No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the authors.
Using Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) to Enhance the Museum Visit Experience
Abstract
This paper addresses the design and evaluation of a Personal Digital Assistants’ (PDAs) application to enhance the visit experience
at the Museum/Library Stratis Eleftheriadis Teriade in Lesvos, Greece. The paper reviews the use of new technologies to enhance
Museum visit experiences, and focuses on the use of PDAs for providing information and interpretation, keeping visitors interest
and attention, as well as promoting various museum facilities. The paper describes the design process of the "Fables" application
with the use of NaviPocket v. 2.4 by ORPHYS SYSTEMES (an authoring tool for PDA applications), includes an evaluation of the
application and the authoring tool’s effectiveness, and concludes with directions to further work on this area of research.
... To minimize user hesitance and enable affordable usage, the access to content and services should not require constant network connection. The solution for these problems could be presented as a wayfinding application with static information (Cheverst, Davies, Mitchell, Friday, & Efstratiou, 2000;Han, Twidale, Gutierrez, & Farivar, 2011;Lamsfus, Alzua-Sorzabal, Martin, & Lopez de Ipiña, 2010;Micha & Economou, 2005;Pielot & Boll, 2010;Pielot, Henze, & Boll, 2009), which can have the most relevant tourist information about a location, context, and user preferences. ...
... Location in indoor environments is another feature that should be addressed in the guidance systems. Some mobile applications have been designed for indoor environments (Lehn & Heath, 2003;Micha & Economou, 2005;Wilson, 2004). Thus, a solution where a user can manage the tourist services for indoor and outdoor environments is an important issue to have a complete guidance. ...
... To minimize user hesitance and enable affordable usage, the access to content and services should not require constant network connection. The solution for these problems could be presented as a wayfinding application with static information ( Cheverst, Davies, Mitchell, Friday, & Efstratiou, 2000;Han, Twidale, Gutierrez, & Farivar, 2011;Lamsfus, Alzua-Sorzabal, Martin, & Lopez de Ipiña, 2010;Micha & Economou, 2005;Pielot & Boll, 2010;Pielot, Henze, & Boll, 2009), which can have the most relevant tourist information about a location, context, and user preferences. Another important issue is to provide techniques to facilitate the development of these mobile applications. ...
... @BULLET tourist or museum guides with pre-installed applications , namely rigidly defined content (in text, visual and auditory format) that cannot be customized according to user preferences (e.g., [7, 37]); @BULLET mobile devices used to access mobile web portals and browse tourist information of interest (e.g., [13]); @BULLET mobile electronic guides devices that use either wire- less [ The second approach implies the use of a mobile or wireless network to access Internet resources; wireless web access is typically enabled by WAP 1 [46] or i-mode 2 [38] compatible devices. 3 The main disadvantage of i-mode/ WAP-based services is their requirement for constant connection (airtime) of the mobile device with a mobile network to offer access to web content. ...
... The use of mobile devices as means for supporting tourist and cultural activities is not an entirely new idea. In fact, mobile audio guides are being used in museum environments for years [15], while the use of personal digital assistants (PDAs) to enhance the museum visit experience has also been recently proposed [37]. Wireless access through mobile devices adds to the Internet connection the element of ''portability'', i.e., connection with no time or geographical limitations, by devices with high penetration to the public [16]; tourists are amongst this technology-oriented public. ...
Mobile tourism'' represents a relatively new trend in the field of tourism and involves the use of mobile devices as electronic tourist guides. While much of the underlying technology is already available, there are still open challenges with respect to design, usability, porta- bility, functionality and implementation aspects. Most existing ''mobile tourism'' solutions either represent of-the- shelf applications with rigidly defined content or involve portable devices with networking capabilities that access tourist content with the requirement of constant airtime, i.e., continuous wireless network coverage. This paper presents the design and implementation issues of a ''mobile tourism'' research prototype, which brings together the main assets of the two aforementioned approaches. Namely, it enables the creation of portable tourist appli- cations with rich content that matches user preferences. The users may download these personalized applications (optimized for their specific device's model) either directly to their mobile device or first to a PC and then to a mobile terminal (through infrared or bluetooth). Thereafter, net- work coverage is not further required as the applications execute in standalone mode and may be updated when the user returns online. The dynamically created tourist applications also incorporate a ''push model'', wherein new tourist content is forwarded to the mobile terminal with minimal user intervention as soon as it is added or updated by the administrator. Our prototype has been developed on the top of Java 2 Micro Edition (J2ME) which offers an ideal platform for the development of full-fledged, inter- active and portable applications tailored for resource- constrained mobile devices. The paper presents our development experiences with J2ME and highlights its main advantages and shortcomings in relation to the implementation of such kind of applications. Finally, an empirical evaluation of user experience with the mobile application prototype is presented.
