Dr. Yue Li, HCI and XR Researcher

This article attempts to understand how present Virtual Reality (VR) environments can contribute to enhancing the communication of cultural heritage by providing an experience of the past that is acceptable for the younger generation and how museums and cultural institutions should adopt and use such technologies. Aspects of acceptance, experience, and expectation of VR with the underlying values are not well understood but are important for the sustainability of the communication of cultural heritage as a bequest to future generations. We conducted a combined quantitative–qualitative study on the participants who have various prior experience with gaming and VR, and different levels of knowledge on the history presented within the virtual environment. This study investigates how participants accept and are stimulated in terms of personal experience and their expectations and ideas for the future of museums if VR is used for enhancing the learning of cultural heritage. Prior gaming and VR experience were investigated to see whether they do indeed influence the preference for using VR for learning cultural heritage. We demonstrated that particular age groups and background are especially agreeable to virtual reality as environments for learning and experiencing cultural heritage, regardless of their knowledge of the historical context of the virtually reconstructed site. Our findings also revealed important behaviours in our demographics group with regards to user preferred length of time and the believability of the virtual environment and how it influences aspects of their experience such as the exploration of the heritage site, familiarity, and meaning making. The study has implications for the use of VR for enhancing the experience of cultural heritage in museums and cultural institutions.

Hybridity in immersive technologies has not been studied for factors that are likely to influence engagement. A noticeable factor is the spatial enclosure that defines where users meet. This involves a mutual object of interest, contents that the users may generate around the object, and the proximity between users. This study examines these factors, namely how object interactivity, user-generated contents (UGC) and avatar proximity influence engagement. We designed a Hybrid Virtual and Augmented Reality (HVAR) environment that supports paired users to experience cultural heritage in both Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) . A user study was conducted with 60 participants, providing assessments of engagement and presence via questionnaires, together with mobile electroencephalogram (mEEG) and user activity data that measures VR user engagement in real-time. Our findings provide insights into how engagement between users can occur in HVAR environments for the future hybrid reality with multi-device connectivity.

Museum visitors are typically advised to follow trajectories planned by curators. Nevertheless, the diverse locomotion techniques available in Virtual Reality (VR) offer various navigation methods that are unattainable within physical museum spaces. Interestingly, these techniques have rarely been explored within museum settings. Our study aims to investigate appropriate navigation methods in VR museums. We first conducted a study in a virtual reconstruction of a local museum with the following navigation methods: a 2D minimap, a World-in-Miniature (WiM) system, and a WiM map. Our results showed that the WiM map with a point-and-select interaction technique outperformed the other two regarding ease of learning, reduced workload, lessened motion sickness, and greater user preferences. Based on the findings, we improved the WiM map and introduced MagicMap. It builds upon the WiM map and translates the curatorial principles of museum visiting into a hierarchical menu layout. Our further evaluation showed that MagicMap supported prolonged engagement in VR museums, enhanced system usability and overall user experience, and reduced users’ perceived workload. Our findings have implications for the future design of navigation systems in VR museums and complex indoor environments.

The viewing experience of 3D artifacts in Virtual Reality (VR) museums is constrained and affected by various factors, such as pedestal height, viewing distance, and object scale. User experiences regarding these factors can vary subjectively, making it difficult to identify a universal optimal solution. In this paper, we collect empirical data on user-determined parameters for the optimal viewing experience in VR museums. By modeling users’ viewing behaviors in VR museums, we derive predictive functions that configure the pedestal height, calculate the optimal viewing distance, and adjust the appropriate handheld scale for the optimal viewing experience. This led to our novel 3D responsive design, ResponsiveView. Similar to the responsive web design that automatically adjusts for different screen sizes, ResponsiveView automatically adjusts the parameters in the VR environment to facilitate users’ viewing experience. The design has been validated with two popular inputs available in current commercial VR devices: controller-based interactions and hand tracking, demonstrating enhanced viewing experience in VR museums.

Museum artifacts are the main way for visitors to experience and learn about cultural heritage. Augmented reality (AR) allows for high interactivity and is increasingly applied in museums to improve tourists’ experience and learning. It also supports the extension of museum experience to outside of the physical museum space, contributing to the visiting trajectory and takeaway experience. In this paper, we present our design of two tangible AR interfaces for cultural artifacts: Postcard AR and CubeMuseum AR, followed by three user studies that evaluate and optimize the design. In Study 1, we conducted a within-subjects study (N \frac14 24) that compares the two AR interfaces with a baseline condition (Leaflet). Our results demonstrate the positive effects of tangible AR interfaces on users’ motivation and engagement in learning cultural heritage. In Study 2, we further explored how to optimize CubeMuseum AR by adopting a user-centered design approach. Through the analysis of expert interviews (N \frac14 7) and an online survey (N \frac14 207), the results specify a series of requirements and design guidelines for tangible AR interfaces to be used as a learning tool and a hybrid gift. Based on the findings, the design of the CubeMuseum AR was optimized and evaluated in Study 3. A between-subjects user study was conducted (N \frac14 32) to compare the optimized design with the initial design. The results verified the positive effects of gamified tangible AR interfaces on users’ motivation, engagement, and performance in learning cultural heritage. We present our design and evaluation results, and discuss the implications of designing tangible AR interfaces for cultural heritage learning and museum gifting.