Virtual museums and its impact

Constraints of the assignment

• Contextualise how the selected case study fits within the module’s themes by describing which type or aspect of heritage and/or culture it covers.
• You must also discuss the four following aspects, which can be supported by a theoretical framework, or academic concepts presented in module materials:
◦ What is the narrative/story being communicated? (i.e., give a synopsis)
◦ How does the digital medium affect user interactivity?
◦ What is the overall purpose, goal, or desired impact of the selected case study heritage narrative? (e.g., what do the authors/creators want to communicate/do?)
◦ Who is the respective audience and what effects does the narrative have on that audience? (e.g., emotions elicited, educational, can you find any user reviews)

Submitted work

According to the International Council of Museums (2007), “a museum is a non- profit, permanent institution in the service of society and its development, open to the public, that acquires, conserves, researches, communicates, and exhibits the tangible and intangible heritage of humanity and its environment for the purposes of education, study, and enjoyment”. Museums are organizations that preserve, interpret, and educate objects of historical significance, enabling a wider audience to conduct research, educate and observe history, engage in viewership for fun, and more. Beyond the objects of interest themselves, the building that houses the objects also has a story in itself. Museums and their structure also enable emotions and allow users to bring observer-specific and objective knowledge of history.

Recent developments and technologies are changing the way we use and perceive places we are in, including museums (Bandelli, 2010). Museums accept these new technologies as tools to enter daily life and offer visitors the opportunity to access the museum content without visiting the museum (Arvanitis, 2010). Museums, which have become a growing industry, take place in our lives as one of the most important places where people spend time (Falk & Dierking, 2013). By 2023, over half of the world’s 8.02 billion people (WoPoSta) had internet access, with users growing from 1.23 billion in 2003 to 5.4 billion (InInUsSta). Given the context of museums and the increasing accessibility of the internet, it is only fair that museums explore avenues for creating better experiences.

Virtual museums are defined by the International Council of Museums (n.d), as follows; “A virtual museum is a digital creation organized on a permanent or temporal basis in the service of society and its development, open to the public, that acquires, conserves, researches, communicates, and exhibits, in a digital way, the tangible and intangible heritage of humanity and its environment. It uses various forms of interactivity and immersion for the purpose of education, research, enjoyment, and enhancement of the visitor experience.” Virtual museums can be broadly categorized into two categories: virtualized museums, and born-virtual museums (İlhan, 2021). In the context of this essay, the focus will be solely on virtualized museums. Virtualized museums are physical institutions that integrate technology to enhance and expand their offerings. The adaptations and implementation are driven by various scenarios, including but not limited to, accessibility of remote users, creating parallel or alternative modes of experience delivery, breaking language barriers and being more inclusive of low and semi-literate population.

To assess the user experience of a museum, it is important to understand what creates a museum experience. According to Falk & Dierking (2013), the museum experience consists of three stages: “before the visit”, “during the visit,” and, “after the visit” (İlhan, 2021, p. 51). Contrary to traditional understanding, individual interest, internet, or personal recommendations, educational or tourist plans create expectations even before entering the museum. This essay is intended to analyse the National Museum of Ireland—Archaeology (NMIA) in its virtual museum experience. The National Museum of Ireland — Archaeology is home to an extraordinary range of iconic treasures, including the Ardagh Chalice, the ‘Tara’ Brooch, and the famous Derrynaflan Hoard. From prehistoric Ireland to Ancient Egypt, visitors can see important archaeological artefacts dating from 7000 BC up to the 20th century. Admission is free (NMIA). NMIA allows users to access the virtual museum directly via their platform. This enables users to explore the richness and diversity of the artefacts in the museum. NMIA virtual museum is intended for public consumption, impacting the technological aspects and decisions that the museum has taken. NMIA is a Web 3D exhibition developed using high resolution 3D images. The whole experience is Virtual Reality ready, but this essay will limit its scope to a non-VR- based web-only virtual museum and its experiences. The virtual museum offers a comprehensive tour of its layout and architecture. Users can zoom in to examine objects, enabling them to visualize and interpret exhibits as if they were physically present.

The physical museum of NMIA has recorded 13071 reviews in google review (NMIAGM), of which 87 are 1-star ratings, 144 are 2-star ratings, 796 are 3-star ratings, 2935 are 4-star ratings, and 9109 are 5-star ratings. This implies the success and value the physical museum has had over its timeline of functioning. Before analysing the impact, the virtual experience of the museum has on users, it is necessary to identify and generate ways to measure a virtual museum experience. A virtual museum experience can be evaluated in five stages: environment, design, perception, interaction, and spatial experience (İlhan, 2021, p. 61).

