1 School of Science and Technology, Middlesex University, London, NW4 4BT, ... exploratory research and development project was carried out at Middlesex ...
Using Context-‐Aware Digital Technology to Enhance and Enrich Visitor Experience in Exhibition Spaces Ashley J. Wheat1, Simon Attfield1, Rui Loureiro1, Ian Fusco-‐Fagg2 1 School of Science and Technology, Middlesex University, London, NW4 4BT, UK. 2 Dijit.net www.dijit.net
In a world where ubiquitous and pervasive computing are ever more commonplace, and digital technology has become interwoven in to all aspects of our lives, mobile technologies which are context-‐aware may offer new opportunities for enhancing and enriching the experience of visitors to museums and art galleries. To explore some of these possibilities, an exploratory research and development project was carried out at Middlesex University in 2011/12, in which a context-‐aware mobile system for museums and art galleries was developed and tested in a live exhibition environment. The system, called Mimir, consists of a client-‐side smartphone application which uses QR codes to provide location information, and a server-‐side content management system which allows exhibitors to upload and edit exhibit data. We describe the system and report two small-‐scale user-‐evaluation studies with artists and visitors. Motivated by a review of similar systems and our results, we conclude that systems like Mimir have potential to significantly enhance and enrich the experience of visitors to exhibition spaces. Further development of the project is proposed, aimed at developing a more inclusive and engaging exhibition environment.
1. INTRODUCTION In a digital age of ubiquitous and pervasive computing, where technology is playing an increasingly important role in our lives, institutions such as museums, art galleries and exhibitions can take advantage of mobile, location aware technologies to create more informative and exciting experiences for visitors. In a world where information is often at our fingertips, relying on methods for delivering information such as tour guides, printed brochures and pre-‐recorded audio guides may miss significant opportunities for enhancing visitor engagement with art and cultural heritage. By offering limited information via rigid media, sometimes constricting visitors to predetermined routes (Huang, et al., 2008), such public spaces may discourage exploration and also exclude an emerging digital generation. There has been a movement towards technology as a means of making museum exhibits and exhibition spaces more engaging and interactive (Meisner, et al., 2007). The museum of the twenty-‐first century may no longer be a place where we simply observe objects on display, but an environment that promotes an increasingly engaged, educational and intellectual experience whilst also providing enjoyment (Mason, 2011). Digital technology, and increasingly mobile technology, can play a prominent role in this (Macedonia, 2003). Context-‐aware systems are able to leverage information about their situation, including physical location, in order to affect processing or user-‐experience in some way. By developing and evaluating a new context-‐aware mobile system, the project reported in this paper sought to explore the use of such systems from the perspectives of both producers and consumers, as a means for providing new ways of making a visit to an exhibition space a more
engaging and enriching experience, and to provide insights into fruitful areas for further research. The Mimir system consists of two parts. The first is a client-‐side mobile application called Middlesex Exhibitions, which has an integrated QR code reader. A QR code is a two-‐ dimensional matrix barcode, which can encode a reference including a URL. Using the app, a user can capture a QR code and be presented with rich multimedia content relating to an artefact and a number of social network capabilities for communicating with friends about the artefact. The second part is a dedicated content management system on which the content is stored. An associated content management interface allows artists and exhibitors to upload, author and edit content dynamically from any computer with internet access. Two user evaluations were conducted at exhibitions with real users. In the first, twelve student artists were asked to use the system in a public exhibition of their work. In the second, a group of volunteers used the app whilst viewing a gallery of student work. The structure of the rest of this paper is as follows: in the section 2 we briefly review background literature on the use of context-‐aware systems in museums and gallery spaces and its impact on user-‐experience. In section 3 we describe the system architecture of Mimir. In sections 4 and 5 we report the two user evaluations. Finally, in section 6 we discuss our findings and implications for further work.
