With the addition of the full AR app, MUSE is offering visitors an experience that harmonizes perfectly with their innovative spirit – in total fluidity and transparency.

A Fascinating Content

The app has what it takes to please even the most directionally-challenged of us. The days of losing your way in exhibitions are over: with Go!Muse visitors can see their precise location on each of the six floors of the museum, and are guided in Augmented Reality toward the object of their interest.

As for the educational content, the app includes over one hundred AR hotspots that can be activated by the visitor to unlock multimedia content (text, videos and more) that provides additional context for the various attractions.

Last but not least, the app makes it possible to view realistic virtual portrayals of ten dinosaurs and a whale by adding life-size animated bodies to their skeletons in Augmented Reality, right in the middle of the museum.

An Emotional Experience

On the day of the launch, over one thousand visitors came with their families to check out the new app. It was the ideal opportunity to confirm that the app would be as magical as we had hoped. It was touching to see children, parents and grandparents equally surprised and enthralled by the illusion of a partially-digital reality. No matter their age, every visitor had the happy face of a child thrilled by an amusement park or magic show.

A Synergy of Multiple Talents

The obvious joy of the visitors made me proud of the work our team had accomplished. This project took no less than six months to complete and incorporated the work of at least a dozen individuals: an illustrator, a designer, a 3D animator, a game developer, front and back-end developers, a project lead and a program manager. The synergy of all these talents makes it clear that our field has changed. Cultural mediation is no longer about making a connection between historical and scientific facts, or simply coming up with a captivating narrative. It is also about creating an unforgettable emotional experience for every type of visitor.

To meet this objective, we collaborated with MUSE’s digital department. Fabio Manucci, the paleontologist of the museum, worked closely with Davide Bonadona, an illustrator celebrated for his work on dinosaurs, to create a scientifically accurate portrayal of each specimen.

From a scientific point of view, there is always a risk when you attempt to bring to life creatures that have been extinct for millions of years. But museums also have a responsibility to provide accurate representations of dinosaurs, in contrast to the fantastical portrayals in cinema and video games.

We then made it possible for these virtual animals to come to life inside the museum. Each 3D model was superimposed on its actual skeleton to within a centimeter of precision using GuidiGO AR Composer.

Seeing these dinosaurs in the flesh – and not just as bones – is impressive enough. But watching them move before your eyes makes the experience even more stunning. Since the skeletons themselves obviously remain static, we had to find a way to suspend disbelief when the animals are in motion. To do so, we added a Virtual Reality mode that hides the skeleton when the dinosaur begins to move.

A Large-Scale Experience

With the launch of Go!Muse, MUSE has become the first museum of Science in the world to offer an Augmented Reality experience at this scale, with ten animated dinosaurs and a whale as part of their permanent collection, and 80 AR-compatible tablets available to visitors.

MUSE official video trailer

While the app is designed for a wide range of users of all ages, it is sure to capture the imagination of young visitors most of all, due to their interest in novelties and interactivity.

Since they’ve been immersed in the digital world from birth, the younger generations are already used to learning and discovering outside of the traditional learning environments of libraries and museums. Touchscreens are already part of their daily lives. Virtual Reality headsets are soon to follow, and any museum planning for the future should be aware of that fact. It is essential for cultural institutions to pursue immersive, innovative technologies if they want to form lasting ties with the adults of tomorrow.

Experiences like this one will help young ones to discover the magic of museums and the joy of interacting with works of art and science along with other visitors.

I caught myself wondering what the magic was about parks that made children never want to leave…and why they don’t tend to feel the same way when we take them to the museum.

The answer might seem obvious: at the park, children can play. But what is the psychology behind why they often prefer a fun excursion to the park over a visit to the museum? In my opinion, it all comes down to four key components:

Interaction, Emotion, Accomplishment, Emulation

These are the components that come into play when a child seeks the thrill of going down a slide, or pushes to come in first, or tries to climb higher than they have before. These also come into play when a child encounters a new environment, builds something with friends, or challenges them. All of these activities present the opportunity for children to feel joy and pride, and receive praise from their parents.

Is it possible to activate these motivators at the museum?

What can we do to make a visit to the museum just as exciting for our children as an afternoon at the park? A museum isn’t a playground; it doesn’t provide quite the same freedoms that a park or garden does. However, some museums do offer engaging and thrilling experiences for children – experiences that address the psychological motivators mentioned above.

But things can get messy when you decide to visit a museum with your family on a whim. As a parent, I’ve often been disappointed by the lack of “on demand” solutions for capturing a child’s attention and helping them to have fun in cultural environments. While science museums tend to be very imaginative when it comes to engaging young visitors, the same can’t be said for all museums. In most cases, it’s best to plan your visit in advance to make sure appropriate activities are available for children. Otherwise, you may be left to your own devices on subjects you may not necessarily be familiar with.

