This is a form of observation that is often used in workplace studies to observe participants as they move inside different contexts McDonald, ; Hammersley and Atkinson, , and also to observe how the artifacts mediate between people and contexts, and create a source of articulation work Mellini, ; Talamo et al.
Stationary observation is a useful method to evaluate the exhibits i. At the contrary, shadowing allows the researcher to observe the whole experience within the museum context for the entire duration of the tour.
Shadowing differs from participant observation because the researcher did not interact with the visitors. Explanations about what has been observed were then asked during the interviews at the end of the visit. The visitors waiting to start the tour were approached and asked to participate in the research. They were informed about the research objectives, the collection of anonymous data used only for research purposes through the observation of their visit, and the interview about their opinions.
For performing data analysis, all raw data interview transcripts, field notes from auto-ethnography, and shadowing were elaborated in the form of the Activity Diagram. It is used in the design practice to identify opportunities for designing innovative solutions based on the lack of the existing tools.
Specifically, it maps the hierarchical levels of the activities and the mediating tools that are of paramount importance because they enable the visitors to reach their objectives. Figure 1. Figure 2. Second portion of the Activity Diagram representing: in the upper part, the core activities of the visit tour satisfy the curiosity, acquire knowledge, reflect about present and past time, observe the monument, and feel positive emotions ; in the bottom part, the features of the Ara as it was tour and the museum artifact ecology that the visitors used to perform the above activities.
Figure 3. This paper covers the results gained from the research, in order to explain how the AT points out relevant issues of the visitor experience. Besides the relevant literature about the motivations for visiting museums, the motivations to use AR—VR technology are not specifically addressed, also because the research often involved participants as testers, purposely recruited to assess the technology see for example, Loscos et al. Visitors decided to visit the museum because they were curious to experience the tour with AR and VR technologies, expecting to enjoy something new and interesting compared to the traditional visit.
Specifically, they expected to have a support for imagining the original appearance of the monument and for gaining information about the monument in an engaging way. Since most of the participants 16 up to 21 have already visited the museum before, technology can be used as a mean for attracting both first-time visitors and repeated visitors by offering an unusual and engaging experience Black, They experienced surprise and fascination when they were projected into the virtual scenario, attending the ceremony with the suspension of disbelief and the illusion of non-mediation Lombard and Ditton, ; IJsselsteijn et al.
Surprise and fascination derived also from the AR effect when the visitors saw the monument turning colors. With the mediation of the technology, the visit outcomes are not only related to the acquisition of specific knowledge about the monument i. Moreover, the visitors reported they enjoy the visit because they share the experience with relatives and friends, having time to exchange opinions and comments between the POIs. Another relevant outcome reported by the visitors is the desire to live similar experiences in other museums and cultural heritage sites.
Thus, the positive experience lived at the Ara Pacis museum improves their interest and constitutes the prior knowledge that reinforces the future intentions Rennie and Johnston, ; Falk and Dierking, ; Jung et al. Such results about the visit outcomes support the need for considering all the possible and unexpected benefits which range from understanding, value, reflection, meaning making, and the desire to learn more Hooper-Greenhill, ; Black, The value of the Ara as it was relies on the possibility it offers to both improve the visual perception of the monument and to immerse the visitors into its original context.
The VR part of the Ara as it was tour provides the experience of immersion and the illusion of being there, in the ancient Campo Marzio attending the ceremony with ancient Roman people. While the VR is an effective tool to represent the original context and function of the monument, the AR provides the fascinating visualization of the original colors.
In particular, the augmentation with the colors enables the visitors to see the monument as it was in its former glory. Besides the appreciation of the esthetics appearance of the monument, the visual augmentation linked with the audio description allows the visitors to focus the attention on the details and identify the different elements of the reliefs.
Specifically, the technology supports the visitors in focusing the attention and interpreting what they observe on the monument, by proposing some key-concepts related to the original socio-cultural context of the monument.
The research was focused on the artifacts ecology Jung et al. Indeed, instead of considering the use of a single technology in isolation, research should investigate how people distribute their activities across different technologies, with specific functions or overlapping capabilities Jung et al.
The concept of artifacts ecology can be usefully applied to the museum domain, in order to investigate the juxtaposition of different interpretative tools developed over the years and the way visitors used them during the museum experience.
The ecology of the Ara Pacis Museum is composed of the monument, some busts and sculptures which form the museum collection, together with the interpretative tools in the form of scale models of the monument, informative panels, video screen, and the AR—VR technology.
