Abstract:

While experimentations in digital cultural heritage continue the run to digital storytelling blending and fusion with latest advanced technologies, the need for evaluations of such 3D installations is highly felt. Especially in the field of user experience, there is a wide range of media studies and communication theories about the audience's role in any kind of mediated communication. This datum is justified by the will of investigating more on the social, pedagogical and cognitive aspects of human-computer interaction. Not only usability evaluations are valuable in order to gain a deeper overview about how people interact and behave in a certain technological context, but also pedagogical affordance inquiries and instrumental qualities surveys give their contribution.

The case study we present in this paper stands between a research and educational project, where the Livia’s Villa at Prima Porta, at the IX mile of ancient via Flaminia, in the north of Rome, has been 3D reconstructed and told from different points of view, giving birth to a permanent installation located in a dedicated room at the National Roman Museum - Diocletian Baths since the begin of 2014. The Virtual Reality system, using natural interaction provided through the Kinect sensor, allows user to explore the archaeological site of the villa how it is today, and how it could be at the time of Augustus Emperor. Dramatization and scientificity of content run in parallel, the user is immersed in a multisensory 3D environment of narration, where all the information are integrated and he can get in contact with them without mediation. Characters in the reconstructed Villa are real actors integrated in the 3D scenario and shown while playing their daily activities and dialoguing with the user. As no technological nor symbolic/linguistic barrier is supposed to exist between the artificial and the real space, the user feels spatially embodied in the system. The space of the installation becomes a “performative space” where the user is an essential actor.

In this context of fruition, where the 3D application stands as a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE), where behaviours and learning play the major roles, a massive evaluation was carried out in the summer of 2015, on a sample of 125 global participants. We wanted to understand if the 3D application that developers and designers produced were functional to user’s education and usability. Does the user’s experience of such a 3D product have any impact on his perception of technology inside museums? Does he bring at home a vivid record of what seen, listened to, played with? These are main questions we wanted to answer conducting a multi-partitioned analysis made of observation sessions, direct questionnaires and specific tasks to be performed so to evaluate user’s level of performance, called “driven-scenario”.

Results made clear that the attractiveness of a 3D interactive environment in an archaeological museum is crucial: the length of stay of about 15 minutes confirm the potential of such kind of installations in an informal learning situation where graphics, colors, interactive effects and the whole atmosphere highly influenced the positive feedback of users. Also the natural interaction modality made the user experience to be involving, intuitive and indeed natural - overcoming the common idea of technology as barrier towards learning units of culture.

Keywords:

User experience survey, Virtual Museums, advanced Virtual reality, pedagogical affordance, methodological approach in evaluation.