Digital devices to the rescue?

This is where digital tools on tablets and mobile phones come in handy. They provide an “on demand” solution with great possibilities, they offer content that can be adapted to many audiences depending on age level, skills and interests.

Digital tools provide quick solutions that are likely to activate all four motivators we’ve discussed above — turning museum visits into an experience your child will want to do again and again, and giving parents tools they’ll be excited to talk about with their friends. Here are a few examples:

INTERACTIONS

This is, of course, where the digital tablet comes in. A tablet should never be the focal point of the experience, but rather, a starting point. It should foster conversation between you and your child and facilitate interaction with the works of art and other artifacts on display. This is why digital games that combine storytelling and puzzles are the perfect tool for facilitating that interaction — they engage children and make them active participants in the cultural experience.

EMOTIONS

Digital tools can intensify the emotions children feel when they see a work of art or visit a heritage site. First of all, when they listen to a story, they are transported into the world of the imagination. In order for this to happen, you need a passionate narrator who not only tells the story, but brings the characters to life.

Digital tools offer infinite possibilities that are both fun and exciting for your child. For example, with augmented reality, your child could meet a historical character, dress a friend in a medieval costume, or pet a dinosaur… and of course, take photos to capture all the fun! Your child could also have a memorable cultural experience in virtual reality, which has been shown to have a particular emotional impact (see our article on VR here).

In short, digital tools bring you the best of new immersive technologies that can transport your child straight into another time and place.

ACCOMPLISHMENT

A digital visit can also foster a sense of accomplishment in several different ways. First, they provide rewards when the children earn points, collect objects, or look for virtual clues. Games also encourage them to keep progressing, for example, when they make it to the next step in a game because they were able to complete a challenge.

Gaining knowledge also contributes to that sense of accomplishment. When children learn something from a story, a quiz, or funny anecdote, they feel like they’re the only one who knows this special information, and they feel proud of what they know.

Another way to activate this motivator is to encourage creativity by asking the child to solve a complicated puzzle or complete an artistic challenge.

EMULATION

Games should be as varied as possible. That way they present a variety of challenges based on listening and observation (for example: searching for clues in the décor or in a work of art), questions that require careful reflection, or fun tasks (like taking a selfie posing like a character in a painting).
Games should also allow the child to accumulate points and/or objects to stimulate a healthy sense of competition. Children can then share their scores with friends.

These four motivators also have a biological basis

This empirical approach also has a more scientific explanation. Each of the motivators mentioned above also release different hormones that contribute to feelings of joy and happiness: dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin and endorphins.

• Dopamine produces the feeling of satisfaction we get when we earn a reward, meet an objective, or experience a good surprise.
• Serotonin triggers the feeling of self-esteem and self-confidence. It is released when a child feels proud.
• Oxytocin is released during social interactions; it produces feelings of attachment, connection, and sharing with others.
• Endorphins produce feelings of well-being, related to laughter.

Besides their emotional virtues, these hormones also facilitate memorization. Dopamine, for example, strengthens episodic memory, which allows us to relive scenes from the past.

When to start?

Today’s children are immersed in an environment that is both digital and physical. They see technology as a means to foster interpersonal relations and connect with both the reality and fiction of others’ lives.

When digital tools are used intelligently, they help museums and heritage sites to create strong ties with young visitors, allowing them to discover and enjoy the many treasures these sites have to offer.

Whether digital tools should be used in museums and heritage sites is no longer a question. The question for museums to answer is “How can we adapt digital tools to the particular needs of each museum and heritage site?”

Let’s begin with the ones we expect to make the biggest impact this year:

1. Immersive Technologies

As demand for a more and more realistic visitor experience increases, we’ve seen immersive technologies explode: virtual reality (read our article on VR here), augmented reality, mixed reality, 3D sound, and the list goes on…

Google Cardboard, Project Tango and others, like Microsoft Hololens, promise to make 2016 one of the most innovative years yet. Far from simply being gadgets, these technologies foster an ever more impressive user experience, taking storytelling to a whole new level.

2. Indoor Positioning Systems

In 2015, we saw an influx of iBeacon and Bluetooth Low Energy devices of all kinds. Initially, these technologies promised to revolutionize indoor positioning, with contextualized content, long battery life, limited maintenance, and ease of use… all at a relatively low cost.

