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Museum Experience Design: A Modern Storytelling

Methodology

Federica Dal Falco & Stavros Vassos

To cite this article: Federica Dal Falco & Stavros Vassos (2017) Museum Experience Design:
A Modern Storytelling Methodology, The Design Journal, 20:sup1, S3975-S3983, DOI:
10.1080/14606925.2017.1352900

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 Design for Next
12th EAD Conference
Sapienza University of Rome
12-14 April 2017
doi: 10.1080/14606925.2017.1352900

Museum Experience Design: A Modern

Storytelling Methodology
Federica Dal Falcoa*, Stavros Vassosb*
a
Department PDTA Sapienza University of Rome
b
Helvia.io
*Corresponding author e-mail: federica.dalfalco@uniroma1.it; vassos@dis.uniroma1.it;

Abstract: In this paper we propose a new direction for design, in the context of the
theme “Next Digital Technologies in Arts and Culture”, by employing modern
methods based on Interaction Design, Interactive Storytelling and Artificial
Intelligence. Focusing on Cultural Heritage, we propose a new paradigm for
Museum Experience Design, facilitating on the one hand traditional visual and
multimedia communication and, on the other, a new type of interaction with
artefacts, in the form of a Storytelling Experience. Museums are increasingly being
transformed into hybrid spaces, where virtual (digital) information coexists with
tangible artefacts. In this context, “Next Digital Technologies” play a new role,
providing methods to increase cultural accessibility and enhance experience. Not
only is the goal to convey stories hidden inside artefacts, as well as items or objects
connected to them, but it is also to pave the way for the creation of new ones
through an interactive museum experience that continues after the museum visit
ends. Social sharing, in particular, can greatly increase the value of dissemination.

Keywords: Storytelling, Interaction Design, Cultural Heritage, Museum

Studies

1. Introduction
With this paper we wish to initiate an industry-wide discussion in the field of Design related to
Cultural Heritage, notably focusing on how the use of modern technology - such as Interaction
Design, Interactive Storytelling and Artificial Intelligence – may fundamentally change visual and
multimedia communication in museums. The aim is to achieve higher integration between the
artefacts and the information they carry and the visitor experience, based on new forms of
technology-backed narrative experiences. We have experimented by using technological approaches
- such as Augmented/Virtual Reality, Internet of Things, Interactive Storytelling, Smart Assistants, etc.
-throughout the whole design process, i.e. covering i) the branding identity of the museum in the
digital age, ii) an immersive storytelling experience for visitors inside the museum, and iii) a social
communication follow-up action after the visit, thus promoting the visitor experience by using
meaningful items, memories and products, in addition to social media.
In Section 2, we present a brief overview of some major methods and trends related to the notion of
cultural heritage and the design of museum experiences. In Section 3, we turn our attention to how
© 2017 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under
the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use,
distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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FEDERICA DAL FALCO, STAVROS VASSOS

the latter are transformed, examining how modern computing technologies can be used as a
medium to integrate storytelling experiences within a larger lifecycle. Finally, in Section 4, we offer
insights derived from our collaboration with small-sized museums in the city of Rome, and present
some conclusions.

