leicester castle tells its story: ibeacon-based mobile interpretation
Post on 14-Apr-2017
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Leicester Castle Beacon App
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Leicester Castle Tells its StoryiBeacon-based mobile interpretation
Giasemi Vavoula, University of Leicester Sally Coleman, Leicester Arts & MuseumsRheinallt Ffoster-Jones, Museum Wales
Digital R&D Fund for the Arts
• The project was funded by a grant from the Digital R&D Fund for the Arts (Nesta, Arts & Humanities Research Council and the National Lottery through Arts Council England)
• The award was to develop BLE beacon-based heritage interpretation for a historic building
• Project partners:
Leicester Castle
A problem to solve
Starting point
What can BLE beacons do for an empty, listed Castle that opens its doors to the public once a month, with historical interpretation provided only by sessional staff and printed information sheets?
(and for dozens other historic buildings and venues in similar situations?)
BLE beacons
BLE beacons – what you need
• BLE beacons• Content / beacon
management system
• Beacon app• BLE device to run
the app
The Beacon app
The Green Bicycle Murder Trail
The Court Audio Trail
The Family Trail
Interactive guidebooks
BLE beacons @ Leicester Castle• Development & Evaluation Framework: putting
visitors at the centre– Impact on visitors’ perceptions of
• Learning• Enjoyment• Environment
– Information– Activities– Learning opportunities
– Impact on visitors’ use & engagement with space• Length of stay• Pattern of stops at points of interest
BLE beacons @ Leicester Castle
Visitor perceptions of learning
“How much did you learn about the
Castle during your visit?”
z-Test App usersNon-users
Mean 4.02 3.21
Known Variance 1.22 1.14
Observations 113 70
z 4.88
P(Z<=z) two-tail 1.05E-06
z Critical two-tail 1.96
Visitor perceptions of enjoyment
“Overall, how enjoyable was your visit to the Castle?”
z-Test App usersNon-users
Mean 4.44 3.94
Known Variance 0.85 1.03
Observations 113 70
z 3.35
P(Z<=z) two-tail 0.000807
z Critical two-tail 1.96
Visitor perceptions of environment
“How would you rate your experience of:
available information; available activities;
learning opportunities?”
Visitor length of stayDeclared time of start and time of end of visit
All 3 tours that utilised beacons at physical point of interest scored better than tours that didn’t
Interactive guides (unordered list or timeline-based) scored worse than other interpretation approaches
All tours were considered at least ‘OK’ by all visitors
Beacon vs non-beacon tours
Beacon vs non-beacon tours
Visitor stops at points of interest
Pre-app
Visitor stops at points of interest
AppBear with
us, work in progress.
What we’re learning from: visit motives
What we’re learning from: tech attitudesVisitors to other heritage sites in Leicester (no app experience)
Castle visitors who have used the Castle app
Summary – Lessons Learnt• Beacon-based interpretation beneficial for learning and
enjoyment, and increases positive perception of the site as learning environment
• Mixing with non-beacon mobile interpretation ok for learning, but reduces enjoyment
• Potential of beacon logs to understand impact on visitor use of space
• We design for learning-oriented visitors, but it is the socially-oriented visitors who are more keen app adopters
• Mobile confidence does not translate necessarily to willingness to use in a heritage setting
• Mobile confidence and willingness to use increase with good experiences
Questions?
For more information contact:
Sally Coleman, Sally.Coleman@leicester.gov.uk (Arts Lead)Giasemi Vavoula, gv18@le.ac.uk (Research Lead)Rheinallt Ffoster-Jones, Rheinallt.Ffoster-Jones@museumwales.ac.uk (Technical Lead)
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