As many sites today can now tell you, in practice, the experience is more complicated than anticipated. Installing beacons isn’t just a matter of taking them out of the box and distributing them around the site. They have to be set up with specific software and services if you really want to get the most out of their features, which has left many people feeling rather disappointed. To date, the TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) of a beacon is typically higher than originally expected.

Even so, beacon technology continues to expand; which is how the Eddystone standard recently came to be. With the market as competitive as it is, we can expect to see a lot more innovation in this area, which will lead to more complete offerings and better performance.

Aside from beacons, other indoor positioning technologies requiring less infrastructure are likely to develop. Experimentation is currently underway. We’ll be sure to tell you more soon ;-)

3. Collaborative Storytelling

A trend toward collaborative activities at heritage sites has already started to appear and we expect the trend to grow even more in the future. Collaborative storytelling invites passionate individuals involved with museums and heritage sites to come together and create a story together, whether they are teachers, students, experts, tour guides, docents or visitors. This approach allows access to multiple points of view, making it possible to reach all types of visitors.

Here at GuidiGO, we piloted a similar project ourselves last year (entitled “Viewing Angles”) bringing together no less than 17 cultural sites and over 400 students and educators.

4. Digital Content

There’s nothing new about content digitalization. What is new, however, is that digital content is becoming more and more open access, which is another contributing factor to the increase in storytelling and collaboration. The possibility of sharing makes it more appealing to digitize content, so we expect to see a virtuous cycle develop where users are producing and sharing more of their own content.

As more content becomes accessible, new uses for it are likely to emerge, whether you’re preparing for your visit in advance, or wanting to relive the highlights of your visit after the fact. Take Coopers Hewitt and MOMA, for example. Those who are unable to visit sites in person will be able to take part in immersive experiences remotely; virtual reality will allow students to visit museums on the other side of the world, and Twitterbots will make the museum experience ubiquitous.

The quantity of information available to us will continue to increase at an exponential rate, thanks to the democratization and diversification of the tools we now have at our fingertips: 3D scanners, 360° cameras and videos, aerial images taken from drones, and more.

5. From Wearables Technology to Connected Devices

Born in 2014, the wearable market took a break in 2015 – at least in our field. Today, Google and its subsidiary, Nest, seem to be exploring new uses for Google Glass, though they have not yet announced an official release date.

GuidiGO has been a “Glass at work” partner from the beginning. We were impressed by the impact this technology could have on cultural interpretation. During our experiments – at the Keith Haring exhibit at the De Young Museum in San Francisco, then at Velazquez and Picasso.mania at the Grand Palais in Paris – thousands of users shared our enthusiasm and told us they’d love to relive the experience at future exhibits.

Nevertheless, the break Google has taken with Glass shows their desire to improve on the technology before making it accessible to the wider public.

Today, smart watches are all the rage – they sprouted up like mushrooms under our Christmas trees this year. Smart watches are certainly great for very specific uses like real time notifications, performance tracking, and collecting health data. But in our field, these tools have not yet found their utility, as they aren’t yet capable of providing a compelling visitor experience in and of themselves.

However, wearable technology isn’t limited to watches and glasses. As confirmed at the latest CES, wearable technology will soon be everywhere, and sensors could soon make different levels of interactivity possible for visitors.

★ What’s next?…

Let’s leave 2016 behind for a moment and look even further… we can already count on two more trends:

Smart Personalization

When Big Data and Artificial Intelligence come together, museums and heritage sites will be able to offer uniquely personalized guided visits. The visit will be tailor-made based on the individual’s profile (his or her tastes, visit history, activity on social media, etc.) and on data sent from sensors placed throughout the site to capture position, popular areas, temperature, sound levels, and more.

It will then be possible to orient an art lover toward works most likely to interest him or her, right at the moment when conditions would be most pleasant; or to invite parents to explore a city as a family, using a treasure hunt that’s been adapted to the age of their children.

Pervasive and Invisible Apps

Today we talk about apps that are compatible with iOS and Android. Tomorrow, we’ll probably talk about apps being compatible with Messenger, Snapchat, Instagram, Google Maps, and the list goes on. In the near future, mono usage and daily usage apps seem destined to fuse into one. Many interfaces are likely to move toward a card system which aggregates content from multiple sources in one place. A few attempts at this have already made an appearance, such as the Discover feature on Snapchat, or Uber on Messenger.

So there you have it. It’s time for our little journey into the future to come to an end. We’ll meet you back here in a few months to see how well our predictions hold up!

Since 2013, however, significant advances have been made. Innovators such as Oculus, and more recently Google, with “Cardboard”, are about to make virtual reality a household name—and this time for good, or so it seems.

