Fostering conversation after the museum visit: a WOZ study for a shared interface

ABSTRACT

According to recent studies, a museum visit by a small group (e. g. a family or a few friends) can be considered successful if conversation about the experience develops among its members. Often people stop at the museum café to have a break during the visit or before leaving. The museum café is the location that we foresee as ideal to introduce a tabletop interface meant to foster the conversation of the visitors.

We describe a Wizard of Oz study of a system that illustrates the reactions of people to visual stimuli (floating words, images, text snippets) projected on a tabletop interface. The stimuli, dynamically selected taking into account the topic discussed and a set of communicative strategies, are meant to support the conversation about the exhibition and the visit or to foster a topic change, in case the group is discussing something unrelated to the visit. The results of the Wizard of Oz show that people recognized visuals on the table as "cues" for a group conversation about the visit, and interesting insights about the design have emerged.

REFERENCES

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INDEX TERMS

Primary 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)

General Terms:
Design, Experimentation

Keywords:
conversation, museum visit, tabletop interface