visitors’ paths, writing their timings and recording their behavior with regard to social interaction and use of exhibits. We observed visitors through the video security system installed in the front desk of the Museum because this allowed tracking the path of different visitors at the same time and collecting more information, while the evaluator
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remained unobtrusive, without influencing visitors’ behaviour in the small galleries of the Museum. •
Interviews based on a standardized questionnaire: This consisted of a set of 35 questions to be asked in a face-to-face interview. It included single/multiplechoice, Likert scale and open questions. The questionnaire was aimed at obtaining three kinds of information: visitor characteristics (demographics, knowledge and opinion about ICT, interest in Heritage/the past), preferences about the museum’s presentation methods, and opinion about the exhibits.
•
Self-administered questionnaire: the questionnaire used for the face-to-face interviews was adjusted and translated in Flemish to be also self-administered in the case of language problems or when the evaluator was not in the Museum. Due to the low number of independent visitors at this Museum, we collected 24 observations (10 of them coupled with an interview/self-administered questionnaire) and 19 questionnaires (9 interviews and 10 self-administered questionnaires). Because of the importance of schools and organized groups in this museum, we also introduced an interview with all the guides (coupled with an observation of their tour) and with two school teachers. The interviews were aimed at gathering information about how they conducted the visit, how they used the exhibits and their opinion about the usefulness of the technological applications. At the second stage in the project, we created the databases corresponding to visitors’ answers and our own observations, and carried out a statistical as well as a qualitative analysis of visitors’ comments and behaviours, which allowed us to understand how the technological exhibits were being perceived and used within the social context of the exhibition. We call it an integrated analysis because it combines observational interpretative methods and statistical explorative/explanative analysis, which in our opinion – already manifested in previous publications (Pujol and Economou, 2006) – are not opposed but complementary. Starting from the example of other research studies including a methodological aim, and from our own conclusions obtained in a previous evaluation (NG, 2002; Podgorny, 2004; Roussou, 2004; Forte, Pescarin, et al., 2006), in this study we tried to also apply and verify our methodological ideas. However, because of the small size of the sample, this remains a heuristic exploration which provides indications for later experiments aimed at truly verifying these explanative hypotheses about the factors involved in ICT’s advantages and disadvantages for Heritage presentation in exhibitions.
3.4. RESULTS Within the cultural heritage field, the semantic universe behind the word “interactivity” is complicated because it mixes notions coming from different fields, the last of them being technology. This was evidenced by visitors’ answers, and this is why we will use these as a basis to organize the following discourse, which will expose the particularities of each exhibit with regard to “interactivity” and demonstrate the need to establish a clear distinction between the different specific meanings. The third question of the questionnaire asked which exhibit was the most interactive. Contrary to what we expected, visitors’ answers indicated that they considered all exhibits as interactive and appreciated each one for it. In general, visitors thought about their physical-cognitive exchange with the exhibit, i.e. about usercontrolled complex exploration of the content, and they voted for the “Timeline” or for “Archaeolab”, where they noted the particularity to be able to touch real things. Yet, two other interpretations of interactivity also appeared in the respondents’ answers. In the first case, visitors understood “interactive” as the adjective coming from “interaction”, Museology e-journal, Issue 4, 2007 © Department of Cultural Technology and Communication, University of the Aegean
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and they rated the “Feast” as the most interactive, since as a “living performance”, it induced an empathic link, an emotional exchange, between the exhibit and the visitor. In the second case, some visitors, giving a more general interpretation, identified “interactive” with “relationship”, and considered that the Feast was the only exhibit purposefully forging a link between the characters and the objects. In this sense, a history teacher coming from France answered (apparently contradicting other visitors who had voted for the “Timeline” because “it was more than just pressing a button”), that the “Feast” allowed a complex interactivity. This is because while the latter were concentrating on the physical side of the exchange, the former, a subject expert, appreciated the fact that this exhibit reflected the epistemological reality of Archaeology because it was composed of different elements and its meaning arose from their interrelation. There was a clear relationship between the interpretations of “interactive” and respondents’ experience with computers: the more visitors had been in contact with computers, the more likely they were to substitute the traditional notions of interactivity with a technological