The guidebook, the friend, and the room: visitor experience in a historic house

ABSTRACT

In this paper, 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. For example, we found that most visitors played audio descriptions through speakers (rather than using headphones or reading textual descriptions) to facilitate communication with their companions.

REFERENCES

• 1: Paul M. Aoki , Allison Woodruff, Improving electronic guidebook interfaces using a task-oriented design approach, Proceedings of the conference on Designing interactive systems: processes, practices, methods, and techniques, p.319-325, August 17-19, 2000, New York City, New York, United States [doi>10.1145/347642.347779]
• 2: Hood, M. G., "Staying Away: Why People Choose Not to Visit Museums," Museum News, 61(4):50-57, 1983.

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.1 MODELS AND PRINCIPLES
      H.1.2 User/Machine Systems
          Subjects: Human factors

Additional Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.5 INFORMATION INTERFACES AND PRESENTATION (I.7)
      H.5.2 User Interfaces (D.2.2, H.1.2, I.3.6)
          Subjects: Theory and methods

  J. Computer Applications
  J.4 SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
      Subjects: Sociology

General Terms:
Algorithms, Human Factors

Keywords:
electronic guidebooks, historic houses, museums