2 Cultural Heritage and Museum Experiences

2.1 The potentially increasing evolution of cultural heritage
Our discussion draws from the concept of Cultural Heritage as referred to in the English-speaking
world, i.e. inherently connected to the idea of conservation through active use (Irace, 2014). Cultural
Heritage in this sense is considered an evolving organism that can be ‘incremented’ with the
production of new goods, both tangible and intangible. This may include, among others, architectural
and environmental restoration aiming at the enhancement and transmission of heritage, but also
artistic interventions and performance design; the latter also comprises an intangible component, in
its capacity to identify social change and subsequently propose new forms of use.
In Italian history, the foundational principles underlying the concept and the evolution of Cultural
Heritage were established with the ‘Franceschini Commission Report’ dating back to 1967, which
formally introduced this concept. The document specified for the first time that all objects and
products relating to the history of civilization, regardless of their artistic value, were to be considered
Cultural Heritage: any ‘tangible evidence having the force of civilization’ (Atti Commissione
Franceschini- ACF, 1967 Statement I). This included tangible and intangible products, movable and
immovable objects, but also applied arts, traditions, the history of science and technology (ACF, 1967
D. XXXII) and contemporary art (ACF, 1967 D. XXXIII). In addition, any adjacent properties of a
building, as well as its furniture, would be part of its cultural assets (ACF, 1967 D. XXXIV).
In the following decades, the concept of Cultural Assets was further enlarged and acquired new
meanings, through the contributions, for instance, of UNESCO (World Conference on Cultural
Policies, 1982), the Paris Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2003, and
the European Community (European Commission, 2007b). Cultural Heritage was therefore
encapsulating the shared social values to be preserved and transmitted (Stille, 2002). This
interpretation has evolved towards the Anglo-American definition of Cultural Heritage, aimed at
creating ‘synergies between past Cultural Heritage and contemporary creations; live arts and crafts
should be promoted in order to encourage dialogue between generations and the integration of
cultural heritage in local daily life’. In this context, modern technology has offered new opportunities
to explore synergies between Cultural Heritage and end-users, leveraging the economy, community
identity and local territories.
Moreover, according to the European Commission’s recent Work Programme within Horizon 2020,
boosting research on Europe’s digital Cultural Heritage is of fundamental importance and provides
long-term benefits. The integration of knowledge related to Cultural Heritage will lead to more
innovative partnerships between public authorities, local communities and creative industries, as
well as to education and the transfer of knowledge to other socio-cultural areas. Design for Cultural
Heritage therefore also includes methods and techniques that need to consider the system of
Cultural Heritage in a multi-dimensional way - i.e. cognitive, social, symbolic, as well as digital – in a
given territory or community.

2.2 Museum interactions

State of the art museum experience includes a long list of studies on the use of digital technology,
pointing out strengths and weaknesses in terms of both methods and applications, by evaluating
major museums around the world. The various features tested include the use of online applications
and mobile devices, to create a dialogue between the visitor and the museum, beyond traditional

