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CIMI Handscape project was funded by Intel Corporation to explore
the design, uses and evaluation of mobile guides in museums and
other heritage sites. Cornell's HCI Group has been involved in
this effort primarily as evaluators of existing handheld tour
guides, such as the ones undertaken by the Smithsonian American
Art Museums Renwick Gallery and the Cornell Herbert Johnson Museum's
Asia Program for 3rd grade students. During
these evaluations, it became apparent to the HCI group that the
data collected through interviews and surveys for evaluating the
success of the handheld guides could be supplemented with data
collected through the use of the handhelds themselves. For example,
by incorporating tracking functionality into the handhelds, we
could analyze relative levels of popularity for different objects
and information, tempo of movement and information consumption,
and physical navigation paths. This information could also be
available more immediately or dynamically - rather than waiting
for the researchers to conclude an analysis. This dynamic feedback
information would be not only useful for curators and museum designers
in order to maximize the interest and value of the exhibits, but
the information might also be of interest to visitors themselves.
The
pages of this website outline a proof of concept idea for the
Dynamic Feedback Tool. The functionality of the tool would consist
of rougly two parts - data
collection and data visualization.
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