... With the advent of the internet, museums have moved towards the realization of the concept of a museum outside the walls, prefigured by Malraux [1967], intended as a museum that makes its information and knowledge available both to on-site and remote visitors [Arvanitis, 2010]. As new communication technologies became available, these were gradually introduced in museums, starting with audio guides and the so-called Personal Digital Assistants [Micha and Economou, 2005], up to mobile phones, which definitively allowed museums to enable remote access to their exhibitions, also to satisfy the need for social inclusion, improving access, outreach and dissemination of knowledge [Arvanitis, 2010]. Furthermore, thanks to the use of QR codes and, in perspective, of the most innovative DVR codes, museums are now able to expand their contents and increase their communication power, satisfying the public's request for further information on a variety of topics. ...
A room in the Archaeological Museum of Villa Arbusto (Lacco Ameno, Ischia) was set up to house rocks and fossils collected by the renowned archaeologist Giorgio Buchner during his excavation activity on the Island of Ischia. The collection is witness to a long multidisciplinary research activity that saw archaeological studies at the center of volcanological, pedological and palaeoenvironmental researches, aimed at reconstructing the archaeological contexts in the complex geological dynamics of the island. In fact, during the different phases of colonization recorded on the island, the Ischia volcanoes were very active and produced explosive and effusive eruptions, accompanied by a strong geological dynamics that included earthquakes, landslides (even gigantic ones), rapid ground uplift and strong hydrothermal activity. In the room, the samples on display “tell” the evolution of the island and its dynamics in four windows and a chest of drawers, where there is an exposition of the products of the various eruptions, from the oldest to the most recent, sedimentary rocks and the collection of macro and microfossils found in marine sediments, displaced at variable altitudes by the rapid volcano-tectonic deformations that characterize the island. A series of panels and monitors accompany the visitor along a path that, starting from the geological evolution of the island, passes through the relationship between humans and the volcano, the main volcanic phenomena and the reconstruction of an archaeological excavation of exceptional value, where it is possible to see the strong interaction between primary and secondary volcanic phenomena and a human settlement of the first Greek colony in the west: Pithecusae. The exhibition was designed with the purpose of educating the visitors and the local population about the natural history of the island and its volcanoes, and their impact on the human life through time.
... This trend has resulted in the emergence of the mobile tourism concept [53], which involves special attention to the design, user experience, and content of apps and websites [54], as well as their dissemination and communication. In addition, it is important to define the purpose of these tools in the tourism domain to build a successful solution. ...
Creating smart tourism destinations requires innovative solutions which cover the main pillars of sustainability as sociocultural, environmental, and economic aspects, in order to spread the cultural heritage of these tourist destinations to their visitors. One of the most demanded approaches by the new hyper-connected visitors is the expectation of plunging and becoming a short-term resident to receive a real experience during their visit. Therefore, the scope of this research covers the objective of designing an innovative communication channel between a visitor and a point of interest (POI), which in turn allows agile experiences to be built and provided and increases the dissemination of cultural heritage through new technologies, considering the real needs of the territories and the new digital visitors. In order to address these topics, this paper proposes an innovative and co-created progressive Web-App for visitors called Be Memories in order to spread the intangible heritage of a tourist destination, where the content is co-created by residents of the destination. The tool has been tested in Ceutí, a Spanish village with a high cultural value, which needs to be disseminated through new innovative tools. The trial was launched during local festivities of the village using an Internet of Things device, called a Smart Spot, to establish a communication channel between the visitor and POI. The results of the test were measured using Google Analytics, the reactions of Be Memories in social networks, and the acceptance of other cities and European committees. The results have concluded that Be Memories is able to enable a local experience via agile, fresh, and crowd-sourced content that people enjoy. This channel presents a complementary level of information with respect to official sources, documentaries, and local guide tours, at the same time enabling a mechanism to promote physical visits, walking tours, and cultural heritage via low-cost and sustainable infrastructure.
