Exploitation of Mobile Access to Context-Based Information in Cultural Heritage Fruition

More than one billion smartphone users are estimated by 2014. With this in mind, visiting cultural heritage sites and exhibits may offer new level of engagement and entertainment just reaching down in our pockets. With orders of magnitude more computational horsepower than a five years-old desktop machine, stuffed with all sorts of sensors, these modern gizmos have a largely untapped potential to gain us access to personalized and on-demand information wherever it is needed. This paper is exactly about this, exploring with several case studies how these devices may become part of a memorable experience during a visit that one may want to share with friends and relatives. Specifically, the p…

DESIGN METHODOLOGIES TO ENABLE COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE IN PLATFORMS FOR HUMAN-HUMAN INTERACTION

A Multimodal Fruition Model for Graphical Contents in Ancient Books

One of the most common and efficient way to preserve ancient books is to digitize them, and make their content someway browsable. However, this process often does not take into account the fruition point of view. Exploiting the currently available technologies allows for new ways of content fruition, to attract more people and help them to better understand the available information. In this paper, we present a solution for an innovative and multimodal exploration of ancient books contents, using both touch and touchless gestures. This allows people for both near and far distance interaction, which results in different interaction models.

Collective Reasoning over Shared Concepts for the Linguistic Atlas of Sicily

In this chapter, collective intelligence principles are applied in the context of the Linguistic Atlas of Sicily (ALS - Atlante Linguistico Siciliano), an interdisciplinary research focusing on the study of the Italian language as it is spoken in Sicily, and its correlation with the Sicilian dialect and other regional varieties spoken in Sicily. The project has been developed over the past two decades and includes a complex information system supporting linguistic research; recently it has grown to allow research scientists to cooperate in an integrated environment to produce significant scientific advances in the field of ethnologic and sociolinguistic research. An interoperable infrastruc…

The ALSWEB Framework: A Web-based Framework for the Linguistic Atlas of Sicily Project

In this work the ALSWEB framework is presented. The ALSWEB is a virtual linguistic laboratory for linguistic research developed as a web application. The purpose of the framework is to model the entire process regarding the different steps of data acquisition, data transformation, information acquisition from different data and research hypotheses verification in the ALS (Linguistic Atlas of Sicily) project. The nature of the ALS research involves different type of data. The socio-linguistic researcher that is the main actor of the proposed framework has to acquire information in many formats: multimedia data, audio data, question-answer (textual) from particular questionnaires. In this wor…

Platforms for Human-Human Interaction in Large Social Events

In this paper we present the evolution of QRouteMe, an information system built to provide people with rich user experiences when attending museums or exhibits. QRouteMe is a platform for indirect, mediated, and facilitated interactions among humans during large social events, by means of a wide variety of concurrent technologies and devices. The system evolution is analyzed according to the new human-to-human interaction (HHI) research domain. In particular, we show how QRouteMe has been adapted for the different events in which it has been used. We analyze and describe social interaction aspects during the events and we discuss some data and results. Finally we outline some possible futur…

QRouteMe: A Multichannel Information System to Ensure Rich User-Experience in Exhibits and Museums

In this article the QRouteMe system is presented. QRouteMe is a multichannel information system built to ensure rich user experiences in exhibits and museums. The system starts from basic information about a particular exhibit or museum while delivering a wide user experience based on different distribution channels. The organization of the systems’ components allow to build different solutions that can be simultaneously delivered on different media. A wide range of media from touch-screen installations to portable devices like smartphones have been used. The used devices can communicate each others to increase the usability and the user experience for the visitors. Another important featur…

A Multichannel Information System to Build and Deliver Rich User-Experiences in Exhibits and Museums

In this article a multichannel information system to build and deliver rich user experiences in exhibits and museums is presented. The system was designed to use information about a particular exhibit or museum while delivering a wide user experience based on different distribution channels. The overall information is used to build different solutions that can be delivered simultaneously on different media from touch-screen installations to portable devices like smart phones. Moreover, all the devices signed in the environment are able to communicate to each others to increase the level of the usability of the system. A case study and analysis of experimental results are also provided.