The Well of Inventions – Learning, Interaction and Participatory Design in Museum Installations

Acknowledgements "We would like to thank the members of the SHAPE project, the staff of the Museum of Science and Technology and the staff of the Centre for User-Oriented IT Design for providing valuable help and feedback. We would also like to thank the Museum of Science and Technology for hosting the Well of Inventions." Abstract This paper is concerned with how research on interaction principles, participatory design and museum learning can come together to inform the design of technology-intensive mixed-media museum installations. The paper has two main contributions. First, it presents a novel collaborative interaction technique and illustrates how it can be applied in a museum setting. Second, a new exhibition evaluation methodology adopted from participatory design is presented and assessed. The paper also describes how these contributions have been applied in the production and design of The Well of Inventions, a mixed reality installation co-developed by the Centre for User Oriented IT Design and the Museum of Science and Technology in Stockholm, Sweden.