From Delivering Facts to Generating Emotions: The Complex Relationship between Museums and Information

Motivation : The past 25 years have seen a constant increase in the use of information technology to deliver digital content in cultural heritage settings. Museums have experimented with multimedia PCs, PDAs and phones, table-tops, Google Glass and now VR. The aim has always been to provide more information despite the fact that only a minority of visitors consumes the information on offer. Failing to engage visitors should direct our concerns on the 'receiving' side rather than on the 'delivering' side, that is to say to look at the visitors' experience rather than the technology [1]. Problem statement : The problem lays in the way the interactive experience is designed: too often it is as an 'add on' to the physical exhibition rather than an integral part of the experience. The emerging Internet of Things bridges the gap between the physical and the digital and enables to seamless integrate the digital content with the material collection or the historical space. Via embedded technology it is possible to collect and exploit visitors' data opening up new possibilities to create engaging and personalised visitors' experiences onsite and online. Approach : Using a number of case studies of exhibitions and installations used by over 20,000 visitors across Europe, I will show how the interaction with information can be designed as part of multisensory exhibitions that engages the visitor at many levels and generate emotion. The approach is collaborative and requires the equal contribution of technologists, designers and content experts throughout the whole process, from early conception to the final implementation. The response of the visitors goes well beyond expectations opening up new opportunities for long-term visitors' engagement.