Such ecology is the result of a stratification of artifacts over the time: indeed, the introduction of a new technology occurs as an increase of existing tools and practices, and over the years the technological stratification evolves since only rarely a new technology totally replace an existing tool Bruni and Gherardi, ; Talamo et al. This is particularly evident in the case of the Ara Pacis Museum, in which the new practice of the Ara as it was tour is embedded in the museum physical contexts with traditional tools like the panels.
During the shadowing, we noted that some visitors read the panels at the end of the tour in order to get further information about the monument and the museum. Thus, the AR—VR technology cannot replace the traditional interpretative tools and it should be properly integrated into the museum context. Indeed, a relevant portion of the Activity Diagram Figure 3 is related to the use of the device: learning how to use the headset, adjusting the device, and dealing with problems and malfunctions differentiate the Ara as it was experience from the traditional visit.
Even if the visitors are familiar with AR—VR technologies, additional tasks are requested to understand how to perform the tour, adjust and properly use the headset, and deal with struggles and malfunctions. Thus, high level of usability is necessary, as well as the design of a system of instructions in order to facilitate the visitors in learning how and properly use the technology. This paper describes an example of a qualitative research that uses a psychological framework Socio-Cultural AT and method the ethnography to deal with some emerging challenges of technological innovation in museums.
The unusual or engaging events experienced on a vacation are more likely to elicit positive arousal and are therefore more likely to be remembered Zhang et al. To this end, the technology should provide a balance between fascination, surprise effect, and quality of the content, so to provide the educational leisure experience the visitors expect to join.
Indeed, the museum artifacts ecology should properly integrate traditional and innovative interpretative tools, both with diverse and overlapping capabilities, so to meet the need and preferences of diverse visitors.
This study is not exempt from limitations, regarding both the methodology employed and the results gained. Since it is a situated research — performed in a museum with an unique identity, the contents provided during the tour have been designed ad hoc for the Ara as it was, and the visitors involved are all Italian adults highly motivated to experience the tour — the results are not intended to be generalized.
Regarding the shadowing, being observed inevitably drive the visitors to adapt their behavior to the research situation. This could be overcome by employing audio and video recording without the need for the presence of the researcher. Moreover, the visitors involved in the research often visit museums, as a habit during travels and a leisure activity during the free-time, and they are interested in cultural heritage. To further enhance the museum mission, we need to investigate the impact of such new technologies on a different target such as those who never visit as well as those who rarely visit museums.
The technology could be successfully exploited to engage this audience, by addressing barriers and negative motivations. Future research may explore more deeply the subjective experience of visitors, for example to investigate links between the appreciation of technologically mediated museum experiences and specific visit motivations.
Furthermore, in order to give museum managers information on which technology possibly implementing in their expositions, future qualitative and quantitative research could compare VR and AR in terms of enjoinment, interest, and experience design. The datasets generated for this study are available on request to the corresponding author. Ethical review and approval was not required for the study on human participants in accordance with the local legislation and institutional requirements.
AR drafted the manuscript and wrote the sections of case study and results. AT contributed in conceiving the rationale of the article as a whole, and in writing the first two sections. ST contributed in writing the abstract and conclusions. CM contributed to the manuscript refinement. All the authors provided approval for publication of the manuscript. The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
The authors would like to thank the Director and the Curator of the Ara Pacis Museum for authorizing and supporting the research, and the project manager and the designer of ETT SpA for their contribution to data collection.
Atkinson, R. The Life Story Interview. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Google Scholar. Ballantyne, R. Looking back and looking forward: the rise of the visitor-centered museum. Curator 54, 85— Bannon, L. Greenbaum and M. Reimagining HCI: toward a more human-centered perspective.
Interactions 18, 50— Bearman, D. Transforming cultural heritage institutions through new media. Curatorship 23, — Benefield, A.
Visitor studies: theory, research and practice. Curator 36, — Bitgood, S. Bechtel and A. Black, G. New York, NY: Routledge. Transforming Museums in the Twenty-First Century. Through the interface-A human activity approach to user interface design. Activity theory as a challenge to systems design. Third-wave HCI, 10 years later - participation and sharing. Interactions 22, 24— Put another way, it is a form of jumpstart for museums, adding sometimes new and alternative perspectives but most often helping to reconnect various areas our institutions and audiences together.