... field of mobile tourism basically fall within three main categories [Cheverest et. Al. (2000)] that involve: @BULLET navigational assistants, tourist or museum guides with pre-installed applications, namely rigidly defined content (in text, visual and auditory format) that cannot be customized according to user preferences (e.g.[MycityMate (2006)], [Micha et. Al. (2005)]); @BULLET mobile devices that access mobile web portals, to browse or to update content (e.g. [iNav (2006)][Schwinger (2006)]); @BULLET mobile electronic guide devices with content that is updated via external devices( i.e. beacons or GPS) when the user is in range of the tourist attraction [ The first approach presents the weakness in ...
The use of wireless networks in mobile tourist applications has brought about many services that have been branded "necessary" in many research projects. Though, latest Eurobarometer findings argue that tourists are reluctant in using such services, arguing that high costs of roaming are the major deterrent factor. This paper presents the design issues and implementation of a context-aware 'mobile tourism' research prototype, which brings together the main assets of the Internet and mobile computing technologies. Namely, by using Internet web technologies it enables the creation of personalized portable tourist applications with rich content that matches user preferences. The users may download these customizable applications to their mobile device. Thereafter, network coverage is only an option as the applications execute in standalone mode.
... The information on urban space is presented in mobile devices in most cases with help of following instruments [11]: Formerly installed "solid" application, which generally cannot be personalized and which is helpful during the use of selected objects, for example: [29], Network application, which enables remote browsing information, for example [28], [40], or use of context-aware type of service (see: [39]). ...
The paper presents technological and organizational conditions of information management in the urban space that has been identified within frames of research realized within the project "Integrated support system for access to information in urban space". The project is realized with funds raised in the competition for development projects, organized by the National Centre for Research and Development, which is a Polish institution that is responsible for the distribution of funds for scientific research.
... The "Fables" prototype for the Museum/Library Stratis Eleftheriadis Teriade in Lesvos, Greece, is the first attempt in Greece of using PDAs to aid the museum visit [Micha & Economou (2005)]. This project uses PDAs to provide enriched multimedia interpretative information for the collection of "Fables" by Jean de La Fontaine (see Figure 2), which have been illustrated by Marc Chagall and are exhibited in part of the Teriade Museum. ...
This paper identifies authoring tools requirements for the development of cultural applications tailored for deployment on mobile devices: Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) and mobile phones. To address this issue it recognizes and evaluates the development and design facilities provided by state-of-the-art multimedia application development tools for PDAs and mobile phones: Macromedia Flash Lite, Navipocket, Java 2 Micro Edition and Microsoft .Net platform for the Mobile Web. Secondly, it describes the use of these tools for the implementation of three projects that have been developed at the Department of Cultural Technology and Communication, University of the Aegean, in Greece, providing cultural and tourist information. Based on these three case studies the paper extracts a set of PDA and mobile phone-enabled application requirements and concludes with a set of suggestions related to the way authoring tools should be exploited in order to gratify application and designer needs for developing functional, fast & easy to deploy and profitable cultural applications.
Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) have changed the society, including the recreational experiences. ICTs have created new spaces for the recreational participation, which often only recreate the same experiences on virtual spaces. These technological advances are one of the main drivers of the cultural and creative production. As people use ICTs in different activities of their daily life, such as home entertainment, they demand a higher sophistication level in cultural heritage applications. This paper describes the implementation of a software framework to generate cultural experiences, aiming at their integration in current flows of creative processes; semantic standardized access to different distributed knowledge sources; flexible integration of services; and content oriented visualization. It is worth highlighting that this platform will allow users without a technology background (content producers, education departments of cultural institutions) to generate new experiences based on reusing existing multimedia contents and designing the stories they want to tell.