Digital technology creates a museum experience that expands the scope and timescale of the museum visit and goes beyond the boundaries of physical space (URL 27, as cited in İlhan, 2021, p. 51). Museums and virtual museums can be viewed in two ways in terms of museum experience, visitor freedom, and interaction; passive and active (URL 28, as cited in İlhan, 2021, p. 52). Passive museum experience in museums depends entirely on our communication with space, so spatial design, design elements, colour and material design are important for the museum experience (Meerwein, 2007). Passive experiences are driven by the connection that the visitor develops with space and objects, creating diverse experiences. Limitations imposed inside physical museums, like the ability to only view but not experience the object, the sometimes incomplete or overly academic language does drive down on the engagement (İlhan, 2021). Virtual museums, on the other hand, act as an active museum engagement. They allow users to explore and engage with the object at their pace, ability to study and research. The active museum experience provides visitors with a more liberal museum experience, unlike the passive museum experience. However, it is an antisocial experience as it cannot provide social interaction between visitors (İlhan, 2021). This creates a new alternative experience. In the context of the example being examined, the platform of NMIA, presents itself as a mere floor plan than an actual interaction experience. Users are given limited ability to explore and examine the artefacts and with no detailed description or guidance towards documentation or information. Virtual museum experiences should look beyond functioning as an artifact repository and should create an engaging and lasting connection with its users. According to (Lewis and Rieman, 1994) “you can’t really tell how good or bad your interface will be without getting people to use it”. Design is assessed using WAI-ARIA guidelines. NMIA can be assessed using the questions listed, as understood, and derived from WAI-ARIA:

1. Is the object clearly visible?
2. Is the text associated with the object visible and readable?
3. Is accessibility a first-class citizen?
4. Does the platform allow a user to rotate, pan, zoom, and explore the details of the object?
5. The object that is produced resembles the real object in terms of colour, shape, sharpness etc.?

Key factors influencing virtual design experiences include camera quality (e.g., 360-degree), platform capability to represent physical spaces digitally, museum commitment to detailed metadata and object descriptions, and innovative design approaches for information consumption. There is lack of empirical evidence to conclude the assessment responses. The NMIA fails in the aspect of accessibility or in the aspect of allowing one to experience the object or description from personal user experience, but this needs further research to understand and conclude.

According to Jay (2005), the experience cannot be transferred to another person; even if it is wanted to be transferred, this cannot be successful. He argues that only the person who experiences can know the process of experience and the information obtained from this process. This is because the experience is formed at the end of the perception process. Perception differs from individual to individual, and thus impacting the experience one obtains. The question that bothers perception is the question if the virtual museum is transferring the same experience, data, and information that you would gather in a physical visit. How does one react differently between visiting the same museum physically and virtually? Unfortunately, no reviews or feedback are available to draw definitive conclusions. The level of details in the design aspects of experiences of the virtual museum, defines how users do or do not perceive virtual museum visits as equivalent to in-person experiences. Interaction is quintessential for creating meaningful engagement and experience with the artefacts. Interaction is a 2-dimensional plane, where experience is assessed between, user and the artifact and user and the physical/digital space. While in a physical museum, a user’s interaction with the artifact is restricted in multiple ways, like, enclosures, limited time to experience the artifact, ability to discuss and connect with the object, a virtual museum removes many of these barriers. The user can rotate, pan, and zoom the artifact, enabling virtually unlimited access. This experience serves as an excellent experience-building parameter, particularly for educational institutions, individuals with disabilities, or enthusiasts eager to study artefacts in detail. Interaction is never limited to the artifact, but also happens with the physical space in the museum itself. The museum staff engage in conversation to help a user navigate and understand the museum. Virtual museums create an alternative stream of this experience, allowing the user to read, understand and interpret the history of the artefact and educate themselves. The question still lies, if a personally unmotivated user would make such an effort and if so, how has this experience impacted the virtual platform. This brings us to another important parameter, spatial experience.

According to Zaman (2020), “spatial experience is the process by which we locate ourselves within our environment and understand and interact with it”. Spatial experience includes not only the perception of the environment, but also the built environment, other people, values, cognition, and aesthetics. When perception and cognition come together, space is truly experienced (Gärling & Golledge, 1989). The most obvious difference between virtual experience and spatial experience is the absence of kinesthetic perception while experiencing virtual experience. Kinesthetic perception is the perception process experienced with the body and its movements in space. We cannot experience such a perception process because we cannot be in the place while having a virtual experience (Yi, 2018). Spatial is also a very personal experience. For this reason, the similarity of the virtual world with the real world is important because individuals establish a relationship with the virtual world with this similarity (İlhan, 2021).

This relationship is established with the help of an interface. The user interface acts as a bridge between the virtual environment and the person and defines how to communicate (Kılıç, 2016). Spatial experience thus is a measure of the connection that the user establishes with the virtual environment. Connection includes interaction, visual experience, depth of knowledge.

Examining the differences between the virtual museum and physical museum experience within the theoretical knowledge emphasized that the virtual museum experience is different and should be handled differently (İlhan, 2021). İlhan (2021) also concludes that there are several factors affecting the virtual museum experience, such as believability, interactivity, explorability and immersiveness. For a virtual museum to be believable, it must be very well digitized, the virtual environment must be similar to the real world or not at all, and it must be easy to move around in the virtual museum. For a virtual museum to be interactive, it must enable communication between visitors and also interaction between visitors and artefacts by providing social interaction. Finally, for a virtual museum to be explorable and immersive, it should offer more than one different exhibition and different venues instead of one type of exhibition (İlhan, 2021).

