Proposal

1. Introduction

Museums remains an important venue that preserves and communicate historical, scientific and cultural importance to the society. Based on the dynamic changes and advancements of ICT and ubiquitous methods of getting information, museums have more challenges nowadays of how to compete as a medium of cultural importance - how to present information, provoking interest and providing experiences to meet the needs of visitors without losing their purpose. Galleries and Museums nowadays started to integrate various interactive technologies that are focusing on users engagement, deeper understanding of information, immercement visitors into the context of the installations. But based on the research it is clear that despite technological advances or traditional setup in the museums there is still a problem of how to bridge the gap between installations and the public on the emotional level making people more connected to the exhibitions or artworks. Our project will explore the design opportunity and evaluation of social & mobile technology that will help to support meaningful user engagement and promote a connection between visitors and art exhibitions.

2. Domain problem space

2.1 Initial Domain Research

The domain space we are focusing on is interactive museums. A wide range of research has demonstrated that the general user’s interests toward the museum and cultural environment have been increased (Liew,2005). There are two main reasons that motivate people to visit a museum, one based on a search for knowledge and the other based on emotions (Brida, Dalle Nogare & Scuderi, 2015). Consequently, achieving these two dimensions of motivation is vital to enhance user experience in the cultural environment. Nowadays Information technology has been adopted for providing spectators a more enjoyable experience allowing users to get more knowledge of exhibits. By reviewing literature, we found that both in information technology and museology research pay little attention to the personal connection of artworks in cultural space. Personal connection is quite important for the general visitors because they gain knowledge and identity from making a connection with the artworks (Chronis, 2005). Thus, our team decided to put attention on this problem space and design a technology which can combine human connection to the exhibition and facilitation of social interaction.

The research of existing interactive technologies in the museum context showed that such technologies will be successful if they accommodate the following features: interpretation, personalization, and socialization (Fosh et al. ,2014). Firstly, except for traditional ways to form interpretation (such as labels), there is a big concern of how to support visitors with multiple interpretations or to spark their own interpretations. It is noted that participants should have an active role in triggering content rather than become passive consumers. Secondly, the capacity of technologies allows provide big volume of information that can overwhelm visitors, therefore there is a need in personalization based on visitors type or interests. It was shown that the user will keep more activated if this system will provide them with a personalized experience (Atkins, 2009). Thirdly, it is common that people visit the museum with families or friends that provide further challenges for interactive technologies. Providing a technology, such as audio guide can trigger problems such as distributed attention between artworks, content, and communication between group members. Therefore it is argued that technology should incorporate social functions such as sharing of responses or accommodating connections with others. (Fosh et al. ,2014). Koushik(2010) also pointed out the most efficient way to keep users engaged is a social relationship. This inherent sociability enables visitors to interact with the designated system. Users are inclined to be part of a website because their friends have joined into the same website. In addition, once they have paid attention and efforts on this website, they would be easier to return. But, with personalization and socialization, there is a challenge for the designers to provide a technology that won’t provide additional actions from the user that will distract from installation content, such as creating an account or filling their personal data.

More and more users and organizers switch their attention on the smartphone with innovative technology such as VR, AR (Li & Liew, 2015). Another compelling advantage is that the information can be delivered more precisely and complete, which compensate for the perceived weakness of traditional museums, where an invisible gap between visitors and collections (Li & Liew, 2015). Also, tourists prefer hyperreality and simulation rather than reality, because technology sometimes contributes to a more authentic experience, through interactivity, and therefore has the potential to transform inauthentic into authentic(Fjellman, 2019). Innovative technology provides a dynamic interactive way affecting the psychological process, which leads to a positive knowledge learning experience because it provides a dynamic experience to visitors instead of the passive reading experience(Pallud, 2017). This author also addressed that such as a sense of immersion, curiosity, enjoyment, and authenticity that will, in turn, lead to a positive knowledge learning experience in a museum.

2.2 Shared mobile displays

The paper looks at integrating social and mobile technology to enhance the experience of museum visitors. From the use of iPods to iPads as well as the comparison of the shared tablet to a shared small projector was experimented to test their effectiveness of enhancing the user experience in the museum. Our research is focused on increased interactivity with exhibitions in art galleries for both groups and individuals and the study conducted in the article homed in on this.

When iPods (small individual mobile device) given to each participant in a group of three to guide them through an exhibition person often directed their attention to the device rather than join in a conversation or interact (by looking) with the artwork or socialize with other members of the group. On the other hand, this option kept the experience personalized for users as well as they maintained full control of the choice of artwork to look at. This informs our design exploration that the choice of participation should remain with the user of the concept and not that they have to share in a group for their experience in the art gallery to be enhanced by technology. When iPads, tablets, and projection was used by other participants, the study noted that because of a single screen sharing to explore the exhibition beyond the caption on the wall, there was greater discussion among participants. The study also showed that a leader emerged in each group and usually that is the person with the device. Different types of leaders also emerged; democratic: where the person with the device asked group members which exhibition next, consensual: where the person with the device would suggest what to visit next and then sought the input of other members, and autocratic: where the decision was made by one person of what artworks to look at.

While a leader emerged in some of the groups, this role or responsibility was surrendered by my members of the group to the person with the most technical abilities (in the case of the tablet and projection for shared display). The advantage of using a shared display stimulated group discussion around the artworks visited. There was greater group discussion observed with the projection and this was attributed to the size of the display. This did not come without drawbacks such as the display of projection was not bright enough display in this environment as well as the projection created the potential for crowding the display architecture of the museum. On some accounts, the iPad shared display was preferred because its display was much brighter, sharper, and cleaner.

