Using object biography metadata to create artefact interactions outside memory institutions

Abstract

Artefacts are primarily experienced inside museums, and those with insufficient display and interpretation can be isolated and ignored. Mobile devices potentially allow the artefact interaction touchpoints to be moved into the wider environment beyond the physical boundaries of memory institutions. To achieve these interactions, one approach is to modify metadata from a typical descriptive catalogue entry to be object biography-centric. This thesis explores this opportunity and presents the creation of novel artefact-centric interactions outside museums embodied by a proof-of-concept mobile application prototype. We performed four studies to acquire object biography metadata, design and evaluate the interactions with biography-enhanced artefacts. Study one explored the potential contributions that the biographical approach can make in documenting artefacts. Study two acquired object biography metadata in a selection of places and conceptualised the metadata fields. Study three extracted five sets of sample metadata from the collection of a local museum. The final study was the design and user evaluation of the prototype, which indicated that the implementation supported the novelty and effectiveness of object biography-centric interactions. The current descriptive metadata of objects are not generally reusable for context-aware applications. Interactions designed on top of object biography metadata in the environment are a potential new approach for museum informatics and biographical intersections are a promising concept to focus user engagement.