Multi-User AR Experiences in Museums

Abstract

Museums have been gradually transitioning towards a more visitor-centered approach in presenting their exhibits. This shift has involved the integration of technologies such as Augmented Reality to enhance visitor engagement and immersion in Cultural Heriage.
People often visit museums in groups. However, museums have yet to fully capitalize on the potential of designing experiences specifically tailored for groups. Most existing exhibits continue to cater primarily to individual visitors, even when employing cutting-edge technologies like Head-Mounted Displays.

In this thesis, we propose the design of a Collaborative Augmented Reality application that utilizes Head-Mounted Displays, with the dual objective of entertaining visitors while preserving the educational value inherent in museum experiences.

We implemented a novel collaborative version of the “Spot the Differences” game on the Magic Leap 2 device. In this application, users engage in conversations to identify and describe discrepancies between their respective artworks, which are initially variations of a real artwork. The purpose of this collaborative dialogue is to identify and remove mistakes to ultimately reveal the original artwork.

To evaluate the effectiveness of our design, we conducted a user study comparing the collaborative experience to an application that does not incorporate collaborative elements. The findings indicate that the collaborative experience is perceived as more enjoyable than the non-collaborative one, while demonstrating comparable levels of learning and usability. Furthermore, our collaborative application shows promise as a means of fostering socialization among visitors who may be strangers to one another.