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audio guides. Museum collections can thus be explored using additional channels, such as virtual
reconstructions, on-site gaming scenarios, but also regular media displaying information on
exhibitions and their backstage scenarios. In this way, they enjoy extended exposure on social media
through shared images, audio and video files (Regione del Veneto, Adria Muse, Venetian Civic
Museums Foundation, Fitzcarraldo Foundation, 2014).
Studies show increased visitor interest in interacting with the artefacts in an original and
participatory manner (Solima, 2012),notably by exploiting the functions offered by new digital media.
In such a dynamic setting, marketing and communication objectives converge, and the educational
role of museums can benefit audience development (Stamp, 2014). Many recent studies also
question the future of museums, particularly in the case of modern art museums. It is known that
museums have encountered growing difficulties, due to the recent economic crisis - which has
greatly affected prices on the art market-,but also to the changes in cultural practices and to the
ever-increasing challenge of globalization. These phenomena have undermined the way museums
operate and their identity, raising numerous thorny issues and leading to a rethinking of their
traditional model.
In this scenario, museums have lately appeared to be evolving into dynamic places where different
cultural events are offered to diverse and wide audiences. Visitors are often intrigued by special
shows offered at museums, for which they may even travel a long way, similar to a big international
event or a concert (Costanzo, 2012). Indeed, since the mid-20th century, the role of the museum has
begun to move away from being a passive conservation mechanism and has also started to offer a
way to understand the present (Quintavalle, 1982, pp. 11- 34), acting as a laboratory to experiment
with events from the field of theatre, film and advertising. This is the approach found in Giulio Carlo
Argan’s visionary work (1982), partly inspired by the museum innovation represented by the 1977
opening of the Centre Pompidou in Paris.
Another interesting aspect is discussed in the work by Nicholas Serota (Serota, 1996), where the new
perspective on the contemporary museum is based on a study of the transformed relationship
between contemporary society and the artwork : in line with the entertaining and performative
features of contemporary art, visitors are emotionally stimulated by the artefacts, moving away from
the traditional analytical and interpretative experience, based on rational involvement. In this sense,
Serota considers visitors and artistic communication to be processes at the core of the
transformation of museums, rather than the work of art. In fact, the role of visitors has changed in
the last few decades, as they have become themselves, to a certain extent, artworks: they are invited
to interact with artefacts and artists through physical relationships, by participating first-hand and
integrating themselves with performances and events.
The historian Granier (2013) bases her analysis on the example of the French museum, whose
humanistic role dates back to the Enlightenment, and compares it with several international contexts
and with the current cultural transformation. Granier suggests ‘le musée polymorphe’, an innovative
model that embraces new ways to transfer knowledge and stands as a living organism, adjusting to
the evolution of social needs. This new model goes beyond the traditional distinction between the
different types of museums - art, science, technology, etc. - offering a view of the museum as a place
of public knowledge, with potential socio-political implications.
This view is related to the famous book by André Malraux, Le Musée Imaginaire (Museums Without
Walls), written in 1947. This work quite accurately predicted the evolution of the art system from the
1960s to the contemporary era, in particular with respect to its transformation from a closed system
to one integrating influences from several social aspects. The theory of the Imaginary Museum
justifies the presence - in the same place - of works that are diverse, and possibly in contrast or in
opposition, in terms of function and quality, as they share the wide notion of art. Malraux identifies a
continuous transformation of the ‘language of forms’, whereby the museum becomes the meeting
place and the works ‘speak’ the language of the constantly changing content. Through new means of
re-interpretation and re-experiencing, offered by the digital culture and modern technology for

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interaction, the Imaginary Museum becomes a mental place where all artworks can talk to each
other, while respecting each other’s differences.
In everything we have discussed so far, there has been an underlying aspect of communication
between visitors and museums. In our proposal below, we make this communication more apparent
using modern methods of interaction.

3. Modern Methods of Storytelling for Museum

Experience Design
Considering the different perspectives on the current role and concept of museums, our work follows
the European Commission guidelines on culture and creativity, as expressed by ‘Creative
Europe’(2014-2020). This Programme aims at encouraging innovative projects able to counter the
limitations and obstacles currently faced by cultural sectors; and, in particular, at supporting such
projects transnationally, by promoting their circulation, seizing the opportunities arising from the
new digital culture, and expanding their reach by experimenting with new forms of involvement
(Stamp, 2014).
It is evident that digital technology is transforming museums into hybrid and complex spaces, where
the virtual lives of characters and stories are blended with the physical form of artefacts (Irace,
2014). Digital culture in museums has grown along with the transformation of the notion of cultural
accessibility, to the point that a virtual museum experience may be a highly inclusive alternative to a
more traditional visit. The communication process of the museum is also becoming a key tool, similar
to a cultural product carrying a message from the museum and the artefacts to visitors, and whose
value increases thanks to interaction with the audience, both in the museum space and through
digital dissemination channels and social sharing. One of the main roles of museum communication
is to convey a brand identity; yet in this setting it becomes crucial to experiment with tools that offer
experiential and emotional ways to create a relationship between visitors and artefacts.
In this sense, our paper suggests that Cultural Heritage and museum artefacts may represent a live
storytelling experience, benefitting from the fact that technology-driven design can open up
innovative opportunities to pass on knowledge and information through experience. This
interpretation also allows the value of Cultural Heritage to be highlighted as ‘conservation through
use’, incorporating the anthropological and social components of the communities that participate in
such ‘use’ (Irace, 2014).

