Background and purpose of the study
Hiroshima, located in western Japan, has many works of public art that have assumed a theme of peace. However, in Japan, it seems that the appreciation of art is restricted to the elite, and the majority of people do not seem interested enough to visit art museums. In our current research, we hoped to target individuals who had minimal experience in art museums. The purpose of our research is the development of a navigation system that will help enhance appreciation for art by connecting viewers with other people's thoughts and opinions of art pieces. With this in mind, we designed, demonstrated and tested a PDA and mobile phone guide for viewing artwork and demonstrated this system in art museums and urban spaces.
Since 2003, the system has been deployed and refined on three occasions in various museums, targeting those who have few opportunities to appreciate art (Fushimi et al., 2008). In this study, we moved outside of museums to public art where the whole city is regarded as an art museum. This study was conducted to further refine the design of the overall system and to allow users to add data to designated art pieces and to add art pieces and appreciation data that users spontaneously find in urban spaces.
In addition, we have designed a system that allows users to read opinions from others and share their own thoughts of various public art works in urban spaces by using their mobile phones. It is hoped that being able to read and share opinions on art pieces can enable users to reach a positive appreciation of art.
Criteria for this project
The main goals of this project were to build a system that met the following design standards and user functions:
Induces a positive appreciation among users
Users are able to take pictures with their cell phones of the public art that they have found while walking around town and then add these shots to the system with their impressions of the piece. Adding a level of interaction should cause greater engagement with the artwork for the users.
Enables the sharing of text and images
All the participants share and can see contributed photographs and impressions. Normally, in the case of an usual encounter with a piece of art, a viewer cannot know the experiences that other people have had with the piece. With this system, viewers can explore the opinions and experiences of other people through photographs and comments. Furthermore, this combination of image and text creates a more social experience for users through the shared experience and differing perspectives, thereby giving them deeper appreciation of an artwork.
Heightens user-experience through involvement
By placing users in the center of the system, contributing content through images and text, they are active participants who can take pleasure in their appreciation of artworks by sharing their reactions with others. The system also has a social media aspect in that users create profiles that are searchable; therefore users can gain feelings of accomplishment at being involved in a larger community as their collection of contributions grows.
Embodies User-Centered Design (UCD) and accessibility principles
The color of the screen for mobile phones was specifically designed so that people with color-blindness could use the system.
Implementation of our system
Our system is designed for users to access information of artworks with their mobile phones through a website indicated by QR Code(TM) in the vicinity of an artwork. Once users access the website through the use of the QR Code, they can then browse information on the artworks, browse other users' submissions, and submit their own impressions. The system design employed i-mode compatible HTML Version 1.0 to write the artwork information which was then generated by a CGI script written in PHP as this version is supported by most mobile phones. Due to lack of ability to send photographs using i-mode compatible HTML Version 1.0, a mail server was used to collect users' photos and text contributions. A Perl script was used on this server to extract these submissions and store them in the database.
Fig 1: Web site structure of the system
Design of the screen
The design of the system was based on the idea of UCD. This approach involves interactive system development, and the principal objective is to ensure the system is user-friendly. We used pictograms to enable users to make choices intuitively because they are an effective way of displaying content on small mobile-phone screens. In consideration for color-blind users, we designed an accessible color plan for the page. To improve visibility and readability, the plan avoids using red and green, as well as magenta and blue, and uses colors with differences in luminosity. After designing a color plan that corresponded to the needs of those with color blindness, and also to potential color changes dependent on brands and models of mobile phones, we tested it by running a simulation. To ensure visibility and readability outdoors, and to avoid complementary colors becoming an obstruction to usability, we increased the luminosity differences between colors.
Hiroshima city experiment
The system which we designed has been tested and improved on three occasions to date and is targeted at those who have few opportunities to appreciate art. An experiment to evaluate the system was conducted over three separate days on December 26, 2009, January 23, 2010, and February 28, 2010.
Fig 2: Appreciation of the public art in front of a building
Fig 3: Appreciation of the public art in the park
For the experiment, six pieces of public art and architectural objects throughout Hiroshima City were selected for their proximity to one another and the relative ease with which visitors could view them in a half-day walk around the city (identified as Prepared Artworks in the results analysis). The experiment also consisted of artworks that users spontaneously added to the system (identified as Discovered Artworks in the results analysis). Participants could share their appreciation of experiences of artworks using their own mobile phones. A questionnaire was then administered after each of the experiments. One group interview was conducted for two hours, only on February 28th.
Analysis from the questionnaire
Over the course of the three experiments, there were 60 respondents to the questionnaires. The average overall satisfaction with the experience was 80.3 points. The scores ranged between the highest at 100 and lowest at 30. The analysis below show that overall, there was a high level of satisfaction with the experience.
Fig 4: Histogram of overall satisfaction with the experience
The average of satisfaction scores for the screen design also rated a mid-to-high level of satisfaction at 74.5 points.
Fig 5: Histogram of the satisfaction with the screen design
The average of satisfaction scores for the experience with Discovered Artworks was 72.6 points.
Fig 6: Histogram of the satisfaction with the experience (Discovered Artworks)
The average of satisfaction scores for the experience with Prepared Artworks was 69.6 points.
