Positioning Can Open Up Museums - Ingrid Fisch, Eva Wesemann
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This document discusses how location positioning technology can enhance museum visitors' experiences by intuitively delivering personalized content. It suggests using indoor positioning software to create an open experience that offers adult tours, mystery tours, assignments and interactives tailored to each visitor's location in the museum. The goal is to enhance the personal experience through smart, unintrusive technology that opens up the visitor experience.
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Positioning Can Open Up Museums - Ingrid Fisch, Eva Wesemann
- 1. How can location positioning be used to “open up“ the visitor experience? Ingrid Fisch Mariëlle van Tilburg
- 5. Open mind: enhanced personal experience using smart, unintrusive technology...
- 6. Open mind: intuitive content delivery using Awiloc indoor positioning software
- 7. Open eyes...
- 14. Final exam...
- 15. Open end?
- 16. Open questions?
Hinweis der Redaktion
- MT Thanks for having us here! I am Marielle van Tilburg and I am stepping in for my colleague Eva Wesemann who could not be here today due to family circumstances. I am Head of digital media at Antenna International Benelux. Antenna develops apps and tours for visitors to museums and cultural sites around the world. I am also part of the Antenna Lab, which is our testing ground for getting people to engage differently in art and culture. Within the lab I have a specific interest in location awareness solutions and therefore have been following the project we showcase here closely. I am co presenting with Ingrid Fish, who is Head of the Department of Learning at the LWL-Museum für Kunst und Kultur in Münster and who was the project owner for the museum. We want to showcase a project today that is an example of how location positioning can be used to “open up” the visitor experience” or in other words, how positioning technology can be used to support a concept, an overall approach to visitor experience. We’ll look at the indoor positioning software that was used and look at what it is, how it works and also why doesn’t it work sometimes… But more importantly, we’ll show you how this technology can be used to enrich the visitors’ experience. And also how it can support the overall concept of a museum. And this is why Ingrid…
- IF – The LWL-Museum in Münster is one of the largest museums in Germany focusing on art and cultural history. Since 1908 Westphalia’s central art museum has been located on the Domplatz in Münster. From the Middle Ages to contemporary art, today the collection comprises more than 300,000 exhibits of the art and cultural history of Western Europe. The first major building conversion took place in 1971, when the historic building’s exhibition spaces were extended by a new building. Eventually however this extension was also in severe need of renovation and in 2004 LWL decided upon a complete rebuild. The architectural competition was won by the Volker Staab architects in Berlin. Now a spectacular foyer with its 14 metre high daylight ceiling welcomes the visitors. You can see it on the screen behind me. Why is it a ‘open‘ museum? First of all, the architecture is open. The distinctive, six metre high windows in the façade reflect an open and conscious interrelationship with the neighbouring environment. At the same time the sight lines encourage cross relations between interior and exterior areas. Also, there is no strict chronological set up of rooms, instead many doors, entrances and balconies open up the rooms and allow views and insights in other exhibition areas…
- Why is it a open collection? I already briefly touched upon the diversified collection. As a visitor you can chose to take a tour through all epochs, but you can equally just visit the Middle Ages, the Peace of Westphalia, the modern or contemporary art. That choice we left open to the visitors themselves.
- And finally, perhaps the most important aspect of an open museum: We are open to all visitors. We welcome young and old people, with and without disabilities.
- IF – this is why we also wanted an open educational program, a program that opens up the collection to all kind of visitors > adults, kids etc. Two things were important: The Media-Guide-Tour supplying the information had to be both entertaining and flexible, allowing the visitors to decide whether to listen to content or to proceed. So open to discover everything or follow a special interest. But by their own choice. And, we wanted to avoid too much written information in the rooms, such as labels, but instead use technology to guide the visitors’ attention to the art works. That‘s why we went looking for a technology which could a) localize a visitors‘ position and b) trigger content automatically. We knew that the German Fraunhofer Institute had developed a an indoor positioning software called Awiloc which works just like GPS outdoor, but then inside of a building. So we visited museums who had experiences with Awiloc and found out that almost all of them had problems with the technology at the start. We also learned that many of them had a lot of technical and media installations, which we didn‘t have and also did not want to have. We wanted the technology to work almost invisible so that our visitors could focus on the essence. We wanted to use technology to enhance the visitor experience and not distract from the art they are surrounded by.