The majority of visitors observed at the museums we visited were in small groups of families or friends and therefore this article helped us in understanding the benefits of the shared mobile display to encourage group cohesiveness as they explore exhibitions. Though small in numbers we also observed and interviewed visitors who came to the gallery alone, whether in a group or individual future designs for this environment should account for individuality and control with the user of a device. They maintain the choice of sharing.

2.3 Spectator experience

Additional research was conducted to understand the spectator experience in the museum context. These papers were chosen to understand deeper individual and social behavior in the museums, how the interaction is socially organized within this space. The study revealed that visitors have very different ways of how they experience the exhibition. While limited information was provided regarding the individual experience of visiting the museum, it was shown that the experience with the artifacts is shaped by the prior choice of pictures visitor looked at. The context reconfigures actively as visitors explore the exhibition. Therefore the experience is constantly alter based on retrospective and prospective paintings he/she sees (Lehn et al., 2001).

Additionally, it is said that the personal experience of the spectator does not just limited by the psychological or mental biases or the knowledge of the person about the particular artifacts or forms of arts, it also emerges from their interaction with other people, whether they are those who they came with or simply those who appeared to be in the same space of the exhibition. The activities of the visitors can not only discriminate some objects of the exhibition, define how the objects are discovered but also shape the way how elements of the artwork are explored and interpreted (Heath and vom Lehn, 2004; Lehn et al., 2001). Heath and vom Lehn (2004) explain the specific behaviour of those who came in groups: participants' body becomes a means of uncovering some aspects of the artifacts overlaying some functions of it to the body itself. The object is transformed to “an object-in-action ” and another person is encouraged to respond to this “en-livened” object which embodies the action of the body. Therefore the whole experience is shaped moment by moment through the complex negotiation between participants as the interaction provides a way of how visitors see, identify and respond to the artworks. This means that individuals that explore the exhibition without a group can lack of possibility to form deeper connection or understanding of the artifacts as their interaction is limited by the presented object and information provided on the labels. Lehn et al. (2001) also showed that regardless if people know each other or not, social interaction also shapes each others’ access to and participation with particular exhibits. In their research, they showed that peripheral awareness of other visitors provides a resource to coordinate their own actions. Namely, the group of people can trigger the person to draw attention to the specific elements of the exhibition. It was also shown that spectators also shape each other's access and involvement with certain museum items and their interaction with each other form their overall experience throughout the exhibition. The understanding of spectators behavior in the museums may not provide additional insight for the possible design exploration, but it does provide an understanding of how to design in this space to enhance collaboration, interaction, and discussion between visitors.

2.4 Contextual Inquiry

2.4.1 Interview round1

The first round of interview was held to test the hypothesis and to touch the basis of the chosen domain. Starting from general idea to improve visitor's experience in museums the team decided to ask visitors about their motivation to go to museums and their experience overall, moreover team wanted to get feedback from the museum's staff on what experience they want to provide to visitors, and what is the goal of an exhibition as well. Having this plan, the team tried to touch the domain from two opposite perspectives and hoped to find a gap between the user's experience and the final goal of any exhibition. The team completed four interviews with people who can be identified as people who love going to museums and have multiple experiences in that, and also one interview with the museum expert from UQ Art Museum. The demographics between visitors was as following:

1. Female IT student, 31 years old
2. Female Ph.D. candidate in the History of Art, 32 years old
3. Female international student ，24 years old
4. Female registered nurse, 73 years old

Following questions were prepared for the interviews with visitors:

1. Do you like to visit museums?
2. How often do you visit museums?
3. What kind of museums is it?
4. When you are at the museum, what information do you usually look for?
5. What do you like the most while visiting museums?
6. Tell about the most interesting experience in a museum? What did you like the most?
7. Tell me about the most boring experience/exhibition you attended? Why was it boring?
8. Is there something you wish to have in museums?

The first three questions were introductory, to help get started and place the conversation in the context of the museums, to help interviewees remember their experience. The next questions were specifically about museums, and here participants gave more extended replies.

The first insight from the interviews with visitors was about visiting the museum: 3 participants stated they usually visit museums during travels and two added to that that while they are at home, they visit museums more rare, only if it is a special exhibition. That allows the team to conclude that people go to the exhibition only once and knowing that they have a possibility to visit the museum any day make them less inclined to visit it. All participants visit art museums, and some of them love archeological and historical ones.

The next insight was about what participants usually look for in exhibitions, and two stated that they like to read the stories behind and to get a sense of history as well. It is clear that people value much the knowledge about the author, the inspiration behind and other details that could help understand the artefact better and be more connected. Answering the question of what do they like the most in museums, some of them remembered their highlights. Amongst those were knowing something new, knowing the details of artists lives, observing other visitors and listening to their conversations of others at the exhibition.

Another question was about the most interesting experience so far. The team tried to identify some highlights that people remember and take away with them even after the exhibition. Part of the participants noted the most interesting for them was an experience where they were able to know more about the artist, whereas other part said they liked the moment when they feel connected with an object and experienced new activity, something that you cannot get in your real life.

Regarding the most boring experience, majority of the participants could not remember explaining that they do not usually remember boring staff. However, one participant noted that they quickly get bored if the topic is about War and information was presented in specific definitions. Another participant noted that he did not like when other visitors were so noisy that he could not enjoy and had to leave after 10 mins, regretting that he paid a lot for that.