YATIRI is the Tourist Information Platform of region Puno for mobile devices, which provides timely and updated information about the tourist attractions of the region Puno, for local and foreign tourists who visit this tourism destiny. This information is shown on mobile devices (mobile phone, smartphone, Tablets, PDAs, etc.), instead of the classical manuals and printed paper tourism guides (Handbooks). The developed platform takes advantage of the latest technological features in mobile devices, offering an application rich in content, which can run on the most used platforms like: Android, iOS, BlackBerry, Windows Phone and Java Micro Edition (JME). The application doesn't need an internet connection. Once it's installed on your cellphone or mobile device the user can access, anywhere, to the information from the tourist attractions of the region Puno.
Phenomena of constantly increasing electronic information services and new publishing models that evolved in the last decade have transformed the conventional libraries into hybrid ones. In a hybrid library environment the user has the ability to search digital and conventional titles, but it cannot usually be done at the same time. In an information seeking procedure the user may find interesting titles at the books repository and afterwards use a computer to locate a relevant digital title. These steps may be reversed or interchanged. Even though information resources have increased and access points have been multiplied, users are restricted to desktop computers to access the resources. In addition, there is no interface available at the moment that can be used to search both conventional and digital collections. However, thanks to portability of handheld devices, like the PDAs, integration of the physical and digital spaces with multiple access and usage points can be possible. Having the support of a user-location aware system, new information services can be delivered. Usage of these systems keeps gaining ground in information-rich environments like libraries and museums, in order to support users and enrich the information delivered to them. This paper outlines the current efforts made to design and develop an architecture which will support the typical services provided to library users having access to handheld devices. In particular, we present and analyze: - the conditions that impose the establishment of such a service - the particular issues that occur when trying to unify the natural and digital information environments. - an architecture, based on the new form of the technological infrastructures of an academic library (Library and Information Services of University of Patras) after being extended with the use of a wireless network and handheld devices.
Many research projects have been undertaken on the use of context-aware mobile technologies for tourism that rely on the use of personal digital assistants and mobile phone devices. Many milestone projects rely on the use of a network connection and the use of GPS technologies which offer location based services. This paper presents a mobile tourism research prototype which uses web-based technologies for the creation of portable tourist applications with rich content that matches the users' profiles. The users may download these customizable applications either directly to their mobile device. Thereafter, network coverage is not further required as the applications execute in standalone mode. This prototype may be updated when the user returns online. Our prototype has been developed on the top of Java 2 Micro Edition which offers an ideal platform for the development of portable applications tailored to resource-constrained mobile devices.
This paper examines the rapidly changing state of museum handhelds from both a technology and content perspective. The paper also discusses the component parts for a successful museum installation: content, user interface, applications, form factor, positioning and the challenges to integrating these components. Specific examples are demonstrated from the 2002 Tate Modern installation and the authors' own research. Tate Modern's Multimedia Tour Pilot, open to the public from July through September 2002, was a 45-minute tour of the Still Life/Object/ Real Life galleries, in which visitors could experience audio, video, still images and a variety of interactive applications on handheld iPAQ computers loaned by HP; the content of the multimedia tour was delivered to the visitor through the museum's wireless network, using location-based technologies. The paper concludes that wireless interactive systems offer important tools and unique opportunities for the development of in-gallery interpretation and education programs, and the extension of these to a cultural experience of the wider city that links many museums and visitor attractions. The visitor response to the Tate Modern Multimedia Tour Pilot has given an unequivocal green light to future development of these handheld solutions within the museum. (Contains 14 references.) (Author/AEF)
The design of interactive systems has to take into account the context of use. In this paper we discuss the design criteria to use when developing location- aware, indoor, PDA applications. We analyse some of the technologies currently available for this purpose and examine how to provide users with location-dependent information. The discussion of such criteria is based on our experience in the development of an interactive guide for museum visitors.
Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) phones are a growing relevant part of the mobile market, and the number of WAP services offered is rapidly increasing. Usability is crucial for these services, which must be easily operated on small screens and keyboards. ...
