Tangible Interaction in Museums and Cultural Heritage 
 Sites: Towards a Conceptual and Design Framework
Creators: name: Duranti, Daniele
Publisher: name: IMT Alti Studi Lucca
Year: 2017
Subjects: NX Arts in general

description: Drawing on a design perspective, the research explores the application
 of tangible interaction in museums and cultural heritage sites. Tangible
 interaction is today a quite consolidated research area inside HCI
 (Human-Computer Interaction) and Interaction Design. It refers to a
 new way of interacting with computer systems that is more similar to
 the way one commonly interacts with the real world: instead of using
 generic devices like the mouse or the keyboard, one interacts using
 specific objects or the body. In this way, tangible interaction is able to
 bridge the gap between the world of atoms and the world of bits (Ishii
 et al., 1997).
 Since the early 2000s, tangible interaction has also been applied to the
 cultural heritage field for the creation of onsite interactive installations
 that better integrate digital technologies, the materiality of the objects
 and the physicality of the experience during the visit.
 So far, research in the field of tangible interaction applied to cultural
 heritage has mainly focused on developing new systems and
 evaluating them while a move towards more theoretical and conceptual
 works is still missing. As a consequence, there is not a common
 language in the field, there is not a deep understanding of what has
 been done and what is missing, and there is not a formalization of the
 aspects that make up the design of tangible interaction systems in the
 cultural heritage field. This situation might generate issues such as
 ambiguity and misunderstanding between the different professionals
 involved in projects, it might slow down innovation in the field, and
 last but not least, it might make the design process slower, less efficient
 and effective.
 This research represents a first attempt to overcome at least partially
 these problems by replying to three main questions that are:
 1. How has tangible interaction been applied to onsite interactive
 installations in the cultural sector?
 2. What kind of experiences of cultural heritage does tangible
 interaction allow?
 3. What are the aspects that make up the design of a tangible
 interaction system?
 In order to answer these questions a theoretical framework for tangible
 interaction in museums and cultural heritage sites is proposed,
 similarly to what has been done in the past for other types of
 technologies (e.g. Spallazzo, 2012). The framework developed as part of this research can be intended as both a conceptual framework and the
 theoretical foundations of a design framework. Indeed, not only it
 shows what tangible interaction is by providing a categorization of past
 tangible interaction systems, but it also identifies a set of aspects that
 make up the design of such interactive systems. These aspects represent
 themes around which choices have to be made during the process of
 design, and the knowledge of which can facilitate or inspire the design
 process itself.
 The framework has been developed starting from the collection and
 analysis of more than 60 tangible interaction projects. In particular, the
 projects have been analysed using a thematic analysis, combining an
 inductive (bottom-up) and deductive (top-down) approach in order to
 identify themes and subthemes (categories and subcategories). In order
 to discuss and develop further reflections about the framework being
 proposed, the research goes on presenting a reconstruction and analysis
 of a practical case study, the interactive exhibition 'Voices from Forte
 Pozzacchio' developed as part of the EU funded 'meSch' research
 project.
 The proposed framework can be beneficial for researchers as it
 provides a language and a conceptual model that can help them to
 reflect and discuss about the topic, to orient future research, to
 cooperate with other researchers. It can also be used to provide
 different practitioners (e.g. designers, developers and cultural heritage
 professionals) with a shared view of what tangible interaction is, that
 can help reduce misunderstandings and can facilitate collaboration
 between them. In addition, the framework lays the theoretical
 foundations for a design framework, addressed to designers or design
 teams, that aims to provide them with a greater awareness of important
 aspects to consider during the design process, potentially making it
 more effective and efficient.