Two interviewees also noted that when they go to the exhibition the first time - it is never boring, it rather would be boring if they would go there again, because the content is still the same. Regarding wishes, 2 participants stated they would like to have more interaction - like something to touch on or activities that allow them to experience presented times. Another thing that information should be presented in an interesting way and museums should have more magnets what visitors can take as souvenirs so they will have a piece of that art with them. After running these interviews with visitors, the team analysed and identified two types of visitors:

1. People who are in art and objects themselves. They are always interested in all details, artists background and story behind; Age group of these participants is 31 and 73, but the first one has done PhD in history so they can have a particular interest in art.

2. People who consider museum as more like an activity that you cannot experience in your everyday life. These group also mentioned in their responses aspect of others and possible interaction. The occupation of this group are students, and they are considered as a younger audience without a particular interest in art.

From the interview with the expert, the team had a lot of exciting insights, allowing them to know the process behind the curtains. The museum expert was asked about one of the most interesting exhibitions that he had run so far, and she talked about the exhibition that the museum had to repeat because it was very popular. That exhibition was about the history of computer games for the last 40 years. It was very successful between families. It was said, that people returned to the exhibition again with their children to show them how they used to live and what games they played. There was not only objects that you cannot touch; the museum showcased real toys from that time, allowing visitors to get a real experience. So fathers loved that they could demonstrate it to their children and interact with it, to have a so-called "shared experience". This insight showed the importance of providing context for interactions between visitors. Additionally, the expert highlighted "... when you find some reflection of yourself is what people getting interested in …". This particularly emphasises that it is highly important for the visitors to see some correlation between a piece of art and themselves, to have something that evokes feelings or memories or allows them to leave something that will have a personal significance.

Answering the main question about what experience they usually try to provide to visitors the expert said the main thing is to tell the story behind with details, people's motivations and other interesting details that could help them understand. To be successful, an exhibition has to have something to interact with or be well established and promoted. As an example, she said about workshops from the artist. Surprisingly it turned out that usually in the museum teams no particular position who would be required for visitor's experience. There is a team of curators, project managers, digital people, marketers and people who are responsible for catalogues.

Talking about a personal experience, the museum expert noted that she doesn't like to read too much information, sometimes visitors are overwhelmed by it.

2.4.2 interview round 2

The second round of the semi-structured interview was conducted at the Queensland Art Gallery during the weekend afternoon. The goal of this round of the interview was to get an understanding of visitors' experience in the art museum both individual or in the group, whether they felt a connection to the artworks, and identify further their needs in this context. The team did an interview with 4 participants who have already visited the museum. Two participants had an individual experience in the museum: the men, who is an artist and studied art, around 40 years old, a woman around 60 years old who arrived in Brisbane with the group but preferred to make observations on her own. Two other participants, around 25 years old, visited the museum together. Following questions were prepared for the interviews:

1. What motivated you to visit the museum;
2. Describe your experience of being in this museum;
3. Which part of the exhibition did you like the most? Why?
4. Tell about your connection to the exhibition/ or specific artworks?

One of the most important themes that have been identified is that people have an interest, better connection, have stronger emotions if they have some background information about the author, his bibliography, and how the artworks were created. Participants said that the most interesting parts of the exhibition were those of Van Gogh, Salvador Dali. It was clear that the information they know about the authors' life, their personalities (even before attending the museum) impact heavily on their perception of the artworks. It was interesting to note that although one participant told that it is the artwork itself he values much and impressed with his discussions about artworks shifted back again to the authors' life and his talent.

Secondly, it is clear that it is highly important for visitors to have the ability to make an interpretation of the artwork. During the interview, the participant mentioned that their background knowledge of some paintings of one author can help him to interpret another painting of the same author. That is why, perhaps, users appreciated if the collections contain some recognizable artworks. This becomes a problem for those who are visiting exhibitions without any background knowledge of the pictures or artists, or if the topic of the exhibition is not familiar for them. One of the participants who visited the exhibition with his friend pointed out that the knowledge of his friend helps him to interpret the painting, otherwise it can be difficult for him to make sense of it and therefore he most probably won’t go to the exhibition alone. This also shows that social interaction between those visiting in a group can promote better understanding, connections, and satisfaction from their visit. But regardless of their own interpretation, it was identified that people have a need to understand what the author wanted to convey with the piece of art because “....otherwise we have a gap between me and the painting”. Those who visited The Museum of Modern Art before the Art Gallery pointed out that the MOMA exhibition provided much more understanding, expression and provoked more emotions. This can be explained by the specific setup of the exhibitions where the information was conveyed through a detailed description of each part of the installation, some details about the author's emotions, different phases of life that affected the work. In contrast, participants told that aboriginal art In the Art Gallery was hard to understand and interpret as they have a lack of background information about their culture, their life. They had a strong need to verify their interpretation of the art with what the author tried to convey and to learn more about culture, the chosen colors, symbols, the connections between artworks.

Another thing that we found out is that people who are interested in art value much the atmosphere and the setup of the exhibition. The participant pointed out that he visits the museum to be “visually stimulated” and for relaxation. This also correlates with information gathered in the first round of interviews where participants called the museum a “temple of art”. This shows that for some people museums become a space for mental discharge, relaxation or stimulation of their creative mind. This is important to understand in the context of this project, as enhancing the space with interactive technologies should take into consideration the social values of people who are in the same space.

Overall, this round of the interview allowed us to get the following insights:

1. Visitors evoke more inclusion in the exhibition having an emotional connection with the author, background information, or personal interest in the topic;
2. Social interaction triggering new interpretations of the piece of art, making people more interested in artworks;

2.4.3 Observations

Our team observed two space. One is the GOMA, another is an exhibition in the gallery of modern art. The goal of observation is to gain a basic understanding of spectator’s habits and the inner structure of a museum.