definition, characteristic of the Information Society. We will explore the way visitors’ experienced the different kinds of “interactivity” present in the Ename Museum, through the analysis of each exhibit. The “Timeline” was considered as the most appropriate for learning for two reasons. First of all, because it was perceived as providing more and more complete information about the subject and was experienced as allowing a flexible, personalized exploration. The second reason was that respondents thought that it allowed them to obtain a general, quick idea of the abbey’s evolution in time, which was easy to grasp because it was transmitted by visual means. The enhancement of understanding through visualization is one of the main reasons for the introduction of these technologies in museums. In this case, the visual reconstruction helped to learn about History (by fixing a verbal discourse through iconic impact) and about Archaeology (by filling the missing parts of the ruins). We found that the more visitors knew about computers, the more they thought “Timeline” could be useful for learning, probably because the interface usability was not considered a problem. However, non-experts in computers and visitors with a high interest in the past also voted for it, and the reason they gave was that they considered original objects and visual sequential overviews, that is, the whole first display setup in the Timeline gallery, as the best way to learn about the subject. This complementary relationship between the “Timeline” and the showcases was recorded during the observations. The showcases were the first thing visitors saw when entering the room and they engaged them in the sequential approach to Ename’s history. The computer screen only became visible after they had read the second panel and this activated its attraction power, which could make people just look at it or definitively break the main sequence and approach the station. It appeared that in general, visitors preferred to learn about Ename’s historical evolution by following the object-based low-tech sequence (which is naturally indicated by means of the spatial configuration of the showcases and the panels) until the end and then complement it by “playing” with the VR application. Nevertheless, the place where visitors’ broke the sequence to look at the computer depended not only on visitors’ personal interests and preferences about exhibitions, but also on group composition. Men used the technological application more than women and also were those who approached the application first, tried it and then called their partner, who might try it herself or not. Is this an indication that men were more attracted by the technology than women? We would be inclined to say that in this study it was not a matter of technology but of gender behaviour in exhibitions, because in the other two exhibits, male visitors were again more active than their partners, who seemed to accept a secondary role. The “disturbance” effect was more evident with bigger groups, because in this case it was not possible to observe the objects and read the panels at the same time and the slow speed of those who had started the sequence first interfered with the path of quicker visitors, who then tended to turn to the computer station while they were waiting.
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In any case, any possible preference or advantage for learning might be undermined by the interface. From the point of view of the usability, the navigation mode chosen for this application was not as simple and natural as it would seem. In spite of their differing opinions during interviews, almost all visitors had problems to control the space-time navigation and especially to find the objects. In the first case, we found that problems arouse either because they did not know which were the basic movements or because they knew them but were performing them incorrectly. With the further difficulty that, as has been observed in other surveys (Alcalde, 1992; Asensio, García Blanco, et al., 1993; Forte, Pescarin, et al., 2006; Pujol and Economou, 2006), in general, visitors did not use the help and therefore the learning of the interface was done spontaneously (by a trial and error method). In the second case, very few visitors found the objects in the application, probably because they were neither accessible enough (for example, indicated by visual means at the first screen) nor sufficiently contextualized (through textual explanations accompanying the object’s image). In conclusion, the application was not accomplishing one of its main missions (contextualization of archaeological findings through visual means) because the objects were not found and also because visitors perceived the application as aimed primarily at illustrating the historical evolution of the abbey’s architecture. The second exhibit was the “Feast of a Thousand Years”. This exhibit was the great success of the museum with regard to engagement, satisfaction of group needs and ease of use. The main reason for considering the Feast as the most engaging exhibit was that “it showed different people talking about their life”. As we expected, empathy was the main value of this exhibit, something which was not possible with the Timeline because it was not immersive nor did it allow any interaction with human agents. With regard to group needs, the Feast was again designated as the most convenient because many people could sit at the benches to watch the performance [fig. 4].
Fig. 4: a school group listens to the guide’s explanations at the “Feast”.
