Interactive storytelling experience for museums in the era of COVID-19

ABSTRACT

The recent COVID-19 restrictions have forced many museums and entertainment institutions to shut their doors to visitors. This initiated an extraordinary impact on the heritage sector, forcing museum professionals to rethink and reshape how heritage contents could be made more accessible. This paper is part of ongoing research for developing a theoretical framework towards enhancing the visitor experience within the museum environments. The study investigates the implementation of gamified storytelling experience within the context of immersive technology in museum environments towards increasing the level of immersion of the visitor's when "interacting" with museum artefacts. Digital technology allows museum professionals to implement advanced interaction within their exhibition displays, enabling visitors to be more active and involved in the knowledge exchange process. Museum display and exhibition practices are beginning to explore the potential of immersive technology to provide visitors with meaningful experiences that facilitate the transfer of knowledge. In this study, Virtual Reality (VR) is considered as an instrument that could enable better interpretation of these artefacts. To add and increase immersion and meaningful interactions in VR experiences, this study investigates storytelling and gamified approaches as key enablers of such experiences. The study covers engineering heritage with the Lanchester petrol-electric car developed in 1927 as the subject matter and also an artefact. The car, the inventor, Frederick Lanchester, and the history serves as the focal point of the investigation into the gamified immersive representations of museum objects. Three different VR experiments (gamified, narrated, and immersive) will be conducted in closed (university lab) and open (museum) environments to validate and determine the framework's impact on enhancing the users' experiences and interpretations. The developed framework will benefit museums exhibition in general by improving the interpretation process and educational experience for the visitors. The paper describes different approaches considered in this study such as gamification and storytelling practices in museum mediums to improve immersions and motivation of the visitors. © The Authors, 2021. All Rights Reserved.