Both field observation and spectator’s behaviors observation are adopted. Because it’s an initial data collection, demographic diversity is considered during observation, which covers the age group from 8 years old to 70 years old. Also, the data of both group spectators and individual spectator have been collected for further comparison. The same spectators might behave totally different and have different experiences in the same exhibition.

Insights from field observation

The consistent caption would be an efficient tool to guide the right path for spectators. Spectator pays less attention to the caption if the caption only appears randomly. Through our observation, we found only a few people read the caption in GOMA, while almost every visitors read the caption and follow the same path to visit the exhibition of the Modern Art Gallery. As a result of this, their visitors is 5times more than GOMA. we think the root cause of this consequence is that the caption in the exhibition is much more coherent and close to each caption. Spectators might not read that but they might use it as a road sign which tells them where they should “drive”.Otherwise, they have no clue to follow the right path to experience the complete story of this exhibition.

Spectators are interested in the personal lives of artists. There is a video room which provides the documentary of the artist for spectators. Only a limited number of chairs are provided, but full of the spectator stand here for watching this film. They all look concentrated on that film because the only voice I hear is from the film. Noone had a conversation in this dark video room. Also, the immersive experience might also contribute to this atmosphere.

insights from spectator observation

Group visitors are more inclined to communicate with each other. Group visitors prefer to share their idea towards the artworks with their companions. In most cases, they spend more time to visit a single artwork, perhaps, because they have to stay in front of the artwork to explain their thoughts. Also, body language is commonly used when there is a group discussion. Gestures are quite important not only for them to articulate their thoughts but also to point out which part of the artwork they are mentioning.

Overall, we gain some useful strategy from field observation. In this exhibition, the curator redisplays the objects which existed in the painting. We are not sure what’s the intention of that, but it can be a storytelling method to build an environment of “reality”. The spectators can view the scene that the artists also viewed while painting.

2.4.4 Insights from existing solutions in the museum

As part of the background research, the team has also run analysis of existing solutions. The team was specifically looking for solutions that are:

• to some extent have social & mobile aspects,
• could enhance visitor’s experience,
• make visitors feel connected to the exhibition,
• help visitors to understand the story behind.

1. Dawn Chorus - "a museum-based alarm clock app investigating the concept of "museum as utility" (Ticknor, 2017). The Carnegie Museum of Pittsburgh team had a goal to create an app that people would use in their everyday life so it would promote museum's conservation efforts. For the concept were chosen alarm that will sound as "dawn chorus". In the app itself, users can read about each bird, see additional pictures and listen to its song. Within a month app downloaded 35 000 of users, and it has attracted particular interest amongst society (Ticknor, 2017). 5% of users were using it on a daily base. One of the developers compared these statistics with other museum apps from Carnegie Museum, and it turned out that people did not use them after visiting a museum since there was no context and point for that anymore.

Figure 1.Screenshots from the Dawn Chorus mobile application (Ticknor, 2017).

While this application seems quite popular in comparison with other mobile applications for museums, it lacks the social aspect. Also, this solution does not have enough informative content and interactive elements.

2. Andy Carnegie Chatbot - the same museum developed a chatbot for their users. Knowing from previous experience that people will delete museum app after visiting a museum because there was no context in using that anymore, they decided to create a chatbot based on Facebook messenger that would support the Summer Adventure Program with multiple events. The aim of the design was to provide visitors with engaging and interactive activities like trivia, polls, scavenger hunts and unique stamps that could be collected by visiting a special event (Ticknor, 2019). The final goal of the app was to support the experience of visiting a museum in a new format and also continue interaction through listed above activities to keep visitors engaged with the museum (Macdonald, 2018). Results of evaluation have shown that half of the users installed it from the museum sign and another half through internet digital channels. The chatbot was accessible from any place so users could interact with it at any time. The results from the pilot launch in 2018 were successful, and museum repeated that experience in 2019.

Figure 2. Visuals of Andy Carnegie Chatbot (Macdonald, 2018).

3. This picture was made by Jeffrey Inscho in the Oakland Museum in California, 2017 (Inscho, 2017). Although this example is not mobile, it is still a social solution.

Figure 3. Photo of the wall with discussion from the Oakland Museum (Inscho, 2017).

Here museum provokes a discussion between guests on the event that happened more than 200 years ago. The presented solution is very accessible, it does not require anything specific for participation (like installing an app), it is anonymous, and everyone still can see it. The author of that article admired by museum's approach to be there for the community. Another example that he noticed was a question about how they would fix a system related to a political situation. As it can be seen here, the museum dedicated a whole wall for the discussion, that means it is important and in-demand between visitors.

Figure 4. Photo of the wall with a discussion about work program in the USA from Oakland Museum (Inscho, 2017).

One more example from that museum was listening station where visitors could listen to conversations of other real visitors about their impressions and other interesting discussions. On the example below is captured a wall about people who were born in California. Amongst portraits of famous painters museum left blank frames for visitors portrays that can be drawn through touchscreen from the left-hand side. By doing this museum provides visitors with an opportunity to leave their landmark and through this makes them feel more connected as well.

Figure 5. Photo of the wall with visitor portraits from the Oakland Museum (Inscho, 2017).

4. Google Arts and Culture - This mobile application differs from mentioned above because it is much more functional and works perfectly well. Moreover, it is free and not focused on the specific museum. The account application is linked to Google account so that the user can save liked materials. The application provides with the function of visiting a museum through 3D projection; have articles about specific collections or artefacts, artists, high-quality pictures of artefacts; AR-option to see an object in a real size through a device; function to take a selfie and find matches with various portraits.

