NODEM 2014 Proceedings

Evaluation of an Interactive Multimedia
Exhibit in the National Museum of Korean
Contemporary History, South Korea
Juhee Suh, Jaeyeon Ahn, Hayun Kim, Jungwha Kim
Graduate School of Culture Technology, KAIST, Republic of Korea
Abstract: A history museum as a memory institution is a repository of memories, artifacts, and documents, keeping the past
alive in contemporary society. Advancements in technology have allowed museums to use digital media to encourage and
improve visitors’ participation while exploring history. Furthermore, the usage of digital multimedia in the context of history
museums is expected to facilitate the process of raising new questions, reflecting historical facts, and constructing personal
meaning, rather than remaining a simply hands-on interaction level. It is therefore necessary to delve deeply into the relationship
between historical objects, meaning, and visitors’ personal engagement when designing multimedia exhibits in
history museums. The National Museum of Korean Contemporary History, which opened in 2012 in South Korea, uses digital
technology actively in its exhibitions to enhance communication with visitors. The present study was conducted as an evaluation
study to examine how interactive multimedia exhibits influence and contribute to visitors’ experiences at the museum.
For this purpose, this study analyzed the overall usage of multimedia exhibits in the museum and implemented an in-depth
analysis of the March 1 st Independence Movement section. The March 1 st Declaration of Independence is a symbolic artifact
whose primary value is its inherent spirit. As a medium for experiencing this artifact, an interactive multimedia exhibit was
designed using an interactive moving text display and it enabled visitors to interact with five words taken from the March 1 st
Declaration of Independence. A sample of 200 visitors was analyzed and, derived from the analysis, suggestion for interactive
multimedia exhibit design in history museums are presented.
Keywords: evaluation, interactive multimedia exhibit design, history museum, visitor study
Introduction
A history museum as a memory institution is a repository of memories, artifacts, and documents, keeping the
past alive in contemporary society. Advancements in technology have allowed museums to use digital media
to encourage and improve visitor participation as they explore history. In this respect, the increasing use of new
technologies has also led to greater interest in evaluating how effective these tools actually are in supporting
the aims of these cultural institutions and in studying precisely how they function in a museum environment
(Economou, 2007). Evaluation in museums has been conducted upon different perspective. A first phrase in
museum evaluation focused on measurable learning outcome (Economou, 2008). Then there has been a shift
of focus more on how visitors construct meaning out of exhibits (Hein, 1995). In this context, we conducted
an evaluation on an interactive multimedia exhibit concentrating on whether it contributes to meaning making
in museum experiences. The interactive multimedia exhibit is expected to play a role in enriching entire
experience of the exhibition by bringing its original context and integrating with other exhibits. It is therefore
necessary to delve deeply into the relationship between historical objects, meaning, and visitors’ personal
engagement.
NODEM 2014 Conference & Expo
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