Lessons learned from longitudinal modeling of mobile-equipped visitors in a complex museum

Abstract

Abstract Cultural sites are evolving toward smart environments, including the notion of hyper-connected museums. In this context, stakeholders of cultural assets need more advanced and comprehensive ICT systems for monitoring and modeling visitors behaviors. In this paper, we discuss the results of a longitudinal research study embracing multiple seasons, in a complex cultural structure including outdoor and indoor attractions, multiple floors and multiple routes for visitors. Here, interactive mobile devices were used for both offering multimedial context-aware assistance to visitors and monitoring services to museum stakeholders. We deeply analyzed the data using an unsupervised classification approach, obtaining a model where the number of distinct user profiles and the number of features were considered not trivial as well as not too complex for museum stakeholders. We observed that some optimistic expectations about visitor performances were only partially met, devising possible explanations in terms of the different user profiles and features of the model. Finally, we also compared some outcomes from our interactive system with those obtained in another complex cultural structure using a noninvasive monitoring system.