References:

Arvanitis, K. (2013). Museums outside walls: mobile phones and the museum in the everyday (pp. 183-189). Routledge.
Bandelli, A. (2010). Virtual spaces and museums. Museums in a digital age, 10, 148.
Falk, J. H., & Dierking, L. D. (2013). The Museum Experience Revisited. Left Coast Press, Inc.
Meerwein, G., Rodeck, B., & Mahnke, F. H. (2007). Color-communication in architectural space. Walter de Gruyter
Jay, M. (2005). Songs of experience. University of California Press.
Gärling, T., & Golledge, R. G. (1989). Environmental perception and cognition. In Advance in environment, behavior, and design (pp. 203-236). Springer, Boston, MA.
Huhtamo, E. (2010). On the Origins of the Virtual Museum. R.Parry (Ed.) Museums in a Digital Age. (121-135). London: Routledge
Yi, J. (2018, March). The Application of Kinesthetic Perception Experience and Environmental Design. In 2nd International Conference on Culture, Education and Economic Development of Modern Society (ICCESE 2018) (pp. 752-755). Atlantis Press.
Zaman, C. H. (2020). Spatial experience in humans and machines (Doctoral dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology).
International Council of Museums. (2007). Museum Definition. ICOM. https://icom.museum/en/resources/standards-guidelines/museum-definition/ NMIA: https://www.museum.ie/en-IE/Museums/Archaeology. Accessed October 27, 2024
InUsSta: https://www.statista.com/statistics/273018/number-of-internet-users- worldwide/. Accessed October 27, 2024
WoPoSta: https://www.statista.com/statistics/805044/total-population- worldwide/. Accessed October 27, 2024
NMIAGM: https://www.google.com/maps/place/National+Museum+of+Ireland+- +Archaeology/@53.3402417,-6.2554372,18z/data=!3m1! 5s0x48670e998a8c6d1d:0x7f63073cc5ac67b5!4m8!3m7! 1s0x48670c31bc3eb44b:0x56015afed318865a!8m2!3d53.3402225! 4d-6.2549209!9m1!1b1!16s%2Fm%2F0fq0d79? entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI0MTAyMy4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D. Accessed October 27, 2024
WAI-ARIA: https://www.w3.org/WAI/standards-guidelines/aria/. Accessed October 27, 2024

Grading

Case study selection (2/5)

Feedback received: Research question has some relevance to the theory and themes in the module, but fails to capture the specificities of its central focus, or demonstrates clear gaps in knowledge.

Critical analysis (2/5)

Feedback received: Some evidence of engagement in the relevant issues, but may be rather basic, unambitious, unoriginal, or unimaginative in its interpretation and argumentation. Does not sufficiently cover all aspects in assignment criteria. Shows gaps in understanding & knowledge. Mostly descriptive rather than critical or analytical in its approach. Insights offered are very limited in scope & sophistication

Strength of evidence (4/5)

Feedback received: Draws on a very good range of DH and related disciplinary material but lacks breadth of engagement with the secondary literature required for a distinction. Judicious use of sources & evidence/comparisons. Very good awareness of the limits of evidence. No major gaps in the literature review.

Structure and style (3/5)

Feedback received: A good standard of structuring: clear, mostly logical, and errors are mostly minor. There may be occasional and relatively minor flaws in flow of argument. A good standard of academic writing, with only minor errors present. A good standard of referencing, though errors or inconsistencies may be present. Referencing possibly containing technical errors, some minor, some more serious.

Feedback to Learner

The structure of the essay could be improved for clarity as without an essay title or subheadings, it was less clear where the arguments were going. Relevant research/sources were used, but there was an over reliance on summarising large portions about virtual museums more generally, which makes the essay more descriptive rather than through the lens of a focused critical analysis of your specific selected case study.

The National Museum of Ireland- Archaeology is mentioned, but the assignment criteria aspects are not as clearly critically analysed in detail for this specific virtual museum experience. However, a good framework was selected to analyse the virtual museum although it is unclear what a “first-class” citizen is according to WAI-ARIA? What, if any, narrative(s) were created in the selected case study example? What was the purpose of creating this virtual museum experience? Who might use this virtual museum instead of visiting in person?

There were errors with the in-text citations and/or full reference list, so it is important to correct these mistakes in future assignments. Please consult the Chicago Manual of Style / DH Handbook, take a free training session offered by the Library or visit Nicole during her office hours to help correct the mistakes. It’s also very important to avoid lifting too much cited content summarised by another author. In this case, Ilhan (2021)’s work was used quite a bit as a secondary source instead of finding the primary sources that author cites. For example read more here about secondary sources: https://camosun.libguides.com/Chicago-17thEd/secondarySources