Research pt.1
Firstly, let me go over this misconception, at least for this project, Museums and Galleries although have different types of artefacts, they still document human histroy and serve the same purpose, where museums have artefacts which physical such as sarcophagi, structures and little pieces, whilst a gallery focuses more on the art side of things presenting paintings that were shown during specific eras of human history.
Regardless, for this project they are considered one in the same hence why I took research into these two entities. For the purpose of the project, the research of museums had to be conducted both in-person and online as I’m trying to create a virtual musuem I need to consider how the environments are laid out and how the experience is considered which then needs to be translated into a virtual space. Additionally I also need to consider if something on this scale has been considered before as to avoid copying the idea.
One thing prior to this includes research into the academic papers regarding virtual museums and spaces and from what I already understood, in order to create a good virtual museum, people in this virtual space need to feel their own ‘presence’ which needs to be related the to human condition. What I mean by this means, they it has to feel natural where people who are interacting with this virtual museum really need to be immersed into the experience feeling very human in the moment. They need to be there, simply put.
Virtual Museums
So I looked into a few virutal museums to start which has some contrasting differences.
British Musuem - The Museum of the World
In collaboration with Google, the British Museum created a database of all of their artefacts that they have. To start let’s talk how it functions….
Upon entering the page the museum offers a timeline slider which allows the user to slide up and down either using the scroll action on the mouse or with a simple scroll using your finger as it works on both main devices. The dots signify artefacts that are available to view and once you hover over them then you will see a quick preview and then if you click on said artefact it will go to a pop-up menu which hase some detailed information and some other evidence to support it’s legitamacy and it’s origin.
Pretty simple to use and a nice little touch with the dots being connected with some lines. but now let’s look at the interactivity and immersive factors, being the employment of little audio cues like dings but there is no sense of human presence because there is no overworld to explore and there’s no perception of it being from a human POV. Although interesting initially, the level of interactivity wouldn’t keep many people around. if you would like to try it out check the link on the side:
The National Gallery - The Director’s Choice Virtual Tour
The good thing is that the National Gasllery did offer multiple different tours depending on certain subjects, however I chose the Directors one to give me some insight as to what he was interested in but good thing about it is how it functions.
Firstly, this is set within a virtual environment and as you can see from the images in general the user would be placed in the gallery in a small virtual space with paintings hanging on the walls which can be approached by the user. Once near the artwork the user can either continue looking around which uses a traditional click and slide function which would be translated to phones as sliding your finger across the screen, so it’s very eay to look around the virtual space, in addition, the user can click the artwork they are right in front of for more information to which the angle will then be forced to a exert right next to the artwork which is fairly basic, but effectiven which then allows users to read and listen to the detailed information about the artwork and finally can even view the painting as a 3D object.
The virtual tour really expresses the human presence by being on the ground at potentail eye-level and extremely similar to IRL applications where the only problem lies in the movement inside the environment not being free. You have to click or tap on the location within the virtual environment to going from place to place with the addition of it being empty. Now the freedom of movement is something which is normal from the human perspective and being limited in that could be because it’s easier to allow the user to go around the environment without any ‘distractions’ but there are not people around. I can undestand that having imaginary people in the environment doesn’t really have any benefit because it’s a virtual space, but it could add the ‘feeling’ of being at a museum.
This is something to consider for this projects prototype to keep a level of autheticity of a virtual museum and blurring the line between what is expected at a real museum.
If you want to check it out yourself and play around with it you can with the link below: