Natural interfaces to enhance visitors´ experiences

Museums and exhibitions don´t communicate. These places are often just a collection of objects, standing deaf in front of visitors. In many cases, objects are accompanied by textual descriptions, usually too short or long to be useful for the visitor. In the last decade, progress in multimedia has allowed for new, experimental forms of communication (using computer technologies) in public spaces. Implementations have ranged from simply using standard PCs with multimedia applications that show thumbnails of image data integrated with text to large theaters that immerse users in virtual worlds or reproduce and display 3D models of masterpieces. Often designers just apply the technology available to traditional museum schemes, without paying much attention to the visitor´s experience, particularly to the ways they expect users to interact with the system or to the cognitive and aesthetic factors involved.