Figures 6-8. Screenshots from Google Arts and Culture mobile app.

5. Apart from the mentioned above options, the team searched for other similar mobile applications on Apple Store. On 04/09/2018 by searching the keyword "museum" were found 11 applications: the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Australian Museum, National Museum of Singapore, American Museum of Nat History, MoMA Audio, Guggenheim Museum Guide, The O, British Museum Visitor Guide, Louvre Museum Visitor Guide, Hermitage Museum. All of them were designed for the specific museum to enhance the experience of visitors and make the information more accessible. Between all of these 11 apps, only two was showing at least some of collection artefacts providing with the additional information about an object (text, pictures and audio), whereas others required additional activations or have not worked properly at all. Only one app has the function of "liking" the artefacts, so the system put it in a special folder.

6. Bunratty Folk Park - Ciolfi and McLoughlin (2002) Ciolfi and McLoughlin (2002) represented their research at an open-air living history museum where they tried to deliver meaningful experience, personal support engagement and promote connections between the museum and visitor. In their research, they argue that promotion of the deep connections can be achieved not only by providing a required content regarding exhibits, but also allowing visitors actively contribute in what they see, "encouraging personal responses in their activities, and characterizing their visit by elements of personal Involvement." In their research, they identify that visitors found it hard to connect to the objects they see into the people who could have lived there and their lives. At the same time, they realized that some visitors can have a really strong memories from their past, which allow them to be sensorially and emotionally connected. Their "Reminisce" prototype consisted of several elements: 1) mobile phone application that triggered short audio snippets of character recording of the specific places, and that allowed users to save their own comments, memories and reactions; 2) digital tokens that were collected in each location with specific design (even smell) which provided guidance where next memory of the museum, and provided a means to listen to memories of other people, and which users could bring at home; 3) a web portal where visitors could see the map of their visit with all the content they collected and recorded.

Their findings showed that visitors we charmed by listening to recordings of characters and memories being recorded, and these triggered even some conversations between strangers. The prototype triggered memories of the family members, promoted discussions between them. Additionally, visitors evoked "rich sensory relationships to some of the tangible objects" and that people valued them as a physical reminder of their interaction in a museum. It was also shown that people wanted to access the portal after their visit and to show relative memories that have been recorded. Although the project was created for the living history museum which context can be different from the art museums, this project provides valuable insights how memories, comments or reflections of other people can trigger social interaction and promote individual connection to space. It also shows that allowing people to generate their content making the space personally significant for the users. While the project showed its success, there still can be some space for improvements. The fact that visitors can listen and record memories by the personal mobile phone make this experience more individual restricting others who are in the group to hear and discuss the same information.

2.4.5 Critique of existing solutions

Having mentioned 5 different solutions and options to the current domain space, the team has identified strengths and weaknesses of each of them regarding the concept of Social and Mobile aspect.

1. Dawn Chorus - this application looks very successful in terms of developers goal. As it was examined in its evaluation, 5% of users continued using it throughout the first month on a daily basis that shows people’s interest in this kind of applications.

Strengths:

• Very simple to use because perform only one main function;
• Attractive for people;
• Helps users to achieve their daily needs and at the same time saves the museum context;
• Mobile;

Weakness:

• Does not have social context.

2. Andy Carnegie Chatbot - this application showed more engagement with users because the interaction was based on the conversation. Chatbot itself also had a lot of interactive activities and gamification moments.

Strengths:

• Convenient for users - no need to install a new application, learn how to use it, always in their phone;
• Mobile;
• Full of interactive activities with gamification that keep the level of engagement throughout summer program and help to understand the topic (like poll or trivia features);

Weaknesses:

• Does not have social context, however users could share their results on Facebook.

3. Examples from Oakland Museum - those examples are amazing by its simplenes. As it can be seen - it was popular amongst visitors and they interacted with that That means people need a context to impress their emotions and have a discussion around exhibition or important topics that were highlighted there.

Strengths:

• Easy to install;
• No need to learn how to use;
• Open and accessible for everyone - no need to register or install application, you can read on the go;
• Reading the discussion and comments from others visitor can understand the topic better;
• Participation is not mandatory - you can just read messages of others.

Weaknesses:

• Not mobile, visitor has to be in place to read the messages;
• Although it is social, it is still not enough to connect people together.

4. Google Arts and Culture - this application does not based on any museum and the main goal is to make art close and accessible for everyone. The application has a lot of functionality and detailed description supported by visuals of the most famous art objects, helping users understand art and history behind.

Strengths:

• Mobile;
• Features like AR and match your face with famous portraits;
• Content about the most famous art-objects - so it does not depend on the specific exhibition;
• Map with nearby art objects;
• Have a button to share it with friends; *Linked to google account - so some visitors don’t need to register.

Weaknesses:

• If visitor does not have a Google account - he needs to register;
• Does not support the social aspect - users cannot see who else liked the content;
• Does not support comment function.

5. Other mobile applications - as was mentioned above, most of them focused on the particular museum and provide users only with extended content.

Strengths:

• Mobile;
• Users can read more about art-object or artist and understand the story behind;

Weaknesses:

• Do not have any interactive activities;
• Content is limited by the museum collection;
• Users cannot save or like the content;
• It is unlikely that users will use it after they have visited a museum;
• Do not support social aspect.

6. “Reminisce” - the prototype from research run by Ciolfi and McLoughlin (2002) suported ar object through playing audio recordings of represented characters. As it was mentioned above, the technology was implemented for mobile phones.

Strengths:

• No need to have a special app, prototype was based on a museum’s web-portal along with tangible tokens;
• Interactive engagement that allowed users to participate in the process of re-creating a story making them feel more connected with characters;
• Social aspect was covered by allowing everyone to participate and to create leave their landmark so others can hear it later on;

Weaknesses:

• Not mobile enough - visitors could interact with it only at the place, but the recordings were accessible from everywhere;
• Not social enough - participants could not identify who made a specific recordings,, so they could not establish connections between each other.

3. Design Opportunity / Concept

3.1 Specific Design opportunity & rationale

This section looks at the specific though very different concepts the team has arrived on. These concepts are derived from initial domain research conducted, and a preliminary contextual inquiry including observations, interviews, and object inventory. The aim of these concepts we have suggested coincides with the overall aim of the project: motivating visitors connection to museum exhibitions particularly Art Galleries (note that museum exhibitions are not limited to a physical location). Some concepts will be mentioned briefly while the ones that are explored in greater depth are possible concepts for this project moving forward.

The concepts were also guided by the following guidelines:

• Social technology: a platform/ technology that allows collaboration across its users.
• Mobile technology: to be accessible in more than one location (sometimes simultaneously).
• Project focus: How/ What makes people connected to exhibitions in a museum?

Art Emotions

A platform of existing exhibitions and their locations. Users visit this platform online and explore artwork there. Visitors share how the artwork makes them feel inside with the option to make their comment public for others to see, share, comment, or like. If the comment is made public the user gets to connect with others who share an interest in the same artwork.

My Art Part

This is an online platform where users also browse exhibitions but the content shared is limited to the context of the art or artist of the work. Users share this information with other users of the platform.

Art Reality

Users get to stream and tour exhibits/ galleries together regardless of geographical location. Users of this platform have the option of touring in single or multiplayer mode.

Social Network Museum

As these were generated in a Brainstorm activity we then build on the concepts which resulted in the concept of a Social Network for Museum. The insights of round 1 interviews “It is clear that people value much the knowledge about the author, the inspiration behind and other details that could help understand the artefact better and be more connected.”does show that user experience is improved by having prior knowledge and connection to the artist or artwork before visiting the physical museum. The Social Network of Museums gives its users a space to share their thoughts of exhibitions as well as share in commenting on the art. This invites a discussion between two users.

The image below shows the rough work of arriving at this concept.

Interactive Wall

The display wall has sensors that detect hand motion in proximity to the artwork displayed. When a motion is detected animated information appears on the wall. The information includes personal details of the artist surrounding their life at the time of the artwork. This concept is intended for both groups and individuals. Individuals maintain the choice of choosing which artwork to explore. During an interview (insight from round two interviews) a man who said he often visits alone and prefers it that way to look at specific pieces because he knows the artist and knows about their history so that choice remains with him as well as groups benefit from shared display and therefore spark discussions among them about the artwork insight from an observation at QAGOMA where persons visiting in groups were not visibly/ actively exploring the artwork but instead just strolling through exhibition. The intention behind this concept is to provide the stimulus for discussions surrounding the artwork. It was also observed that participants would first pay attention to individual pieces but this concept will also promote the discovery of the relationship of this artwork to other items displayed during the exhibit by mapping relationship displayed on the wall.

About the Artist (gadget)

This is a pocket-sized tangible technology that will be given (optional/ if they want it) to visitors upon entering the gallery. There are sockets allocated to each artwork and the gadget is pluggable to them. When the visitor plugs their gadget into the socket it presents background information about and stories surrounding the artwork (usually the artists' intention behind the piece. The intention behind this concept create a connection between the artwork and visitor to the exhibition as one interviewee (round two interview insights) puts it very well when he visited QAGOMA with his friend and they didn’t understand an aboriginal piece and explains that there is something missing that doesn’t allow them to interpret the artwork. He described it as a gap between them and the artwork because they did not know the author. He continued that knowing the author will give him some insight into the intended meaning behind the artwork he is exploring. Also based on the study of shared mobile display for this space (Lanir, Wecker, Kuflik, & Felberbaum, 2016) does indicate that a shared larger display does motivate group cohesion, should everyone participate in a collective tour of the exhibition.

Map on the Wall

Rather than focusing on exploring the author of a piece this concept looks at the connection between this artwork and other displays that are a part of the exhibition to bridge the gap between users and artwork. When we visited a smaller more private art gallery, it displayed an exhibition of Papua New Guinea. As we walked through and had a guide, someone who works at the gallery, who explained the connections between art pieces. In one scenario there is a painting of a man of significance in their culture. In this painting, he wore a colorful crown made of bird feathers. There were also three other paintings each of a special type of bird within the culture. In that, he provided a connection between the artworks which for us (the research team) were able to benefit from a deeper understanding of the piece. There were also three art illustrations of DOUK DOUK dancers as well as paintings of celebration that connects these pieces. Based on this connection, we were touring the art gallery.

Reflection

We have realized the challenge of designing for social interaction among visitors who share a common interest in this environment. Going forward we will further explore the concept of Social Network for Museums.

3.2 Project Aims

The objective of our project is to explore the key factors that make people connected to the exhibitions in a museum. Through the use of social and mobile technologies, we will look at ways to motivate social interaction among museum visitors and encourage a connection between visitors and exhibitions. The presentation of artist details can be seen as captions next to a display and in some instances and interactive display of an exhibit presents more information to the visitors. Though information about the author does give insight and background that enables the visitor to be connected to artwork, our project is looking beyond the mere display of more information to capture and maintain visitors’ connection with a piece. We want to extend the discussion surrounding artwork beyond the walls of the museum. There are also existing websites and social media pages such as Facebook where users get to leave comments for galleries at large however we are focused on a shared personal experience. The diagram below illustrates the aims surrounding the project of MuseumX.

