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By Geri Gay and Angela Spinazze - November 2002
Dr.Geri Gay, Angela Spinazze and Michael Stefanone write about the research being undertaken in the Handscape Project which is focusing upon potential use scenarios for mobile (hand-held) computing in museums. Further material on Handscape is available on its recent symposium.
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Handscape is a research project funded by Intel Corporation and conducted by CIMI and the Human Computer Interaction Group (HCI) at Cornell University [1]. The project is concerned with exploring potential use scenarios for mobile (hand-held) computing in museums.
The project takes as its focus the value of mobile computing - the ability to be on-line while roaming without having to interrupt the applications that use the network - for enriching the visitor's experience of a museum. The objective is to investigate how visitors can be affected before, during and after the museum visit and the resulting impact on the design of such services.
The initial hypothesis is that mobile technologies present an opportunity to evolve radically the way museums relate and communicate with visitors and that new applications and services designed for these devices can positively influence the visitor experience.
The Handscape project began with a needs assessment as a means to ensure a holistic approach to understanding both the technological development and the implementation of mobile computing in museums. The goal of the assessment was to identify and articulate conceptual differences between three groups of stakeholders: application designers, museum visitors, and museum administrators.
An on-line concept mapping exercise was used to generate an expansive list of specific expectations for the technology (statement generation) and to present the relationship of these expectations to each other in a spatial form (statement structuring). Over 100 individuals participated in the exercise including software application designers, educators, museum patrons (from teen to retirement age), and museum administrators (chief information officers, information technology managers, technical support staff and others).
Participants were asked to structure the statements by grouping them by conceptual similarity, and labelling those groups. The second step was to rank each statement based on its perceived importance. Cluster analysis and multi-dimensional scaling procedures were applied to the resulting similarity matrices, yielding the following concept map containing key aspects, or concepts, which emerged from the on-line brainstorming session.
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| Figure 1: Cluster Map |
Each cluster contains individual statements relating to an idea. For further discussion, and a detailed list of statements found in each conceptual cluster, a phase one report is available [2]. Participants rated each of the clusters in the concept map based on perceived importance, as well. The diagram below is a comparison between aggregate rating results among the three stakeholder groups: Museum Patrons, System/Interface Designers, and Museum Administrators.
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| Figure 2: Comparison between aggregate rating results among 3 stakeholder groups |
The analysis of the concept mapping exercise reveals an affinity of expectations between the designer and visitor groups. Upon closer examination, the statements associated with the terms identifying the cluster statements reveal quite interesting insights. For example, the term Interface (the label chosen for one of the clusters) refers not only to ease of use but, to personalisation; Location refers not only to knowing where one is at a given time but also to revisiting all movements that occurred in a single visit; and Artist Information refers not only to contextual placement of an object within historical and social frameworks but also the presentation of this information to the visitor through the use of multiple media such as digital audio and video.
Once the perceptions of these initial stakeholder groups were measured, three culturally different museums participated in a similar exercise (Phase Two). The American Museum of the Moving Image [3], The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, London [4] , and the Field Museum, Chicago [5], were invited to participate in this second phase for a number of reasons, including the fact that they had experience developing and implementing a mobile computing application within the twelve months preceding the start of the project. The museums involved in Phase Two function as case studies highlighting the cultural importance of individual museum contexts.
Team members involved with the development and deployment of the mobile application in each museum completed an online survey through which they executed the same statement ranking exercise described above.
The results from Phase Two reveal that the most important issues to technically experienced museum professionals, relate to the Interface conceptual cluster. Statements falling into this conceptual cluster include "the ability to customise the tour to match my interests", "a customisable interface", "an interface I can learn within 30 seconds". These statements make it clear that future testing and evaluation of mobile computing applications in museums must focus on minimising the learning curve user's face when presented with a mobile system, and optimisation of the match between user expectations and user experience with mobile platforms. Given the complex, dynamic nature of social/interpersonal communication, which should continue to be a goal of museum spaces, it is clear that emphasis should be placed on human factors issues.