One difficulty for interface design on mobile computers is lack of screen space caused by their small size. This paper describes a small pilot study and two formal experiments that investigate the usability of sonically-enhanced buttons of different sizes. The underlying hypothesis being that presenting information about the buttons in sound would increase their usability and allow their size to be reduced. An experimental interface was created that ran on a 3Com Palm III mobile computer and used a simple calculator-style interface to enter data. The buttons of the calculator were changed in size between 424, 828 and 16216 pixels and used a range of different types of sound from basic to complex. Results showed that sounds significantly improved usability for both standard and small button sizes - more data could be entered with sonically-enhanced buttons and subjective workload reduced. More sophisticated sounds that presented more information about the state of the buttons were shown to be more effective than the standard Palm III sounds. The results showed that if sound was added to buttons then they could be reduced in size from 16216 to 828 pixels without much loss in quantitative performance. This reduction in size, however, caused a significant increase in subjective workload. Results also showed that when a mobile device was used in a more realistic situation (whilst walking outside) usability was significantly reduced (with increased workload and less data entered) than when used in a usability laboratory. These studies show that sound can be beneficial for usability and that care must be taken to do testing in realistic environments to get a good measure of mobile device usability.
The paper discusses Archeoguide which offers personalized
augmented reality tours of archaeological sites. It uses outdoor
tracking, mobile computing, 3D visualization and augmented reality
techniques to enhance information presentation, reconstruct ruined
sites, and simulate ancient life
We present three interactive exhibit projects which add technology to the museum space or to the museum visitor. We propose a technological intervention which helps curators and designers to achieve a balance between leisure and learning and help them be more effective in conveying story and meaning. This is made possible by tracking people and objects with wireless and unencumbering real time computer-vision techniques, and with wearable computers which can respond to the context and presence of the visitor along the path of the exhibit. By using these techniques museums can present a larger variety and more connected material in an engaging manner within the limited physical space available. They can also enrich and personalize the visit with a wearable computer-driven visual and auditory storyteller which can adapt and guide the public through the path of the exhibit. All these systems enhance the memory of the visit and help build a constructivist-style learning experience for the ...
We describe an electronic guidebook prototype and report on a study of its use in a historic house. Supported by mechanisms in the guidebook, visitors constructed experiences that had a high degree of interaction with three entities: the guidebook, their companions, and the house and its contents. In this paper, we report a qualitative analysis of how different properties of the guidebook helped or hindered visitors' attempts to balance the competing demands of these attentional entities. Based on the visitors' comments and behavior, we distill a set of design principles.
This paper describes a GEMISIS doctoral research project nearing completion at the University of Salford, U.K. and offers some preliminary findings. The aim of the project was to design an interactive multimedia application for a portable computer in a museum setting, to assess the application as an aid to interpretation and to examine its impact on the visitor's understanding and enjoyment of the museum experience. It will discuss the introduction of portable computers into museum galleries, briefly describe the design and development process of the interactive multimedia application, review the methodology employed and provide a summary of preliminary findings.
Accomplished authors, Preece, Rogers and Sharp, have written a key new textbook on this core subject area. Interaction Design deals with a broad scope of issues, topics and paradigms that has traditionally been the scope of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and Interaction Design (ID). The book covers psychological and social aspects of users, interaction styles, user requirements, design approaches, usability and evaluation, traditional and future interface paradigms and the role of theory in informing design. The topics will be grounded in the design process and the aim is to present relevant issues in an integrated and coherent way, rather than assembling a collection of chapters on individual HCI topics.KEY FEATURES: This truly integrated approach to HCI provides students with background information from psychology, sociology, anthropology, information systems and computer science provides principles and skills for designing any technology through the use of many interesting and state of the art examples. The author supported, highly interactive Web Site provides resources that allow students to collaborate on experiments, participate in design competitions, collaborate on design, find resources and communicate with others. The accompanying Web Site also features examples, step-by-step exercises and templates for questionnaires.
Hand-held Mobile Computing in Museums
- S Amirian
New technologies in museums
- M Economou
ARCHEOGUIDE: Challenges and Solutions of a Personalised Augmented Reality Guide for Archaeological sites
- V Vlahakis
- N Ioannidis
- J Karigiannis
Multimedia as Interpretative Tools in the Greek Museums: General Rules and Questions
- A Bounia
Information systems practice: the complete guide
- T Gunton
Project Description (last visited in
- Archeoguide