Personalising the Museum Experience

Visitors to physical museums are often overwhelmed by the vast amount of information available in the space they are exploring, making it difficult to select personally interesting content. In contrast to visits to online museum collections, the selection process is complicated by the facts that (1) it takes time for people to move between exhibits; and (2) exhibitions may be arranged in a way that does not reflect visitors’ personal interests, meaning that the interesting exhibits may be scattered throughout the museum. Recent advances in mobile technology and user modelling have enabled computer-based systems that can assist visitors in selecting interesting content. Additionally, such systems can provide visitors with personalised information about exhibits while they are exploring the museum. This paper categorises state-of-the-art technology for personalising visitors’ experiences in museums, and discusses current challenges for enabling personalised visitor-support systems.