Medelhavsmuseet Case Study

3.1 Context
The prototype was decided to serve the explanation of stories around a head statue in Medelhavsmuseet, which is one of the most important objects in the Cyprus exhibition in the museum according to the curator. Originally, the statue was simply displayed inside a glass cabinet in a way that did not suggest any difference of its significance from other adjacent exhibits. A physical information label was put on the cabinet and it provided a few words describing features of each object in the cabinet. However, Medelhavsmuseet has abundant historical materials in the archive that are relevant to this piece of statue, e.g., old photographs and books that recorded vividly how archaeologists found it surprisingly in the process of excavation.
A few interviews with visitors were followed to investigate their opinions about the concept and what kind of information they were particularly interested in. The results showed that the concept was embraced by visitors to a large extent. They believed it would make the experience “funny” and “more alive”, and it would be attractive for particularly young visitors who were relatively less interested in visiting archaeological museums. Indeed, according to one staff at Medelhavsmuseet, the average age of their regular visitors (except for e.g., school group visits) was above 20. The interviewed visitors who were at their 20’s indicated that if I avoided a “too cartoonish” design they appreciated the concept and did not think it appeared childish or silly for them. The feedback regarding the types of information visitors were interested in about the statue can be concluded in following four aspects: 1) When, where, and why it was made; 2) When and how it was found; 3) Why it was more famous than other finds; 4) Who it
The prototypes ran on iOS platform. Due to the scope of this study, the prototypes only used 2D graphics, although 3D models, videos, or animations were believed to be able to evoke the sense of presence to a larger extent. Moreover, for the tracking technology, image-based markers were used but the recognition might become problematic when the lighting got too dim in the museum. Ideally, using the object directly as the tracking marker would make tracking more stable and experience more natural.

For the narrative prototype, the experience started with a character of the statue popping out and introducing herself (See the left image in Figure 1). Then, visitors were led to the next step and were presented with a navigation menu consisting of four items - Birth, Discovery, Exhibition, Mystery (See the middle image in Figure 1). Visitors chose to see any part in any order based on their own interests. In each part, they were provided with audio narrations and related images (See the right image in Figure 1). Each part of the audio was kept less than one minute. Users were also free to browse presented