2. RELATED WORK
Over a number of years there has been an increase in the use of mobile guides within museums and gallery spaces, with context-‐aware systems attracting many researchers’ interest (Yu, et al., 2008). For example, in a project carried out by Shin et al. (2010) a context-‐ aware augmented reality smartphone application was proposed which supported intelligent guidance around exhibition spaces. Using an embedded compass and accelerometer the system provided onscreen navigation between exhibits. The system also allowed users to generate and share content about artefacts through object tagging and the content ‘mashups’ using a combination of augmented reality and context-‐awareness. Users could author content which would then be rendered onscreen over the real world, merging the physical and virtual. Following a demonstration of their system, Shin, et al. concluded that user engagement during museum tours was improved, although this was not supported by empirical data. In their iMuseum project, Yu et al. (2008) proposed a context-‐aware intelligent museum system intended to address the limited scalability of existing systems. The system provided users with artefact information on handheld devices using RFID tags to provide location information. iMuseum provided scalability by defining sharable context vocabularies which enabled third parties to develop their own context-‐aware applications or context providers which could then be plugged into the system. In an evaluation of iMuseum, users were given a PDA equipped with RFID detection to act as an interactive tour guide. The system accessed a background computer hosting a context server and context-‐aware applications. An application called iGuide played multimedia information about an artefact on display on a visitor’s PDA. An application called iRecommender application suggested relevant exhibits or relics to a visitor according to the items they have been viewing in their visit. Users were asked to complete a questionnaire following the use of iGuide and iRecommender. The results showed that users were satisfied with the multimedia content provided by iGuide, but some had complaints about the performance of the RFID detection of relics. They also found recommendations provided by iRecommender interesting and useful,
however the user-‐interface could have been more intuitive. All of the participants indicated that they would use the system again. Although these studies are encouraging for the use of context-‐aware mobile systems in museums and gallery spaces and point to the possibility of enhancing user engagement, evidence is nevertheless a little sparse. In this project we aimed to begin addressing this gap by carrying out user evaluations of the Mimir system from a number of different user perspectives. Artists are stakeholders in the exhibition experience as well as visitors and so we aimed to explore the experience of using such systems from the perspective of the visitor and that of the artist.
3. SYSTEM Mimir consists of two main elements (see figure 1): A native, client-‐side iPhone application (Middlesex Exhibitions) and a remote content server.
Figure 1. Mimir system architecture. 3.1 Client-‐side iPhone application. The Middlesex Exhibitions mobile application runs on an iOS device (3G or above) and consists of an integrated QR code scanner and browser. By capturing a QR code located near a corresponding artefact, the application fetches the relevant exhibit information inf the form of an ‘article’ from a remote server, which is then rendered within an integrated browser. Users can also browse articles about exhibits without the need to capture a QR code. This can be done without being in the gallery space at all, allowing the user to preview an exhibition or view information on exhibits they may have missed.
3.2 Remote content server. All multimedia exhibit information is stored on a remote content server. Each exhibitor or artist can access and update information about their own work on the content server through an integrated content management interface. By accessing this interface remotely over the internet, exhibitors can create and edit exhibit articles on-‐the-‐fly. Articles (see figure 2) can include multimedia content such as images and links to videos that the exhibitors have put on to YouTube (http://www.youtube.com). The user interface of the content system is in keeping with many familiar websites and online tools, and uses a WYSIWYG (what-‐you-‐see-‐is-‐ what-‐you-‐get) editor to support easy article creation. Users with administrative rights, such as exhibition managers or curators, also have read and write access to all articles within an exhibition, and can oversee the information that is available. Exhibition administrators can also access built in reporting tools to view the number of hits or views made on each exhibit, and accompanying times collected by the content server from anonymous, unique device IDs sent from visitors’ devices. This allows exhibition curators insight into the behaviour of visitors to their exhibition whilst using the system. We anticipate that this could also provide a basis for a future personalised recommender system.
Figure 2. Example screenshots of a Mimir article on Apple iPhone.
