In their traditional role, museums have served the purpose of preserving and educating cultural and historical artifacts. However, as time goes by, museums have grown from their traditional roles into leading-edge, interactive, experiential education platforms for visitors using the latest technological media, such as virtual reality. The study aims to explore the Indonesian museum visitors’ perceptions—both positive and negative— toward VR usage in a museum and examine their expectations of an immersive VR experience, particularly related to VR games. The study employs content analysis through an exploratory descriptive survey to address respondents’ demographic background, past museum visit experience, and expectations of VR experience. Data were analyzed using thematic analysis and descriptive statistics, accompanied by a general discussion. Findings reveal the potential for utilizing VR technology at museums. Over the past ten years, there has been an expectation for museums to expand their focus from object preservation and display to visitor engagement, enabling them to create enjoyable and memorable experiences, while maintaining their mission of knowledge dissemination.
This is an excerpt from a published paper in “Jurnal Sosioteknologi” https://doi.org/10.5614/sostek.itbj.2024.23.3.6
INTRODUCTION
A significant drawback of traditional museums is the inherent gap between visitors and artifacts, which imposes numerous constraints on the visitors’ ability to connect with the museum (Kyriakou & Hermon, 2019). Even though the delicate or fragile condition of the objects may cause such restrictions, visitors are eager to gain a deeper understanding of the artifacts, adopting an active and dialogic approach that contrasts with the traditional didactic museum approach. In contemporary times, museum visitors are no longer simply engaged in casual observation but instead they seek to immerse themselves fully and even surpass their sensory experiences (Ciolfi, 2013). Therefore, museums must evolve beyond their traditional focus on acquiring, preserving, and educating about artifacts. They should also prioritize providing interactive and entertaining experiences for visitors while acknowledging the growing role of museums in personal contemplation and mental healing (Packer & Bond, 2010). Consequently, the focus of museums has shifted from objects to visitors.
In terms of visitor experience, Young (2002) highlights the significance of experiential learning. This approach emphasizes the need to balance the user’s sensory engagement (hands-on) and cognitive engagement (minds-on), which would achieve the most effective outcome by utilizing technology. Hence, the curator must possess the ability to expressively communicate the intended message, while the designer is responsible for transforming the curator’s concepts into visual elements (Ahmad et al., 2014; Mayrand, 2001). The curator may present intangible exhibits, such as dance performances or the demonstration of crafting handmade products, with the aim of eliminating temporal and spatial limitations.
This paper will discuss virtual reality (VR), an emerging display technology for museum installations, which is associated with the concept of virtual environments (VE). Virtual environments (VEs) are fully computer-generated environments that visually present non-existent items on a device, enabling users to interact in real-time through a technical interface. Virtual Worlds (VW), such as Second Life, are persistent virtual worlds that are always accessible. Avatars represent users, enabling them to engage in real-time creation, play, and interaction with other avatars (Penfold, 2009; Schroeder, 2008). Meanwhile, VR is a digitally created environment that allows users to traverse and interact, resulting in a real-time replica of their senses (Guttentag, 2010). VR enables museum visitors to immerse themselves in the museum’s curated virtual experience, which can mimic a physical museum visit or diverge significantly from the current physical visit experience. Such an approach allows a fresh take on the museum experience.
Academics have used Milgram and Kishino’s (1994) reality-virtuality continuum as a foundation to categorize the diverse range of realities within the revised taxonomies. This classification spans from tangible to intangible settings at the opposite ends of the spectrum. Real environments (RE) refer to the physical surroundings and existing conditions. Direct and indirect observations of an actual scene, whether physically present or viewed through a television display, fall under this category. Virtual reality users do not need to be near the tourist attraction. VR only requires an internet connection and stable power charge to transport the users to the place of interest in the virtual universe, or metaverse, as it is today popularly called. Reduced physical visits also provide some relief for museum management, whose museum and its objects must undergo a considerable amount of maintenance or refurbishment. Real museums, with their physical space, limited resources, and operating hours, may limit the variety of experience features they can provide to customers. However, the museum management can customize the VR experience to suit their preferences. Compared to rearranging physical exhibitions, the VR experience offers a higher level of personalization options.
Flavian et al. (2019) added to and improved the previous taxonomy by including Ihde’s (1990) technology embodiment theory. This theory says that embodiment happens when technological gadgets make the users’ experience better, making the technology an extension of the human body that helps with understanding, perceiving, and interacting with one’s immediate environment. Considering previous research on technological embodiment and user experience (Tussayadiah, 2014; Tussayadiah et al., 2017), there is a technological embodiment continuum that ranges from external devices, such as stationary external devices and portable external devices, to internal devices, such as wearable devices and implanted devices.
Furthermore, the user’s psychological perception of presence would differ due to the various embodiments of these external and internal devices. According to Slater (2009), “presence” in this context refers to the “place illusion” a virtual world creates. Internal gadgets can transfer and immerse individuals into remote locations due to their extremely immersive capacity and sensory attachment. External gadgets such as computers, screens, and phones create a division between the physical and virtual worlds through their interfaces. These gadgets require users to exert mental effort in order to feel as though they are in a different place. Therefore, Flavian et al. (2019) proposed that while both internally and externally embodied technologies can evoke modest levels of presence perception, using internal devices can significantly enhance the sense of presence (“being elsewhere”).
A recent study in Spain found that the cognitive and emotional performance levels of the young audience, specifically millennials and Generation Z individuals, increase as the level of immersion in a VR museum experience increases (Roabina et al., 2023). The study results on Spanish Generation Z and Millennials indicated that a higher level of immersion leads to improved psychological engagement, cognitive performance, and the intention of users to actively seek out comparable virtual reality experiences. This discovery suggests that museum administrators should incorporate VR into their museum marketing plan to attract and engage young visitors.
