The Museum Wearable: real-time sensor-driven understanding of visitors’ interests for personalized visually-augmented museum experiences

This paper describes the museum wearable: a wearable computer which orchestrates an audiovisual narration as a function of the visitor’s interests gathered from his/her physical path in the museum and length of stops. The wearable is made by a lightweight and small computer that people carry inside a shoulder pack. It offers an audiovisual augmentation of the surrounding environment using a small, lightweight eye-piece display (often called private-eye) attached to conventional headphones. Using custom built infrared location sensors distributed in the museum space, and statistical mathematical modeling, the museum wearable builds a progressively refined user model and uses it to deliver a personalized audiovisual narration to the visitor. This device will enrich and personalize the museum visit as a visual and auditory storyteller that is able to adapt its story to the audience’s interests and guide the public through the path of the exhibit.