- MT – yes, and before I explain how we made this happen, maybe a quick word on how Awiloc works. As Ingrid already mentioned, Awiloc is software that was developed in 2010 by the German Fraunhofer Institute You might know Fraunhofer as developer of the mp3.format. At Antenna Lab, we experiment with various indoor positioning solutions and we had worked with Awiloc before, in Germany. We found that what sets Awiloc apart from other solutions, is that it is an indoor position determining software only that is able to use various kinds of available existing wireless and communication networks like wireless LAN, GSM, UMTS or Bluetooth. This solution enables mobile devices to determine their position in indoor and urban environments based on received signal strength indication (so called RSSI measurements). This is how it works. It all begins with meticulously accurate mapping of a room. During this ‘scan’ of the room, for a set number of exact coordinates in the room, signal strengths of the various network signals are measured, giving each coordinate in the room a unique ‘fingerprint’ and these “location fingerprints’’ are stored in a database. With the help of this stored data, later, when used by visitors, the mobile device is able to determine its exact location. (The device only receives signals, it doesn’t take into account the id of the transmitting wifi accesspoint (and/or beacon), it doesn’t need data exchange or a connection to the museums network. You can compare it to satellites outside, only here the existing signal emitting network of access points act as satellites.) If you add points of interest (like artworks) to these location fingerprints to the database, the mobile device is not only able to know exactly where it is in the space, but also can trigger content when it is near a point of interest.
- MT – now, let’s take one step back – back to the question how we applied the ‘open’ concept to the visitor experience within the media guide / adult tour. As Ingrid told us, the museum has all kind of visitors with all kind of objectives. Some come with a special interest for let’s say contemporary art, but there are also many visitors who just want to explore the museum as they go. Following the ‘open concept’ we wanted these various types of visitors to be able to tailor their own experience. But how to do that in a museum so big that visitors might spend more time map reading than engaging with the exhibits? (At Antenna Lab we have tried out different ways of letting visitors decide on their own experience. For this project Eva came up with the following solution. First of all, at the start of the tour, a choice is given between „predefined Trails“ and an option which is called „Just go!“. Selecting ‘Just go’ will open up a list menu of all commented works, sorted by the rooms in which they appear. So no technology, no awiloc used here. ‘Just go’ allows the visitor to wonder around, with eyes’ open and focussed on the artworks. The visitor is guided by the visual attraction of the art works and does not have search audio numbers on the labels.
- MT – But for visitors who do come with a special interest, the tour offers various trails. And that is where Awiloc comes in. Once a visitor has selected a preferred tour or topic in the list menu – like the highlight tour or mediaeval art - awiloc is activated and the visitors position identified. This triggers a map of the room the visitor is in and the works on display in this room, belonging to the preselected trail. In addition, the visitor sees his own position marked as a red dot which moves as the visitor moves. If the visitor wants to hear more about one of the works, he just needs to touch one of the thumbnail pictures and the relevant audio comment is launched. But what if there is no work from the preselected trail in that room? In that case the visitor will still see the map of the room and his position but also a little pop up message telling him in which room his trail will start or continue. So far so good, but we also wanted to keep the possibility ‘open’ to these users to access other information. What if they take an interest in an artwork that is not part of their preselected tour. Bad luck? No, they just select the coloured button on the bottom right corner and a list of all works with audio comments in that room will become available. In this way all possibilities are kept open to the user.