Other categories (Artist, Museum Information) relate to existing information dissemination responsibilities museums face today. While others, such as Messaging suggest new ways for visitors to experience the museum. Statements included in the Messaging cluster, such as "the ability to send messages to your friends in different parts of the museum", "share the content from my museum experience with others who may be interested", "suggestions of other pieces I would like based on my input", support the idea of communication between visitors and between visitors and the museum worthy of further attention.
The complete set of concept clusters and results are presented below:
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| Figure 3: Phase Two comparison of perceived levels of importance of concepts between groups |
At first glance, it appears that there is not much in common across these three institutional perspectives; a closer look at the statements and their rankings reveals an affinity across three key areas. Interface - the effective use of inherent features and functionality of the mobile device to offer the visitor a personalised experience; Messaging - the ability to use the device to promote social interaction within the museum environment; Functionality - a strategic approach to deployment of hand-held devices in the museum so that they serve a purpose and are not just another random technology.
Phase Two participants were also asked to rank a set of potential use scenarios in order of their likelihood to enhance a museum visitor's experience. The scenarios are listed in the ranked order (the first scenario, participants believe to be most likely to enhance the museum visitor experience, and the last the least likely to enhance the visitor's experience).
PDA is equipped with location-sensitive data, which is presented depending on proximity to specific exhibit, enabling visitor to:
Pre-museum visit planning, enabling visitors to download museum exhibit information via Internet (any location) and:
Museum-maintained wireless PDA fleet, enabling visitors to:
During museum visit, small groups synchronise PDAs, enabling visitors to share screens, content and:
A number of issues have emerged from this first year that we regard as needing further attention in order to understand better the potential use of models for mobile computing in the museum environment. The issues of particular interest to CIMI and HCI include:
Over the next twenty-four months, our investigations will involve testing innovative scenarios in two different museum environments, an outdoor space at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, London and an indoor space at the Renwick Gallery [6] in partnership with the Smithsonian American Art Museum. In addition, we will continue to cultivate relationships within the museum community through the project WhiteSite [7], the public list serve, and visits to institutions implementing similar solutions involving interviews with staff responsible for these projects and observations of visitors using the devices.
Dr. Geri Gay
Director, Human-Computer Interaction Group
Cornell University
Ithaca
New York 14853
USA
URL: <http://www.hci.cornell.edu>
Email: gkg1@cornell.edu
(with contributions by Michael Stefanone, PhD student, and
Emily Posner, undergraduate).
Dr.Geri Gay is director of the Human-Computer Interaction Group (HCI Group) and an associate professor of communication at Cornell University. The HCI Group is a research and development group whose members design and research the use of computer-mediated learning environments. Dr.Gay's research interests focus on cognitive and social issues for the design and use of interactive communication technologies. Past research has explored navigation issues, knowledge management, mental models and metaphors, knowledge representations, collaborative work and learning, and system design.
Dr.Gay has received funding for her research and design projects from the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), the Mellon Foundation, Intel, GE Foundation, IBM, Getty, and several private donors. She teaches courses in interactive multimedia design and research, computer mediated communication, human-computer interaction, and the social design of communication systems.
Angela Spinazze
Consultant
3270 N. Lake Shore Drive, Suite 5E
Chicago
Illinois 60657
USA
Tel: +1 773 281 5563
Fax: +1 773 442 7100
URL: <http://www.atspin.com>
Email: ats@atspin.com
Angela Spinazze has worked within the cultural heritage community since 1986. Her consulting focuses on informatics and content architecture- related issues. She has worked with clients on issues including knowledge management, digital libraries, mobile computing, strategic planning and implementation of new technologies, integrated access to collections and related research and virtual (Web-based) collections, process re-engineering, data migration, and visual literacy. Most recently, she has been involved with the Este Court Archive, a Culture 2000 Project to provide unified access to the dispersed collections amassed by the Este Family during the Renaissance. She is also working with The University of Notre Dame and its investigation of developing a digital visual resources collection. She also works with CIMI as manager of the Handscape Project.
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For citation purposes:
Gay, G., Spinazze, A. and Stefanone, M. "Handscape: Exploring potential use scenarios for mobile computing in museums", Cultivate Interactive, issue
8, 15 November 2002
URL: <http://www.cultivate-int.org/issue8/handscape/>
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