Communication Theory

1
Communication Theory

• Lecture 4
• Technologies for communication and collaboration
  in museum settings
• Dr. Danaë Stanton Fraser

2
Course Aims

• Novel topic each week
• Discuss the challenges involved in evaluation of
  technology for communication and collaboration
• Consider current applied areas of research

3
Designing Technology for Public Spaces

• Demographics
• Number of users
• Expense
• Safety
• Individual/collaborative

4
Designing Technology for Public Spaces

• Physical delivery e.g audio
• Robustness
• Intuitive
• Evaluation techniques
• ethics

5
Designing Technology for Museums Aims

• Educational and cultural
• To enrich museum visit
• Connect museums and sites of interest
• To encourage new forms of participation (after at
  home, in class)
• To encourage cultural experiences when exploring
  a city
• To enable individual and collaborative
  experiences

6
Design sensitivities in a museum context

• Maintain ambience of museum
• Not to replace experts but to work with them
• Support a range of users
• User control of experience

7
The classification problem

• Description and grouping of objects
• where does this fit?
• where do these fit?
• What on earth is this?
• Design strategies
• Embed visitor opinion into interaction
• Apply technologies only for what cannot be
  achieved by traditional means
• Allow traditional and novel components to
  co-exist (e.g. docents, handling)

8
Studies of museum visitor behaviour

• Dwell time
• Navigation patterns
• Visits social in nature important to understand
  what visitors want to share
• Peripheral awareness of other visitors is
  important

9
Some technology deployed in museums

• Portable electronic guidebooks since 1950s
• Desktop information displays
• Video, web and VR presentations
• Touchscreens often designed for individuals but
  used collaboratively (e.g Science Museum)
• Personal and handheld devices HIPS,
  Exploratorium, Sotto Voce

10

• example applications..

11
Unearthing Virtual History

• Actively searching for history is engaging for
  visitors

12

• Hunting for history at the castle

13
Re-tracing the Past A Living Exhibition

• www.shape-dc.org

14
Augurscope
15
Mixed reality in the Lighthouse

• A mixed reality system to enable web, virtual
  reality and physical visitors to share a museum
  visit together in real time
• www.equator.ac.uk

16
Selected References

• Benford S,Bowers J,Chandler P,Ciolfi L,Flintham
  M,Fraser M,Greenhalgh C,Hall T,Hellström S,Izadi
  S,Rodden T,Schnädelbach H,Taylor I, ( 2001 )
  Unearthing virtual history using diverse
  interfaces to reveal hidden virtual worlds. In
  Ubicomp Programme Chairs, editor, Proc Ubicomp
  2001, pages 1--6. ACM
• Brown B,MacColl I,Chalmers M,Galani A,Randell
  C,Steed A, ( 2003 ) Lessons from the Lighthouse
  Collaboration in a Shared Mixed Reality System
  CHI, April 2003, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, USA.
• Fraser M,Stanton D,Ng M,Benford S,O'Malley
  C,Bowers J,Taxn G,Ferris K, Hindmarsh J, ( 2003 )
  Assembling History Achieving Coherent
  Experiences with Diverse Technologies Proceedings
  of ECSCW 2003 Helsinki, Finland, Kluwer
• R. E. Grinter, P. M. Aoki, A. Hurst, M. H.
  Szymanski, J. D. Thornton and A. Woodruff.
  Revisiting the Visit Understanding How
  Technology Can Shape the Museum Visit. Proc. ACM
  Conf. on Computer Supported Cooperative Work, New
  Orleans, LA, Nov. 2002, 146-155.
• Schnadelbach H,Koleva B,Flintham M,Fraser M,Izadi
  S,Chandler P,Foster M,Benford S,Greenhalgh C,
  Rodden T, ( 2002 ) The Augurscope A Mixed
  Reality Interface for Outdoors in Proceedings of
  CHI 2002 and Chi Letters Vol 4 No 1 pp. 9-16
  ACM Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA, 20-25 April 2002
  (ISBN ACM 1-58113-453/02/0)