There’s a simple explanation for this: virtual reality technology is now more accessible because prices have literally plummeted. With the arrival of Google Cardboard, a cardboard box that costs less than $10 is all it takes to transform any smartphone into a virtual reality device. And if you’re feeling especially luxurious, you can purchase a plastic version for only $60 :)

Accessible technologies will completely transform the way Virtual Reality is used

Simple, but no less remarkable, the little magic box was born in Google’s Paris offices, thanks to two engineers: David Coz and Damien Henry. Inspired by the Durovis Dive headset, the box took center stage in June 2014 at Google’s annual I/O developers conference. Since then, Google Cardboard apps crossed 15 million downloads. Last month, the New York Times sent a million Cardboards to its subscribers, giving them access to exclusive content. This is just the beginning of the trend, and it promises to be phenomenal.

We are entering an era in which not only visualization technologies like Cardboard will become prolific, but we will also see an increase in software and hardware like Jump, Giroptic or even the Cardboard Camera application, which simplify the creation of VR enabled content. Such technologies will completely transform the way virtual reality is used, much like smartphones revolutionized the way we use photo and video.

A fantastic tool for teleporting a visitor… during his or her visit!

Here at GuidiGO, we’ve been looking into these technologies for over a year. The idea was to explore different uses for virtual reality that would enrich the experience of visiting museums and historical sites in addition to existing interpretive content. We hosted several “hackathons” on site to test new concepts and create prototypes for new interfaces. After a few surprises, and lots of fun (it takes a bit of time for the brain to adjust to sensations it’s not used to!) several fascinating possibilities emerged. In the end, we all reached the same conclusion: virtual reality would be a fantastic tool for teleporting a visitor… during his or her visit! “What’s the point of teleporting a visitor?” you might ask, “Why not let the visitor simply enjoy whatever is on display, in real life, with his or her own eyes?” We believe both experiences are fully compatible. Imagine the following scenarios for just a moment (some of which are already available):

• You are in a gallery at a Natural History museum, looking at the skeleton of a Triceratops. Suddenly, the animal comes to life, transporting you to the Cretaceous period. And there to your right, look out! Behind you, even above your head…enormous dinosaurs are moving all around you. You suddenly feel very small.

• You are visiting a museum on the history of aviation. How would you like to take the control wheel of Lindbergh’s Spirit of St. Louis in your hands? You’re surrounded by the cockpit, the pilot seat, the control panel, and all of the instruments—just as if you were really there. In front of you, the sky and clouds fly by.

• You are visiting a World War I battle site, and there you are in the muddy trenches, listening to the sounds of war, as soldiers move about, telling you about their daily experiences and fears.

• You are visiting the Empire State Building. How would you like to experience the atmosphere of the construction site when this legendary skyscraper was being built? Around you, men are working on the beams, while 1930s New York spreads out below your feet. We hope you’re not afraid of heights!

These are only a few examples, of course. Each site will be free to come up with whatever is most likely to make their visitor experience particularly memorable: explore the temple where an ancient statue was originally located; visit the reconstruction of a site that no longer exists (Pompeii, the Bastille prison, etc.); discover a place closed off to the public (the Lascaux caves, the Oval Office, etc.)

Virtual Reality takes the visitor to the heart of an immersive sensory experience

Art museums will be no exception. Virtual reality is also capable of teleporting you into Renoir’s studio, or into Monet’s gardens at Giverny. You’ll be able to observe artists as they work, or hear them tell you about their masterpieces. You may also soon be able to experience artwork made up of both real and virtual components – or even be transported straight into a painting or the visual universe of its creator (e.g., Van Gogh’s universe)… because admit it, we’re not the only ones who have thought about passing through the canvas! Soon you’ll be able to explore a work from the inside, and brush shoulders with its characters. Here’s your chance to attend, along with all the glamorous spectators, the coronation of Napoleon or the Marriage at Cana :)

Another fun and educational use for virtual reality is to let the visitor “walk” through a life sized timeline in order to situate a work in its historical and artistic context.

There’s a strong chance this new paradigm will be an important influence on the scenography of museums. It’s easy to imagine a few virtual reality headsets taking the place of more cumbersome installations. The headsets could even be connected to one another to allow a group to simultaneously share the same experience.

Virtual reality is still evolving, but one thing is sure: the possibilities are infinite. Not only does it allow us to travel in time and space, but it also opens up imaginary dimensions that would be inaccessible without it, like the most intimate aspects of a work of art. Virtual reality takes the visitor to the heart of an immersive sensory experience that is extremely stimulating to the imagination and memory, allowing you to form a deep connection with the place you are visiting.

On the same subject: “Virtual Reality has arrived at GuidiGO!”