Seemingly, the showcases and the “Archaeolab” also allowed multiple visitors to observe and touch. But, as one visitor mentioned, the small interactive screen of the “Timeline” was not suitable for groups. This was indeed demonstrated by several observations in which, as it had been also reported for other kinds of interfaces (Forte, Pescarin, et al., 2006; Pujol and Economou, 2006), either one visitor interacted with the device and the rest became spectators (adults), or they tried to use it all at the same time without good results (children). Finally, the Feast was also considered the easiest to use (especially by older visitors) because they “only had to press a button and sit to listen”. In other words, it did not need a big investment in physical or cognitive interaction. One adult female visitor even said that “it was the most comfortable way to spend time in a museum”, thus demonstrating once more that museum visiting is associated with leisure and informal learning. On the other hand, observations showed that female visitors preferred to sit Museology e-journal, Issue 4, 2007 © Department of Cultural Technology and Communication, University of the Aegean
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and watch the performances until the end, while male visitors were more active and moved around to explore the room. Children were less patient and forced their parents, especially their mothers, to carry out a quicker visit (going to the annex and leaving the exhibit earlier). It is interesting to observe visitors’ view on the “Feast”’s ease of use, since although this required less physical exchange than in the case of the “Archaeolab” or even the “Timeline”, the same was not true for the intellectual effort, because this exhibit was composed of several resources which needed to be linked at a higher interpretative level in order for the whole message to be understood. Unfortunately, as was evident by their responses, visitors did not understand it completely, for several reasons. The first – obtained from observations – is that they were mainly choosing the objects in the hemispherical case for their position (immediately in front them or within hand’s reach) and without any assistance from the panel or the list. The second – obtained also from their answers about the exhibit’s meaning – is that, in general, visitors were not integrating the three resources (the objects, the mannequins and the videotaped performances) but were rather looking at them separately and, moreover, mainly concentrating on the screen. The “TV effect”, also observed in other surveys (Forte, Pescarin, et al., 2006; Pujol and Economou, 2006), implied that visitors passively received information and because they had not paid a lot of attention to the object they had selected (as they were simply pressing the buttons in front of them), they could not easily establish a strong link between the two. As a result, the exhibit was described simply as “people talking about their lives”. The integrative action was only reported by “experts” in museums (able to “read” exhibits at different levels) or in the past (helped by a previous advanced knowledge about the subject). But even in these cases, visitors mentioned that they had not immediately comprehended the link between the different elements of this exhibit. The “Archaeolab” corresponds to a hands-on exhibit aimed at showing the real process of archaeological research. Visitors appreciated this exhibit because it allowed them to learn by touching the resources, which following some visitors’ opinion “is not usual in museums” but very convenient for children. The problem is that despite the fact that respondents stressed its interactive capacity as a positive feature, the exhibit remained totally underused, both by independent visitors and by organized groups. According to the observations, visitors’ comments and the guides’ opinions, the reason might be that visitors were influenced by their pre-conceptions about museums as places where touching the objects is not allowed and did not feel compelled to interact with it. Alternatively they might not have understood that it was a hands-on exhibit, particularly because there were no textual explanations directly (spatially) linked to it, but instead a single look was supposed to be enough to give visitors a general idea of what it was about. In the case of the guided visits, our conclusion was that the guide provided the necessary explanations but with her presence, she stood (both literally and metaphorically, by her discourse) between the visitors and the exhibit and prevented any interaction from taking place. Another reason could be that the exhibit is located at the end of the visit and that visitors were more tired when they approached this part. As a result, only those who had a personal interest in Archaeology spent time at the “Archaeolab”, probably because they were curious about the way a museum could reproduce an archaeological lab. However, this does not fulfil the aims of the exhibit because instead of showing to non-experts how Archaeology works, it ended up attracting those who already knew about it. This finding is coherent with the conclusions of previous studies conducted in the formal learning environment (Pozo, Asensio, et al., 1989; Reid, Zhang, et al., 2003), which demonstrated that discovery learning needs a big investment of time, the support of complementary guides and explanations in order to be really effective and that only those who already have a knowledge about the domain take a real advantage of it. It is interesting to describe briefly how the “Archaeolab” was used. In general, visitors’ behaviour can be classified in two kinds of paths: linear and non-linear. The Museology e-journal, Issue 4, 2007 © Department of Cultural Technology and Communication, University of the Aegean
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type of path chosen was influenced by three main factors: the general action (gazing or interacting), the interaction between co-visitors and the resource features (level of interactivity, visual appeal and location). With regard to the first factor, there was an association between gazing and linear path, on the one hand; and non-linear and interaction, on the other. With regard to the second factor, the presence of other visitors at the resources influenced the rest of the group. For example, it was common in couples to see one member (usually the man) interacting with the exhibits in a more linear way (or non-linear because of the exhibits) and the partner (usually the woman), who had entered the room later, adjusting his/her movements to the fact that there was already one person interacting with one resource. This was more evident with groups and especially with families, because the presence of children, with their particular kind of exploratory behavior, caused mostly non-linear paths of exploration. With regard to the third factor, a detailed analysis showed that interaction and gazing determined different preferences amongst the resources but all were related to three main factors: by order of importance, visual attraction, position and level of interactivity.