4. EVALUATION 1
In evaluating Mimir we were interested not only in eliciting the experience of gallery visitors, but of also understanding the experience of artists. Twelve students from the MA Fine Art programme at Middlesex University were recruited in advance of a public exhibition of their work. Each was given an account on the content server and asked to upload content that they would like visitors to be able to access about each of their pieces of work. The students then printed an automatically generated QR code specific to each piece and placed it beside
the work in the exhibition space. Each student was then loaned an Apple iPod Touch with the Middlesex Exhibitions application installed and on which they could scan their own QR codes and explore information about fellow students’ work. After the show, two focus groups were held with the twelve volunteers in which they were encouraged to share their experiences of using the system both as artists and as viewers of their colleagues art. Rather than structure the focus groups around a set of pre-‐defined questions, a more open approach was taken based on simply finding out “what happened?” Following Gaver et al. (2007), this evaluation focused on exploring the potentially ludic, playful and serendipitous aspects of interaction. The focus groups were audio recorded and the recordings were later transcribed. The transcripts were then coded using open coding and axial coding (Stebbins, 2001) in order to identify the main themes and concepts discussed. Many of the students felt that the system offered a practical solution to the problem of accessing information in the exhibition space. They discussed this in terms of enlarging on the physical space of the exhibition. As one student remarked, the system provided, “...a contained virtual space, acting as an extension to the physical gallery”. They also noted that such a system might attract new audiences to exhibitions who wouldn’t normally attend, and that it might provide a new level of access to the art on show. Accessibility and flexibility were key properties of the system as experienced by the students. They noted that the system offered mobility, ease and freedom in exploring exhibit information. As artists it offered them much more flexibility on the type of information they could make available to people who viewed their work and the ways in which they might choose to portray that information.
5. EVALUATION 2 For the second evaluation we were interested in exploring the reaction of exhibition visitors. We also used some findings from the first evaluation to provide a more structured evaluation format based around some specific aspects of user-‐experience. These aspects where engagement and usability. Engagement is an aspect of user-‐experience that has been the subject of increasing research interest in recent years, and has been deconstructed into a number of dimensions or facts (c.f. O’Brian & Toms, 2008; Lalmas et al., 2011). Of those dimensions, we focused in particular on Endurability (The likelihood of remembering an experience and willingness to repeat it) and Focused Attention (attention to the exclusion of other things). Content was uploaded and QR codes created and displayed beside exhibits in an exhibition of student art which was an adjunct to the North London Higher Education Fair held at Middlesex University in March 2012. Seven volunteers were recruited and each given an Apple iPod Touch installed with the Middlesex Exhibitions application. They were then asked to explore the exhibits on display and to capture QR codes to access further information where they felt inclined to do so. Following this, participants were asked to complete a short questionnaire consisting of a number of Likert scale questions, each probing for an aspect of Endurability, Focused Attention or Usability. The results of the questionnaire are shown in table 1. Here we show the aggregated frequency of responses for questions according to the three dimensions. Aggregation was possible since in all cases since the Likert statement corresponded with a positive assessment of the system. For example, one Usability item asked for agreement with, “The Middlesex Exhibitions app was easy to use”; an Endurability item asked for agreement with the statement “I am more likely to view information using the app rather than a regular guide”; and a Focused Attention item asked for agreement with the statement, “The multimedia content is more exciting and engaging than regular guides”.
Figure 3. Visitors using the Middlesex Exhibitions mobile app in a live exhibition. Although the number of participants was relatively low, the results in table 1 demonstrate a strong trend towards positive responses. The mode response for Usability items was Strongly Agree, for Endurability items its was Agree, and for Focused Attention it is Agree. We conducted a one sample chi squared goodness of fit analysis for each of the three factors as an indicative exercise (we consider that more participants would be required for a definitive result). The analysis compared the results with a hypothesised distribution in which responses are equally distributed across the five options (strongly disagree to strongly agree). In each case the one-‐tailed p values were highly significant in the positive direction (p < 0.01). Response
Usability
Endurability
Focused Attention
Strongly Disagree
0
0
0
Disagree
0
1
1
Neutral
1
6
3
Agree
5
18
9
Strongly Agree
8
10
8
Mode
Strongly agree
Agree
Agree
Table 1. Aggregated response frequencies for the three dimensions of user experience assessed: Usability, Endurability and Focused Attention.