3.3 Target Audience

Our target audience is a group of people who like to visit museums. The target audience is not limited by specific demographic, neither by professional area, nor age group, but it can be separated into two parts. Firstly, we are focusing on those who like to visit the museums alone. Based on our research this kind of people like individual experience in museums because they are not distracted or guided by the group, but they are still open to sharing their ideas & opinions of exhibitions with others. We are also focusing on those who come at the museum alone without any background who find it difficult to establish a connection with the exhibition because they have no ability to communicate with others and build an interpretation/understand the artworks. Secondly, we are also focusing on people who come to the exhibition in a group as these people may also find it difficult to establish a connection between them and exhibits.

Additionally, we are not focusing on those who are scholars, connoisseur or professionals in art. Based on our research these people either already have a particular interest to the installations, initial background about what they are going to see, good knowledge about the artist or they are happy to explore the museums themselves delving deeper into the labels and exploring artworks in details. Whether they have an initial background or not, they already feel a connection to the exhibitions as a museum is a special place for inspiration, relaxation or knowledge. Therefore they have no need for additional technological interventions.

3.4 Connection to social & mobile theories

The tangible device would be an ideal platform to present our concept which can connect different spectator with artworks for collaboration and communication. This device can be found in a particular space where . Hence, it is a combination of both mobile and social.

Social Interaction: Our concepts support social interaction where people can have a group conversation to share their perspectives

Interact with the surrounding environment Our design will be located in the museum, visitors can participate in this cultural space.

4. Plan of Work

Part 1 (week 8) - Initial requirements and Design During week 8 we will be focusing on further understanding of our users. Having several concepts, the team will organize a poster session where we will present existing ideas for the users' judgment. Posters will allow users to reflect on what they like/dislike in the proposed solutions, what could be improved and spark more discussions around the topic of connection to the museum exhibitions. An additional semi-structured interview will allow to understand deeper the emotional effects from the exhibitions and try to understand how to provoke visitors to feel more connected with exhibition. Analysis of data collected will help us to choose one concept and refine the final idea. Additionally, we will organize the design workshop and invite some people who are representatives of the target audience. The workshop will incorporate activities that will relate to the chosen concept. Users will be asked to perform several actions and discuss with us about their reflections. They then will be invited for shared discussion of their experiences with other people. The group activity can be also an appropriate step during this workshop as most probably the solution will focus on the social interaction in one space. Therefore we can also collect the data on how people feel while interacting with each other working on one activity. After analysis of the data collected, we will be able to document system requirements and propose our final concept.

Part 2 (week 9) - Low-fidelity Prototype and Evaluation During week 9 we will be also getting some feedback regarding our concept during the stand-up session which can help us to refine our idea. During this week we also plan to make a low-fidelity, perhaps a paper prototype session, to refine the idea with users. This testing session will be more focused on the understanding of user's actions in this context and possible types of interaction that we need to incorporate to our later version of the prototype. The team will also plan what is needed for the digital prototype, identify features to be tested and technology to use.

Part 3 (week 10) - Prototype & Evaluation During week 10 we will complete the work on the digital prototype and will conduct usability testing with our target audience. During this evaluation session, we will have several goals: 1) evaluate the usability of our prototype; 2) understand the user’s feelings and emotions in regards to their connection to the exhibition. Therefore during the evaluation session, we will ask users to think aloud during interaction with our prototype. Will will also conduct additional interviews to collect qualitative data where we will focus more on the emotional component, their attitude towards the solution if it is helpful in establishing a connection and possible improvements for the prototype.

Part 4 (week 11-12) - Iteration & Evaluation During week 11 after the previous round of usability testing and evaluation of user feedback, we will refine our system requirements as well as making improvements of the digital prototype/adding more functions. During week 12 we will conduct the final testing session. As well as testing the usability of our system, this round will be also focusing on the evaluation of user’s interaction with a closer focus to the context. Users will be invited to space which may be decorated as an environment which is close to the museum setup in regards to our concept. Because our target audience is those who come to the museum individually as well as those who are in the group, users will be allocated with specific roles. During this session, several team members will collect video and textual data of the observations which will be later analyzed in details. Observations will help us to reveal the interaction problems between participants, their social behavior within the space and also analyze difficulties they had with the interface. Additional interviews will also be conducted to get sufficient user’s feedback regarding their experience, and to identify if mobile and social aspect of the concept promotes users to accomplish their goal.

Part 5 (week 13) - Final Prototype The analysis from the previous evaluation session will inform changes in our final interactive prototype that will be improved by the showcase event. During week 13 team will design the Concept poster and prepare a pitch of concept to present it for the public.

5. Team

Emma Safarova is at her final semester of masters program on Interaction Design. She has a strong background and industry experience in Marketing and Product Management, Public Relations. Apart from her experience, her key strengths lie in planning, collaboration and design ideation activities, user research, design, and prototyping skills. However, her weaknesses are in coding and programming. She has a particular interest in this project because she considers herself as “culture-vulture” person and she would love to learn the history of Arts someday. Throughout the project, she wishes to polish her user research skills and concept development based on insights from the field. She is also keen on improving her skills in the design of materials for the final demonstration.

