# Virtual Reality in Museums: Exploring the Experiences of Museum Professionals
## 5 Perceived Advantages and Challenges of Using VR Technologies
### Perceived Advantages
I often take for granted the access I have to this technology and I am always surprised at the numbers of people that still haven't had the chance to experience VR\"._  
Finally, VR provides increased accessibility for online visitors who want to have museum experiences at home and allows a museum to reach thousands of people, by offering \"an immediate translation of their building and the collection to the digital world\" (Interviewee 15). The fourth advantage emphasized by three interviewees, is VR's contribution to the overall education aims of each museum and the ability to teach or introduce concepts and themes more effectively. As stressed by interviewee 1, the technology used in their galleries, \"provides a new way of teaching art concepts, equipping visitors with tools to deepen their understanding of art\". Indeed, \"VR presents a number of innovative elements that provide rich opportunities for the medium to be an effective learning tool\" [32] (p. 453), which was also reaffirmed through the evaluation process of some participating museums. For example, the evaluation of a temporary exhibition using VR dedicated to a particular artist, illustrated that VR offered an additional knowledge layer to some visitors:  
_\"Some of the feedback we had was that until then, they haven't thought about the artist as a man who really lived. It was just the name associated with these pictures on the wall. So even though the artist himself didn't figure in the VR at all, but because we were looking at his living environment, it has brought him to life with a sense that he had really existed, which again, gave them a sense of a greater emotional resonance with the artworks\"._ (Interviewee 16)  
The fifth advantage, reported by 3 interviewees, is the ability of VR to offer immersive experiences, impacting both the engagement level and learning. Although immersion is emphasized in relevant literature on VR in museums as an important element offered by this technology, only three interviewees mentioned immersion as a strong advantage of VR for their museums, indicating a discrepancy in the way VR is perceived by computer scientists compared to the perceptions of museum professionals. In fact, some participants consider that this immersive capability may have multiple drawbacks in the museum environment (see Section 5.2). The next advantage, mentioned by two interviewees, is the ability to personalize a visit through the use of VR and offer customized experiences (especially if VR is combined with other types of technology such as beacons, AR scanning, connectivity with personal devices or motion sensors). Finally, reliability is emphasized by two interviewees as an advantage of VR compared to other types of emerging technologies. As interviewee 5 characteristically notes, VR \"is pretty robust now as it has been out in the market for a while\". The actual need of trustworthiness and reliability of the technology used was stressed by 5 interviewees, who emphasize they do not necessarily need something that is extremely innovative but something that is \"tried and tested\" and thus, reliable both in terms of the experience provided and in terms of the maintenance cost. Figure 1 summarizes the advantages of VR technologies as perceived and reported by the participants of this study.