Supporting Socially Coherent, Personalized Experiences for Groups in Museums and Galleries

The designers of mobile guides for museums and galleries are increasingly looking to deliver rich interpretation that can be personalized to meet the diverse needs of individual visitors. However, increased personalization can mean that the sociality of museum visits can be overlooked in the design of the user experience. Our work has sought to resolve the tension between the personal and social in museum visiting by inviting visitors to personalize and gift interpretations to others in their social groups. We tested the approach in two different museum settings and with different types of small group to investigate how groups of visitors negotiated these experiences together, shedding new light on social interactions around personalized experiences delivered on mobile devices. We finish by tentatively discussing the implications of our findings on the design of wearable, co-located interactions. Author