Zhejiang is an interaction design student with a deep understanding of the concept of human-computer interaction as well as the design process of the entire project. He is proficient in graphic design software such as AI, PS, and has experience in making prototypes. He can play the role of designer and can provide professional ideas in terms of user-interface design in the team. Strengths: Good at time management and have a strong sense of responsibility, able to complete the assigned tasks on time. Have the curiosity about new things and can provide innovative and meaningful ideas for the team. Weakness: Lack of critical thinking; shy to express own opinion when disagreeing with some ideas.

Chuike is also an interaction design student and is in her second semester of the program. She enjoys working with children and wants to explore designing educational technology for that audience. Her strengths are planning and organizing, thinking outside the box, and working effectively/ cooperatively in a team. A weakness of hers is that she is sometimes quite focused on a problem which might hinder her seeing it from another perspective but, she is working on it and being apart of this group is more opportunity to do so. She aspires to be more open, and more receptive to new ideas, methods, and ways of thinking as this will benefit the natural flow of the team. Objectively she is prepared to work with the team to advance our collective objectives.

Elena is at her final semester of the master's program in Interaction Design. She has working experience in the industry as a System analyst and IT Product Manager. She has a passion to create a design that will be meaningful for people and correspond to the user’s values and needs. Her main strengths lie in conducting user research, the collaboration of activities inside the team and prototyping skills. Her main weakness is the attention to the details which sometimes prevent to see the bigger picture, which she is trying to work on. She is interested to learn new prototyping tools, acquire some programing skills and practice new UX research methods.

6. SCORE Analysis

Strengths within the team

• The team MuseUmX is very diverse time and in a complex has a set of versatile skills. Elena, Emma and Zhijiang are at their final semesters so they have experience in designing a lot of projects based on University courses. Apart from that, Elena has industry experience in project management and strong coding skills, Zhijiang has education in Arts and Emma used to work in marketing, so she has strong user research skills. Chuike has experience being a multimedia engineer designing system layouts for a university audience and brings her organizational skills to the project as well.

• Team values feedback from stakeholders and do not change it without justification from that side, to make sure that provided design solution will be appropriate.

• The chosen domain is pretty accessible, that means it is easy to get feedback from the main stakeholders and to evaluate a design.

• Everyone has a particular passion for this design, so all team members are passionate about this project. Strengths around the project concept

• The team has completed thorough background research covered the domain space from all possible sides. They analyzed insights gathered from interviews with users and experts, existing solutions and observations.

• At the stage of concept ideation, the team has created a few concepts that indicate creativity and open-minded approach to the domain.

• The chosen domain is pretty accessible, that means it is easy to get feedback from main stakeholders and to evaluate a design.

Challenges within the team Talking about possible pitfalls regarding the teamwork, there can be identified a few of them:

• Team diversity - although it is a strength, the team should not forget that cultural background has some specific considerations that may affect the dynamics and effectiveness of the group work. To set some rules the team has created Team Charter where they established ground points for group work.

• Business depending on other assignments - every team member has his own schedule with different courses, and sometimes deadlines for this course may be the on the same day with other courses. That may affect the quality and speed of somebody’s work.

• Not being on the same page - sometimes when everyone is responsible for a specific part of the project - he does not know other updates, so he cannot be on the same page with others. Having said that, communication within a team is crucial for success in this project.

Challenge around project So far, the most challenging thing is that our most concepts are lacking social characteristics. Our original idea is to create a device which can enhance spectators’ connection with the artwork. In past brainstorm section, we focused on how to make our concept more creative and connected. As a result of this, social value is ignored in our design concept. Also, due to the natural characteristic of the museum, it is relatively hard to put social characteristic here. This because the main function of a museum is for education and research, which require concentration and quietness. Technology might be a distraction for certain users to achieve their goals.

We have generated enough cool ideas so far. In the following week, the priority would be how to add more social characteristics on these concepts. For achieving that, the workshop and other related methods would be adopted for collecting their social behaviors and preferences. By knowing these insights, We might find a balance among connection, social and mobile. Meanwhile, our concepts and target audience will be narrowed down. The concept will target more precise community. It is impossible for this project to cover all the spectators in the museum. as long as there are some people feel connected and build a social connection with others, that means it is a successful project.

Options One of the potential risks would be technical issues because all of our team members are major in interaction design. Our programming skills are not compelling, but all concepts are quite innovative which acquire a lot of technical skills. That would be a heavy load for each of us. We have to learn and practice a lot in a limited time. Thus, we will simplify our concepts by analyzing user’s feedback with prototype tools. Prototype tools, such as XD, is quite time-efficient to achieve certain important functions, although it is not dynamic enough. By knowing user’s feedback, we can quickly change our design and iterate that again. As a result of this, we will get more time to learn technical skills for building the final dynamic prototype. In addition, a lot of functions have been discarded by iterating previous prototypes. We only have to build the most important functions and features for users. A simple but useful system would both benefit for our team and audience.

Responses Being at an early stage of the design process, the team is considering to get mostly positive feedback. However, the team understands that their solution might not be the perfect ones and may not satisfy everyone’s needs. So the team ready to critique as well and looking forward to learning from it, because critique is a valuable tool for improvement and growth. For instance, museum experts can say that they do not see the point in this design, because it would require an additional effort from their side. Users might not like the application, because the content and fact information can be different. For example, the museum changes the exhibition but forgets to update information on the application. Depending on the chosen concept:

• users may not follow the instructions provided for better interaction and they may leave inappropriate input.
• People with disabilities may blame the discrimination in interaction.
• artists may not like a concept and refuse to collaborate.

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