3.1 Branding identity for museums in the digital age

The core role of every cultural institution - and museums in particular - is the transmission of
knowledge, as well as the study, conservation, and exhibition of its works. Nowadays this mission
takes on a new meaning, connecting the facilities where knowledge and artefacts are kept with the
theories of experience economics (Vannini, 2012).
According to this view, museum branding is critical to strengthen identity and adopt appropriate
strategies aimed at highlighting the unique characteristics of the artefacts and their stories. A
combined approach is required, integrating museum experts with a wide range of design experts,
from the fields of multimedia/graphic and communication design, industrial/fashion design for
merchandising related to the artefacts, as well as design for innovative models of interaction
between visitors, the environment and artefacts.
A brand identity for a museum is perceived through all of its expressions, in the form of graphic
design and multimedia products, and the ways the experience is offered inside the museum. This
essentially serves as an interface between the museum space, artefacts and visitors. Visual
communication plays a crucial role, not only by providing a trademark or a logo for the Cultural
Heritage content and container, but also as a visual signature and a consistent story of the values of

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artefact collections. Information design (based on typography, graphic design, linguistics, psychology,
ergonomics) transforms complex historical data into easily understandable information.
Going beyond traditional use, a museum’s visual information strategy takes part in a complete and
concise narrative representation, which is much more than a mere description of museum artefacts
based on images and texts.

3.2 Immersive storytelling museum experiences

There is a lot of discussion on promoting museum communication, as expressed by visitors who
often criticize museums for offering strict rules of behaviour, essentially limited to artefact
observation and lacking any interactivity. To that end, the museum experience is perceived by
visitors as not being as entertaining and as pleasant as it could be, and by museum experts as lacking
the learning potential that it could offer to visitors, e.g. by creating customized itineraries to convey
the Cultural Heritage they preserve.
Museums have placed increasing emphasis on resolving these issues. In particular, in relation to
digital technology, most of their effort relies on the common use of smartphones and mobile devices.
A study by Tallon (2013) has shown that mobile applications are offered by 35% of museums, while
34% of them plan to offer such a service. These applications open up a more active conversation
between visitors and the museum space. The next step would be to integrate the various aspects of
the museum experience in an ongoing narrative experience creating a personalized story through
interactions inside the museum, but also before and after the visit. To this end, new technology
offers possibilities for artefacts, historical people, buildings and events to become the characters of a
storytelling experience that unfolds in the form of a dialogue between visitors and the museum.
It is an exciting time to apply modern computing and interaction technology to enhance
communication between people, physical spaces and digital information. Below, we will highlight
some directions to take that are in line with the storytelling experience we have just described.
Interaction Design. Technology offers endless possibilities and activities for new ways to experience
and interact with the physical world, including being immersed in a virtual world. Augmented Reality,
Virtual Reality, Embedded Computing, Gesture Control, are some of the approaches that enable rich
interactions between a visitor within the hybrid physical space of a museum and the digital space of
information on the artefacts, their related characters, lives and stories. These approaches may
constitute the first step toward a wider integration of digital means in the experience of Cultural
Heritage across a new generation of museum spaces. In the next paragraphs, we are going to provide
a brief overview of some cutting-edge technological approaches that, combined together, can lead to
a deeper storytelling experience with a wider lifecycle.
Interactive storytelling. The landscape of Interactive Narrative research (Riedl 2013) is based on
three axes that characterize each approach, with respect to the generation of the story, the
autonomy of its characters and the modelling of players. A relevant trade-off is produced between a
plot-based authoring system that controls the story tightly and a character-driven system that
unfolds the story based on the autonomy of the characters. Several points along this spectrum have
been studied, both in the past - e.g. the ABL language (Mateas 2004) -and more recently - e.g. based
on the STRIPS Planning (Porteus 2010). The foundational component for specifying and managing the
story is an implicit graph of story-points over which a story trajectory is traced step-by-step, often
also adapting to the player’s responses. This type of drama management is studied in the context of
personalized stories and adventures in videogames (Sharma 2010, Yu 2012). In a similar manner,
these methods and techniques can be applied to create an interactive narrative in the context of the
historical background of artefacts, characters, and their stories, but also of a wider storytelling
experience, starting before the visit to a museum and continuing after it ends.
Conversational Interfaces. Messaging apps such as Facebook Messenger, Skype, WhatsApp, etc.,
have already outgrown social networks with the largest of them having hundreds of millions of