- MT – So, and how about the family game? How was Awiloc used there? If I am correct, Ingrid, it was not your original plan to use awiloc within the family game, was it? IF – no indeed, our main idea was to create a mystery story. We also wanted to include games to make it as interactive as possible. But Eva impressed us right away with a creative concept that reflected the open concept perfectly. MT – Eva designed a great interactive mystery game experience for the whole family. The plot? : Four detectives coming to the museum for a detectives‘ challenge. Their task: solving mysteries about artworks by doing all kinds of meaningful interactive games and working together. Their reward? Pass the final detectives’ exam at the end of the tour by solving all cases. Of course the four different detectives all are very different types and are each investigating very different things in the art works, like technique, emotions, crime or have a pure kids perspective with Kiki, the blond girl here. The use of different characters not only offers different perspectives, but also attracts different types of children and opened up the game to family groups as well. But back to awiloc. Eva conjured up a brilliant way to give the mystery story an even more exiting and mysterious edge. And she did that by using the Awiloc. Because what if out of the blue and all of the sudden strange sounds could be heard? Or voices? Not knowing where they come from? Eva suggested to use awiloc to trigger these kinds of surprising audio elements which would definitely open up the kids‘ ears while moving around the museum, depending on their whereabouts. And this is how it works in the game. After a kid has first selected his detective, he will see a detail on his screen, of a piece of puzzle of the first work of art he is supposed to find and investigate. At the same time his detective’s voice is triggered and gives a hint, where to go first. And while he is going through the rooms in search for the artwork, the detective’s voice will come back automatically from time to time, helping the kid to find his way. Sayings things like: „well, I don‘t think we are right here. Lets try the other door“. Or „Can you see the shimmering blue light over there? I wonder what that could be?“ So whenever a child arrives at a point where he could take different routes, the detective’s voice is triggered giving him directions. Also all kinds of other mysterious sounds are triggered automatically on the go, like bell rings or radio-play-like dialogues that also serve as hints, of what to look for. And then, as soon as the child approaches the target artwork within 5 meters, a full screen size image of the object is triggered automatically and the case to be solved is presented in the shape of different types of interactive games that require an intensive examination of the artwork.
- MT – an assignment to repair a broken glass window – broken by the detective by the way – in the form of a puzzle, a drag and drop game…
- MT – or hotspot games, where details of an exhibit are marked and large detailed images are triggered by selecting the marked spots.
- This is another example of a game, where the kids are challenged to find the devils in an altar, pick up the torch of Saint Anthony and burn the devils.
- MT – or color swiping games to reveal a hidden mysteries
- MT – and If all mysteries are revealed, all cases have been solved and all games have been played, the final detective’s challenge will determine the status of Junior-detective, detective in training or top detective. In this game Awiloc positioning solutionnot only enables / is not only turned into a location based mystery hunt through the museum, but also brings the game up to the next level by adding a complete a theatrical sound experience on the go. The players really become their characters wile moving through the building. AndiIt works pretty well, doesn’t it Ingrid, although it’s not finished yet, but we rather have an open end, right?
- IF - Yes, "open end” – but in what sense? Did it work right from the beginning? No, not really, because we found out, that there were some triggers not working well. Some of the wireless signals were too weak because of our walls made out of steel (ferrow concrete), and also, some trigger areas were overlapping. There were some more test runs necessary. So we did a second site survey with Fraunhofer who suggested more access points which we are in the process to install. So the installation is not yet finished, but certainly an open end in sense of extending the program by tours for visual impaired, sign language guide, more kids trails. Many more ideas. But Open end also in the sense that the overall concept is a succes, especially the children's tour is very well accepted and therefore we plan to expand the program. The concept of the "open museum!” works, we have had more than 180.000 visitors in the first six months, and about 25.000 visitors used the Media Guide. And although the guide for grown Ups technically does not yet work perfectly, we are already getting totally great feedback for the content. So we are absolute motivated to have everything perfect in the summer.
- MT: Great .- and that brings us to our last “Open“ topic – “open questions“? And for that I will hand over to Karl again. Thank you.