Fig 7: Histogram of the satisfaction with the experience (Prepared Artworks)
In addition, we cross-referenced the satisfaction level with the experience with the frequency respondents attended art museums.
Fig 8: Analysis of experience satisfaction of Discovered Artworks and Prepared Artworks versus frequency of visiting art museums
Respondents were also asked to rate which experience they rated more positively: - A: Contributing to the Discovered Artworks or B: contributing to the Prepared Artworks. ([A<B] A is less than B, [A=B] A is equal to B, [A>B] A is greater that B)
Fig 9: Comparison of which experience was more positive in relation to the other.
Fig 10: Comparison of which experience was more enjoyable.
In a more detailed analysis, we correlated the results of all the questions that captured data on satisfaction with the experience and the system design and the frequency of art museum attendance through a t-test. It was hoped that subjects who experienced the Prepared Artworks would also experience Discovered Artworks. However, while all respondents experienced more than one of the Prepared Artworks, 16 respondents did not interact with Discovered Artworks. This reduces the pool to 44 for this analysis series. The pool was further reduced in each result where respondents did not answer all the satisfaction questions consistently, so a correlation could not be performed.
Table 1: Correlation of the satisfaction questions in this experiment
The analysis shows that we cannot say there is a correlation between the satisfaction with the screen design and the satisfaction with the overall experience. On the other hand, there was a correlation between the overall satisfaction with the experience and the satisfaction with the Prepared Artworks and the Discovered Artworks.It can also be said that people who visited art museums more than once a year had higher user satisfaction than those who hardly ever visit art museums. There was also no correlation between satisfaction with the screen design and overall satisfaction.
Table 2: 2-Sample t test result of satisfaction response questions and frequency of visiting art museums
Fig 11: Overall satisfaction with the experience versus frequency of art museum visits
Fig 12: Satisfaction with the screen design experience versus frequency of art museum visits
Analysis from group interview
The group interview consisted of 11 people in attendance with the writer and the interviewer.
Fig 13: The group interview
It was hoped through the group interview process to gather more detailed feedback and further reaching feedback that could not be captured in the questionnaire. A selection of the comments are included below, and followed four themes.
Contributing to Prepared Artworks versus Discovered Artworks
"It was difficult to read others contributions when one has little sensitivity and knowledge of art."
"It was easier to write for the Discovered Artworks than the Prepared Artworks."
Advantages and Disadvantages of outdoor viewing
"I think impressions of public art can be affected by the time of day or the weather. Therefore the contributions from these different situations add value to one's own experience of the art."
"Art viewing in the outdoor space is more carefree as you can take a break in a coffee shop if you become tired."
Advantages of sharing experiences with many people
"By sharing with others, the experience has more meaning."
"The human aspect of contributions makes the experience more real."
Problems with the design
"It is hard to attach a label to share with others the work which I discovered."
"When our search list was displayed it would be easier to display with image rather than text"
"It would be easier to understand if the images were enlarged more."
The analysis of contributions to the system
There were 157 contributions over the course of the three experiments. From the contents of these contributions for the Discovered Artworks, we can assume that the participants expressed their thoughts freely due to the high rate of positive expressions. They were also very imaginative in using original titles for artworks. On the other hand, there are many contributions that were blank, and entries for "work name" and "work place" were also left blank.
Concluding remarks
The purpose of this study was to support the development of a navigation system that will help enhance appreciation for public art by connecting viewers with other people's thoughts and opinions of art pieces. From the results in the experience of Discovered Artworks, there was an effective advantage in the realization of active appreciation. It was also found through the repetition of this experiment within the confines of Hiroshima City that the experience with public art was enhanced through the use of this mobile phone system. While the results found that overall satisfaction was higher in people who frequented art museums, the results also seem to indicate that the average person who rarely visits museums also appreciates public art pieces.
Through further analysis on the issues of blank contributions and how these could be connected to the overall design of the interface, we are going to further refine the system so that it enables true beginners to art appreciation to get higher satisfaction.
Additionally, recent models of mobile phones have various features and pre-installed browsers that are nearly the same as ordinary computers. Smartphones that use iOS, Android, or Blackberry have spread rapidly in the last few years. We have to extend our system to allow access from these smartphones to achieve a wider user base for our system. By addressing these two points, we aim to realize a support system that is stress-free and makes art appreciation an active, social experience.
References
Fushimi K., Kikuchi N., and Kiyofumi M (2006), An Artwork Communication System Using Mobile Phones, in J. Trant and D. Bearman (eds.). Museums and the Web 2006: Proceedings, Toronto: Archives & Museum Informatics, published March 1, 2006 at http://www.archimuse.com/mw2006/papers/fushimi/fushimi.html
Fushimi, K. and K. Motoyama (2007). "User Centered Design: Improving viewers' learning opportunities in art museums in Japan". Journal of Museum Education, pp.73-85.
Fushimi, K., A. Baba and K. Motoyama (2008). "Sharing Appreciation of Public Art and Architecture in Hiroshima: Considering User-experience when Using Mobile Phones". International Conference on the Inclusive Museum., National Museum of Ethnology, Leiden, the Netherlands, 8-11 June 2008.
Sadoski, M. and A. Paivio (2001). Imagery and Text: A Dual Coding Theory of Reading and Writing. Routledge, 2001