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monthly active users. In these apps, people communicate mostly by chatting, i.e. talking to each
other by typing words either directly on their smartphone or on a web-based version of the
messaging app. Yet messaging apps are becoming more than just talking to other people: in the last
few months, most messaging apps have opened up their platform and their developers have started
to build chatbots, i.e., automated programmes that chat with people either for fun and leisure or to
satisfy a specific need, such as finding information, or even buying desired goods. The existing
platforms for building chat-robots or chatbots -e.g. Wit.ai, Api.ai, Motion.ai, Converse.ai - are
inspired mostly by recent work in Natural Language Processing (NLP). Their main focus is to provide
Machine Learning tools to identify a specific intent, e.g. ‘I want to know more about the owner of
this building’; extract the relevant information, e.g. the name of the building and the owner; and
provide a text response based on a back-end process that provides one-shot responses, e.g. a
knowledge base in this case, or an existing online service. The conversation is therefore structured as
a linear or branching story of such intents and responses.
Natural Language Conversation. Beyond a ‘static’ authoring of stories, there are two main categories
for generating responses in a conversational manner: retrieval-based models and generative models
(Britz 2016). Retrieval-based models use a repository of predefined responses and a heuristic to
choose an appropriate response based on the input and on the context. The heuristic could be as
simple as a rule-based expression match, or as complex as a combination of Machine Learning
components from Artificial Intelligence that learn to classify inputs as belonging to specific response
categories. Such systems (Vinyals 2015,Shang 2015) do not generate new text, they just pick a
response from a fixed set. Generative models, instead, generate new responses from scratch. These
are typically based on Machine Translation techniques, but instead of translating from one language
into another, they ‘translate’ from an input into an output response (Sutskever 2014, Serban 2016).
Existing combinations of both approaches, such as the Google Smart Reply project (Kannan 2016),
are showing promising results.
Finally, there is also the unique opportunity for smaller museums to present Cultural Heritage
information and artefacts in their collections as an exciting live experience similar to a movie, and, in
so doing, to expand and attract diverse audiences.

3.3 Methods for theme-based storytelling in the museum experience

This type of storytelling experience suits small to medium museums with a holistic approach to an
artist or a theme. For instance, a museum that features a collection dedicated to one artist or a small
group of artists, or a museum that conserves the work of an artist, but also has collections of objects,
furniture, and items to do with the life story of the artists and the historical and environmental
context in which they lived. In such cases, consistent storytelling can be achieved that is more closely
connected to the brand identity of the museum and the emotions the museum would like to trigger
in audiences.
The basic ingredients for design methods that can deliver this kind of experience are derived from a
variety of fields, as follows.
• Cultural Heritage information on the historical figures that lived in the sites hosting
the artist or theme, and on the historical sites and buildings where the artists lived
and worked and where their artwork was displayed. This will most probably come
from museum experts.
• Authored stories based on familiarity with the previous bullet point. The short stories
are specifically tailored to be turned into short movies or interactive experiences. This
requires the involvement of experienced authors who know how to generate the
narrative for short stories as well as robust communication material.
• Specifications for interactive experiences such as games within a physical, digital or
hybrid space – essentially, visualization and execution of these stories. This requires

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 Museum Experience Design: A Modern Storytelling Methodology

the involvement of game designers and interaction design specialists, as well as

application developers and engineers for scenario implementation.
• A branding identity and a marketing strategy in order to offer storytelling experiences
as described, addressing a target audience and specifying how to bring the museum
experience to their attention.

4. Experiments and Conclusions

Our initial intent was to show that Cultural Heritage is ‘a privileged asset for sustainable
development and the country's innovation system’ (Wolf, 2011) and to demonstrate that cultural
assets multiply the possibilities for widening the reach of goods and services, by ‘colouring and
texturing’ them with the hidden identities and values of the cultural DNA of local territories.
As an experiment, we have focused on museums in Italy, notably in Rome - a city with a particularly
rich cultural background - and observed that although museums have mostly kept their traditional
role of exhibiting artefacts, there are significant opportunities to apply a wider storytelling
experience that may continue on the streets of Rome and in digital communication with visitors. This
can be explored by asking creative people to experiment with the specific museums and potential
approaches we have presented. To that end, we set up a new Design Course at M.Sc. level combining
features from diverse academic fields - Design, Cultural Heritage and Computer Science - involving
small-sized museums in the city of Rome as case studies. During the course, students were
introduced to these new methods and asked to produce the project ‘Museum Experience Design’ for
specific museums, and at the end, representatives of the creative and managerial teams from the
museums were invited to evaluate the projects. We supervised more than 20 student projects; the
outcomes were diverse and exciting, ranging from interactive projections to mini videogames and to
chatbots, serving as artefacts and allowing visitors to engage in a conversation with the artwork.
Feedback from the museums was also positive and led to an exhibition held in H.C. Andersen
Museum of selected projects with the intention of implementing some of the ideas that were
particularly promising. We believe that with this exhibition we reached one of our goals of ‘Museum
Experience Design’, creating new forms of relation between visitors and Museums engaging young
high school students for this occasion. Particularly, indicative results are the outcomes of
“Multimedia & Interactive Experience for Praz Museum” (Bomben, St.g. Carlotti, St.g. Di Maggio,
2016); “Multimedia & Interactive Experience for Andersen Museum” (St.g. D’Antonio, 2016) and the
thesis project “Interactive & Multimedia Experience in Tucci Museum” (Arabmashaee, 2017).
In our work, we initiated a discussion for a ‘Museum Experience Design’ based on wider storytelling,
incorporating modern technologies for interaction. This project propose a concept of enhancement
of Cultural Heritage as a live experience because the interdisciplinarity between Design, Interaction
Design, Interactive Storytelling and Artificial Intelligence, can offer innovative opportunities in
gaining knowledge. This approach is best suited to theme-based, medium-sized museums that are
able to shape the visitor experience into an ‘interactive movie’ or an ‘interactive game’. Our
experiments with selected museums in Rome show promising results.

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About the Authors:

Federica Dal Falco, Ph.D. in architecture technologies, is an Associate Professor of Design

at the “Sapienza” University of Rome - Department PDTA, Fellowship of CNR, scientific
researcher CIEBA (FBAUL), digital media artist. From 2010 to 2014 she was the Head of the
educational area of Design (PDTA). Her current works focus on Design for cultural
heritage. She is author of several books (two with awards), essays and articles published in
international journals (Class A). She exhibited her artworks (video, installation) also in
foreign cultural institutes (AAR, Egyptian and Hungarian Academy).

Stavros Vassos is passionate about AI as an interface to the modern computing world. He

holds a MSc and PhD from the University of Toronto (Canada), and in 2012-2016 worked
as an Assistant Professor in the Sapienza University of Rome (Italy). He teaches and works
in a variety of scenarios related to Interaction Design, Internet of Things, Videogames, and
Chatbots. He is a co-founder of Helvia.io that develops custom AI business solutions.

Acknowledgements: We would like to acknowledge Houra Arabmashaee for the studies

and researches she has done in her area of interest and thesis project “Interactive &
Multimedia experience in Tucci Museum” (MSc in Design, visual communication and
multimedia, Sapienza University of Rome) with Dal Falco and Vassos as her tutors. Houra
contributed the bibliographic enrichment and the visual communication of the
presentation of this paper.

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