The article "Flow, Staging, Wayfinding, Personalization: Evaluating User Experience with Mobile Museum Narratives", deals with the implementation and evaluation of a pilot project, called the "CHESS Project" that took place at the Acropolis Museum. This program was about the creation of a digital application for mobile devices, which tried, through narratives, to guide the visitor to the rooms of the Museum. The experience of using this application was personalized, as it was preceded by its use, the completion of a questionnaire by the participants, which identified them with one of the people who had been studied and designed for this application. Participants - were also asked to choose which stories they were interested in watching, but also later - during the experience - they could, through their choices, further determine what was of interest to them - making the application work best possible way for themselves. In the program, a combination of quantitative and qualitative research was carried out, in order to collect data and evaluate it. In the second study that followed, some of the items that were labeled as negative were corrected, but at some points issues continued to arise.
The article, as well as the project itself that it discusses, seemed particularly interesting to me and made me imagine that I was in the position of the participants - considering how I would evaluate this experience. The importance given to the personality and interests of the participants, would be positively evaluated by me, as I would feel that this experience concerns me personally. Also, due to the way of narration - which is in the first person and uses humor, I would feel more familiar with the environment and I would enjoy my tour even more.
New technologies and the new way of communication and conciliation, are a reality that we could not and should not overlook. I think it is particularly important to integrate these new technologies into museum spaces - not by overshadowing, but by complementing the museum experience and contact with the exhibits.
This would lead to the goal of attracting new audiences, in addition to the traditional, to museum spaces, would make museums more accessible, but would also show in a practical way that museums are "living" organizations that evolve and move forward together. with the societies to which they belong.
The main problems here, as pointed out by the article, are the possible "absorption" of visitors from the screen, leading to distraction from viewing the exhibits, but also the restriction of social interaction and contact.
As for the exhibits, the application - as it has already done in some places - could encourage participants to observe them and locate details in them, so as not to lose contact with the exhibit itself, due to the focus on the screen.
Regarding the social dimension of the visit, with respect to the wish and needs of the visitors, they could be asked at the beginning, whether they want to enjoy this experience alone, with their company or even with someone who is also touring. simultaneously with them in space, but are not known. If the participant chose social interaction, the application could encourage collaboration between users - so that only browsers together can watch the narration in its entirety.
Some other problems that were identified were those of orientalism, the fatigue, the inability of the participants to take with them a souvenir of this experience, but also the difficulty of separating the digital from the physical world. However, I believe that these, like the previous ones, will be able to be overcome with some small changes - since, after all, the majority of visitors have already expressed their satisfaction with the experience - and certainly this, in its entirety, can only be evaluated as succesful.