It works to create a range of positive, stimulating experiences for audiences throughout their visit, and everything that comes along with that idea, including understanding pre- and post-visit experiences, and how to ensure visitors come back again. For the Worcester Art Museum WAM it means both a commitment to our guests and a focus on overall guest experiences across the institution.
It is an active process, not a static one. Meaning we are always trying to improve what we do and learn from our projects, so that each is better, more engaging, thoughtful than the next. Q: In what ways have you introduced participatory practice and how does it change the social impact of your organisation? It starts with an invitation. This is exciting, because when you invite the public in to participate ownership changes hands.
We began by testing this idea on a manageable scale, and in ways that were designed to help us evaluate the response and levels of success. Some of these initial programs were our One Day Artist Residencies, where we encourage and celebrate art making among our public audiences, and our weekly Nude Drawing program, where we invite our community together for live nude figure drawing each week in one of our galleries. Playing with ideas of ownership and community, we invited our audiences to bring their garden gnomes and flamingo lawn ornaments to our lawns, for two different celebrations.
Public response was terrific! Our current project Meow , which looks at cat-themed art, featured an open call to anyone who wanted to have an artwork included. What resulted were artworks brought in from our community. These include paintings, drawings, photographs, sculptures, digital works and more. We entitled this show the Community Cat Show. It may be the biggest such public engagement project to date for WAM, and it works in part because it demonstrates an openness to considering what art is for other people—while being paired with exhibitions about cats organized by curators.
The other thing we do is ask ourselves a lot of questions — and try not to assume that our answers are the only answers possible. What would others say, people within the wider museum field but also from our community?
Ideas emerge out of question-asking and the freedom that comes with not trying to know everything, but to inquire about everything. This manifested in us asking what does it mean to be a community minded organization?
We are nowhere near fully answering this question, but we have over the past few years realized many new roles that we can serve. We became a meeting space for many organizations and groups. We expanded our understanding of what it meant to be a classroom and for whom.
If you are using SurveyMonkey is find out more about your target audience, then select the options above: 1 My target market 2 Understand my market or competitors. We will go over brand consistency later on this week, and will give you all the tools you need to uniquely define your brand. Google Forms — If your organisation is already using G Suite, then this is an included application. This versatile platforms offers hundreds of customisation options. Take advantage of these customisable options and think about the experience that you want your respondents to have when they fill out your survey.
This inventive could be anything from a discount in your shop to a free visit to your museum. The Google Forms interface is very easy to user with lots of drag and drop options which will be navigable for even the most novice survey-creator. You can assess which images audiences best respond to, trial new video techniques on survey respondents, and make your survey just a bit more interesting than the run of the mill templated version.
Basically, it involves Kevin Costner hearing voice in a corn field which is strange, yes, , but what the voices were saying had a ring of truth to it. If your content is received as being authentic by your audience, they will naturally gravitate towards your brand.
Audiences crave to see themselves in marketing. How would this make their lives better? How is this content and mission directly related to their own core beliefs? Create a space that your audience wants to habitate and you can convert those who were interested, to those who are invested. By now you have a better idea of who your audience is and what kind of content they are interested in seeing.
The next task is to produce content that is intimately connected to your organisation. If you are an organisation that has a collection, they make sure your posts highlight unique and interesting aspects of it.
If your organisation works with diverse communities, then share that work with your followers. Take content that you know is interesting and connected to your organisation, and share it through methods that you know will be successful with your newly identified target audiences.
Build THEIR field of dreams with content that is relevant and engaging to them and just like the strange voices said, they will come. To recap, we went over the following ways to get to know your audience on a deeper level:. In the UK this week, the Culture Minister Oliver Dowden reportedly told museum directors to be more commercially minded, with one suggestion being that they The way we consume and interact with content has been thoroughly put to the test over the past year.
The process of translating an idea and opening your doors as a museum can be a challenging and foreboding process. To help give insight on Search Museum Next Search. Subscribe to the latest museum thinking. I agree to the Privacy Policy. Museum Audiences: How do you find yours? May 27 It can provide business account holders with the following: Gender distribution Highest number of followers by location Trending bio words Popular hashtags Optimal posting times Twitter has Twitter Analytics which we will talk about in more detail next week.
Commonly used age brackets are: Under 18 years old years old years old years old Over 55 Language — Look up current language statistics in your area.
Make sure to do the following to keep an eye on what similar organisations to yours are doing: Follow their social media accounts Subscribe to their newsletters Subscribe to their mailing lists Attend their events Connect on LinkedIn Get together for a friendly coffee There is more friendly than competition in the arts and culture sector.
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