Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - GIFT (Meaningful Personalization of Hybrid Virtual Museum Experiences Through Gifting and Appropriation)

Teaser

A main challenge with the development of virtual museums is establishing meaningful user experiences which allow for personal, complex and playful encounters with art and cultural heritage. The GIFT project approaches this challenge through two suggestions for facilitating...

Summary

A main challenge with the development of virtual museums is establishing meaningful user experiences which allow for personal, complex and playful encounters with art and cultural heritage. The GIFT project approaches this challenge through two suggestions for facilitating interpersonal experiences through digital gifting and playful appropriation: Technologies that accommodate the complex ways in which users may confront art and heritage content, and which engage users to participate and share experiences that are both playful and profound.

The GIFT project is working to achieve this through a practice-based research collaboration between prominent artists, museums and researchers, to develop, test and validate two ground-breaking prototypes that allow visitors to create and share highly personal encounters with digital cultural heritage. Drawing on learning from this process we are also developing a framework with theory, tools, design guidelines and best practice recommendations for hybrid virtual museum experiences.

The GIFT consortium includes leading artists and researchers who are working with a panel of 10 lead users from prominent museums to develop theoretical and practical advances with great impact for the cultural heritage sector and European society. By enabling more engaging virtual/physical museum experiences we will contribute to increasing citizens\' curiosity and engagement. The hybrid format will also help making both virtual museum experiences as well as physical visits more engaging and attractive, thus contributing to economic growth through ticket sales as well as digital sales. By providing frameworks that help non-technical experts in the heritage sector to build and experiment with hybrid museum experiences, the project gives the sector tools to build and innovate further.

The project has three main objectives:
1. Develop our theoretical understanding of meaningful personalization of hybrid virtual museum experiences for appropriation and sharing
2. Develop new formats for meaningful personalization of hybrid virtual museum experiences through gifting and appropriation
3. Develop a framework with tools and guidelines for meaningful personalization of hybrid virtual museum experiences

Work performed

\"The first year of the project has been devoted to chartering stakeholder needs, iterative development and testing of prototypes, theory development, and methodological explorations. The work has been carried out in close collaboration between partners in the form of trials, workshops and task-specific meetings, all of which lay the foundation for success in the following years of the project.

We have also had significant success with external dissemination and engagement at this early stage of the project.

Objective 1 - theoretical understanding

As a result of the work during 2017, we have developed an overall perspective on the theory contribution in GIFT as the identification of design strategies for interpersonal experiences. These are experiences that either capitalise on or serve to strengthen “strong social ties”. This is a well-known concept in social theory, that has not been brought into the domain of service design for cultural heritage before. However, we know from theory that both gifting and playing / gaming are activities that can strengthen strong social ties.

An important outcome of this work package will be framing the relevant theoretical foundation for interpersonal experiences together with strong concepts - that is, concrete ways of expressing design knowledge – that help museums, system and service designers to develop interpersonal experiences through gifting and play.

Objective 2 - new formats

Project partners have worked in tight collaboration to develop concepts and designs relating to this objective. At the time of reporting, we have several prototypes at different stages of testing, completion and documentation.

For the gifting prototype, we have carried out a series of development sprints and collaborative workshops, result in a prototype that has been tested on 41 users in Brighton Museum and Art Gallery, in two events in July and September 2017.

Similarly, for the appropriation prototype we have carried out a series of iterative development sprints and collaborative workshops resulting in a prototype for a playful experience at the Museum of Yugoslavia, with the working title \"\"Twitto\"\". The prototype was tested on 37 users in the museum in June 2017 and February 2018.

As part of the iterative development process in WP3 we have conducted several explorative design probes. Two of these have resulted in separate prototypes, one for the Museum of Yugoslavia and one for the National Gallery of Denmark, which have been documented in two conference papers accepted for presentation at Museums and the Web 2018.

Objective 3 - framework

At the time of reporting, several components of this framework are in early stages of development.
• UoN researchers have developed a first version of the toolkit, available at toolkit.gifting.digital.
• The action research module has been initiated, and all 10 participating institutions have undergone a process of internal self-assessment of organisational capabilities. Results were presented at a workshop in February 2018.
• Work on the overall framework has begun, and a plan for evaluation of the framework has been made.

UoN researchers have engaged in a number of outreach activities in which elements of the toolkit has been tried out with partners outside the project, such as Tate Modern in London, the NeneScape project, Tate Britain, the National Videogame Arcade and others.\"

Final results

Progress beyond the state of the art is documented in the scholarly publications from the project. At the time of this report, four scholarly publications have either been published or accepted for publication.

We expect the work with the prototypes and the framework described in the objectives to provide material for several more scholarly publications, some of which are planned to be submitted for publication in upcoming conferences in 2018. Work is also underway to develop a book proposal, for a book to be published towards the end of 2019.

Several of the outcomes of the project will be launched as products: The gifting prototype, the appropriation prototype and the framework. Besides helping to develop the portfolio of the commercial partners in this project, our tools will be freely available as open source and therefore they will also provide value for the wider sector and industry. By enabling more engaging virtual/physical museum experiences we will contribute to increasing citizens\' curiosity and engagement. By providing frameworks that help non-technical experts in the heritage sector to build and experiment with hybrid museum experiences, the project gives the sector tools to build and innovate further.

Website & more info

More info: http://gift.itu.dk.