Persuasion at the Museum Café: Initial Evaluation of a Tabletop Display Influencing Group Conversation

A café table is a traditional setting for conversation. Tabletop displays may have an active role in this connection. In particular for a museum scenario, conversation after the visit is important for a joint elaboration of a small group visit experience. We propose the museum café as the location to introduce a tabletop display meant to foster and support conversation about the visit. The goal of the system is to influence the development of the conversation by adopting persuasion techniques. We describe a system that monitors the conversation among the visitors and dynamically shows visual stimuli on the table surface. An initial formative evaluation is conducted through a series of qualitative user studies.