6. CONCLUSIONS We see our evaluation of Mimir as encouraging. The study with student artists provided insights into the positive opportunities provided by the system from an artist’s perspective. Some of these were quite practical, such as making information available and attracting new audiences. The system was also seen as offering a virtual ‘space’ to extend on the physical gallery space. This is perhaps an encouraging indication of how Mimir was seen as providing a resource for expression and communication. A space can shaped and filled; it presents an opportunity. The artists also spoke positively about the flexibility offered by Mimir to the consumer. In addition to extending the physical space, we are keen on the idea of Mimir dissolving physical and temporal constraints of the gallery environment. Articles can be viewed at the exhibit or at other locations; they can be previewed or reviewed at a different times and different places. This may offer the consumer of art an opportunity to develop more on going relationships with art works, which extend either side of relatively fleeting encounters within an exhibition space. This, combined with flexibility in the form of content, may allow consumers the time and richness of experience to be become more engaged, acquainted and affected by the art that they encounter. The second study focused exclusively on exhibition visitors, probing for their reaction in terms of usability and engagement. Once again the results were positive. The questionnaire results showed that our participants found Mimir easy to use and engaging. In particular they were keen to use the system and found the content exciting. Although this was a relatively small evaluation, and notwithstanding any possible confounding experimenter effects (we didn’t perform a controlled comparison with an alternative system for example) the results were overwhelmingly positive. From this exploratory study a number of questions are raised. It is apparent that digital systems such as Mimir can offer a practical solution in presenting relevant, multimedia rich artefact information to exhibition visitors. Users can become engaged with the content they have to offer and may want to use the systems again. However, something which we, and to the knowledge of the authors, have not considered is the effect of such devices on engagement with the art or exhibit itself. If a system is to improve visitor engagement with items on display, it must compliment or become part of the exhibit itself, dissolving the physical boundary between an artefact and the information about it. Moreover, if a visitor is using such a system to access additional information about an item on display, it may be assumed that their attention is split between the artefact and the system. The system may create a mediating channel, which actually detracts from the art itself. In future work we intend to explore this question further and also the idea of context aware digital solutions as providing an experience which integrates more closely with experience of the art itself. The model of digital guide as mediating the art experience could be replaced with the idea of interaction as a necessary part of the art experience, or even of user interaction making a contribution to the art. With this in mind we plan to work more closely with artists and also musicians in order to develop experiences, which are as much part of the art rather as an informative adjunct to it. A visit to a museum can be a social experience, shared with family or friends (Bell, 2002). Although there have been some moves towards using digital technology in addressing this social context through techniques such as object tagging (e.g. Cosley et al., 2009) there is more that can be done in this area. Where this is a social dimension to a visit to a gallery or exhibition mobile, context-‐aware systems might take this into consideration in the services
offered. For example, a system might take inspiration from Walden’s Paths (Furuta, et al., 1997) by allowing visitors to create and share ‘paths’ through exhibition spaces tagged by their preferences. We propose to explore this further in our future research. We conclude almost where we started with the idea that context-‐aware devices can enhance an enrich experiences in the art gallery. Lots of opportunities exist and may be explored, although these opportunities should be firmly predicted and shaped by the emerging impressions and interests of stakeholders in the art gallery experience.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We would like to extend our gratitude to Keith Piper, Reader in Fine Art at Middlesex University, for his kind help in helping us to set up the studies reported here, and also Middlesex University MA Fine Art class of 2012 for taking part as participants.
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