4. CONCLUSIONS The present paper aimed at contributing to the construction of a wide-encompassing body of empirical knowledge and specific methodological standards about the use of ICT in exhibitions, in order to guide future designs and evaluations of museum exhibitions. To that end, it presented, firstly, the theoretical relation between VR and current museological trends; and secondly, the empirical results (interpreted from the point of view of interactivity) of a survey conducted at the Ename Museum in Belgium, with the intention of studying the real effect and specific contribution of high-tech exhibits. With regard to the main concept examined, the evaluation demonstrated there can be many main kinds of “interactive exhibits”. The first corresponds to technological displays, like VR or Multimedia applications, which adapt the computer capabilities to an educational use and therefore provide a very specific kind of exchange, determined by the computational virtuality. This is what we would call “interactivity”, referring to the computational capacity of mathematical manipulation of data and dialogue with the visitor/user. The second kind of exhibit bases its communicational value in the establishment of links, of (sequential) “relationships” between resources or exhibits. It corresponds to the most usual museographical approach and, as shown by visitors’ answers, it is still appreciated by all audiences. Finally, “interaction” corresponds to the cognitive and emotional result of the interpretation of the exhibition’s message through direct, physical manipulation of resources. Although we agree with other authors (Asensio and Pol Méndez, 1996) that not even the previous category should be considered as a passive unidirectional way of communication, we believe that the concept of interaction is most suited to this one because here both the visitor and the exhibit are effectively “changed” through a dialectical process. With regard to the specific contribution of VR, the comparison of the three exhibits and the corresponding kinds of interaction at the Ename Museum demonstrated that the technology appears to be appropriate for learning because it allows a flexible, personalized exploration of a richer quantity of information. However, in this case, it could not achieve an empathic engagement (like in the case of the “Feast”) because it lacked immersion and the presence of real human agents. Secondly, the virtual simulation cannot substitute the interaction with real objects (like the “Archaeolab”), which is necessary to learn (provided the activity is fully developed) about the practical/methodological aspects of sciences or life. Therefore, one key contribution that VR can offer to the heritage field is the possibility to reconstruct and manipulate elements or phenomena which are not available anymore (and the addition of this last word makes the difference with the physical sciences). Museology e-journal, Issue 4, 2007 © Department of Cultural Technology and Communication, University of the Aegean
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VR appears to be particularly useful for learning spatial/geometrical concepts (for example, understanding the remains by reconstructing them), where it can be used alone, because the images are explained by themselves. It is also particularly useful for learning about processes which are not visible anymore (also by reconstructing them), but in this case images need to be supported by a verbal discourse (for example, the explanation of the historical processes behind the changes in the abbey’s architecture). The relationship between both means of communication should not be one of mutual exclusion but instead one of complementarity, because they are aimed at different things: images are better than language to express material realities, but at this level of iconicity (realistic, not schematic) they cannot represent non-objective elements such as external causal agents, relationships, etc., where more abstract representations, such as verbal language, excel. Nevertheless, a message can be understood or learned, provided all problems relating to interface design are solved. In fact, as the “Feast” demonstrated, solving problems relating to interface design is a necessary prerequisite to all communication events. With regard to the content, all possibilities in the construction of meaning, especially the fundamental ones, should be totally accessible, demonstrated and/or emphasized by visual means. With regard to usability, the interface should be as natural or intuitive as possible, especially considering that people do not use the available help and prefer to follow human examples. This study took the shape of an integrated evaluation, combining observational interpretative methods and statistical analysis, in order to obtain a better understanding about visitors’ social interaction with low-tech and ICT exhibits. The results demonstrate that this type of analysis should not be immediately considered as “qualitative” (as a synonym of purely descriptive, non numerical conclusions) because it allows the use of statistical analyses at a higher, explanative level. It is because of the sample size that it remained a heuristic exploration, aimed at providing explanative hypotheses to be tested in later experimental studies. On the other hand, it also confirmed that new evaluations should explicitly take into consideration all the elements involved in the use of VR in archaeological museums which until now had only been considered separately by each one of the aforementioned related fields. We believe that the key to research in this area is not to focus only on purely cognitive, communicational or museological issues, but to combine the three and study the concept of interactivity from a social perspective.
5. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We would like to thank Ms Marie-Claire van der Donckt, Curator of the Ename Museum, as well as Dr Neil Silberman, director of the Ename Centre, for hosting this study and for kindly offering their support in scientific and logistic matters. We would like as well to express our gratitude to Mr Stefaan De Smet and Mr Erik Dekeyser, front desk staff at the Museum, who patiently and good-humouredly assisted the research process during the field work and offered their invaluable experience in order to improve the data collecting and analysis.
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