Simultaneously, Li et al. (2024) characterize the use of virtual reality in destination promotion as a form of narrative storytelling. They assert that virtual reality significantly influences the flow state of viewers or potential tourists, thereby influencing their visitors’ behavioral intentions, emotional healing, and restorative experiences more profoundly than traditional video viewing. Thus, virtual reality is critical to enticing future travel intentions for potential visitors, and management must develop a VR experience that helps reduce emotional distress. It has the potential to enhance the longevity of cultural assets by providing curious travelers with an immersive experience of the heritage asset. This alternative method allows people to explore the asset without causing any direct or indirect damage to the physical artifact or location (Hajirasouli et al., 2021). In addition to creating an immersive experience, the development of VR must also consider the importance of interactivity. This ensures that users are not merely becoming passive observers of the information (Beck et al., 2019).
In the Indonesian context, despite the steady increase in museum visitors and the growing need from stakeholders to enhance the quality, management, and promotion of Indonesian museums, museums continue to require innovative ideas to attract more visitors. Researchers have found that VR centered around Indonesian culture, like gamelan game applications and Bali temples, offers numerous advantages. Gamelan VR applications can enhance user engagement in learning gamelan without the need to purchase an expensive physical gamelan instrument. These applications provide a realistic experience that simulates the usage of an actual gamelan instrument (Pangestu et al., 2022). Additionally, the VR application allows users to archive cultural assets and introduce Balinese culture to a broader audience (Darmawiguna et al., 2020).
The study aims to explore Indonesian museum visitors’ perceptions—both positive and negative— of VR usage in a museum and examine their expectations of an immersive VR experience, particularly related to VR games, in light of the limited research on VR for Indonesian culture and heritage. In collaboration with Museum Bahari in Jakarta, Indonesia, we conduct the study to gain a more grounded understanding. This is part of a prolonged research project that aims to create and test a newly developed VR game installation based on the museum’s theme and visitor questionnaires analyzed in this research. It attempts to answer the following research questions:
- What motivates tourists to visit a museum in Indonesia?
- How do visitors perceive VR in the museum and their current understanding of the technology?
- What prompts the visitor to use and not use VR in the museum?
- What are the visitors’ expectations and preferences of VR experiences, specifically related to the theme of the “Bahari Museum”?
This paper structures the result and discussion as follows: It first details the respondents’ profiles and motivations for visiting a museum. Then, it describes the respondents’ perceptions towards VR usage, using an example of an existing VR game that aligns with the “Bahari Museum” theme. The analysis includes both Likert and thematic elements and is complemented by a comprehensive discussion. We constructed the Likert scale based on Pekarik et al.’s (1999) theory, which categorizes museum experiences into object, cognitive, introspective, and social experiences. The four elements must be balanced for a satisfying experience, though one may dominate depending on the exhibition. Meanwhile, the thematic analysis incorporates a multifaceted model of visitor experience by Packer & Ballantyne (2016), which includes physical, sensory, emotional, hedonic, cognitive, introspective, restorative, transformative, spiritual, and relational aspects. Table 1 illustrates the mapping of the two complementary models of visitor experience classification. In the second model, the term “object” is translated into four corresponding categories— physical, sensory, emotional, and hedonic—while the term “introspective” is expanded to include three more definitions—restorative, transformative, and spiritual—that are still related to the introspective value. Lastly, social and relational are deemed to have similar values.
METHOD
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RESPONDENTS’ PROFILE
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MUSEUM VISIT
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VR USAGE
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LIKERT ANALYSIS
According to Table V, the research uses a Likert scale from 1 (very not interested) to 5 (very interested) to measure interest in VR usage in a museum. The importance of implementing VR technology for exhibitions earned an average score of 4.29, with 47.16% answering very important. Moreover, the average score for interest in using VR technology is higher at 4.74, with 78.37% indicating a high level of interest. In other words, most respondents are positive about VR usage in museums, fortified by the absence of respondents who chose number 1 on the Likert scale for both questions.
To narrow down the design possibilities, further questions about the respondents’ preferences for VR experiences are evaluated using a similar Likert scale. The questions are arranged based on the four classifications of satisfying experiences in a museum (Pekarik et al., 1999), namely: (1) object experience, (2) cognitive experience, (3) introspective experience, and (4) social experience, to ensure the questionnaire has covered the broad range of plausible human-technology interactions at museums. Table VI then breaks down each experience into narrower categories.
There is a strong link between wanting to learn and liking three types of cognitive experiences: having fun with new experiences (4.76), learning new things and improving your knowledge (4.74), and better understanding the exhibition’s content, setting, and theme (4.66). The social experience, specifically sharing the experience with friends and family, receives the highest average score (4.57). Meanwhile, respondents show little interest in introspective experiences, especially when it comes to play-pretend (3.83), despite the fact that an average score above 3 is still regarded as positive. The next research phase will use the four highest scores as the basis for developing the VR application.
THEMATIC ANALYSIS
94 open-ended responses were coded from respondents who answered “Yes” to the question, “Have you ever tried VR technology in a museum?” While 36 of those could not be thematically coded as they did not answer the question, 58 responses were usable for coding. Packer & Ballantyne (2016) proposed a multifaceted model of visitor experience, which expands on the theory by Pekarik et al. (1999), based on Table I.
The thematic analysis identified seven themes in the coding. The distribution of codes is as follows: sensory experience (19), hedonic experience (18), cognitive experience (13), introspective experience (5), physical experience (1), relational experience (1), and transformative experience (1). The findings align with the previous Likert analysis, emphasizing cognitive and hedonic experiences, where pleasure was identified as a cognitive characteristic in the previous section. While Packer & Ballantyne’s proposed sensory experience may align more closely with Pekarik et al.’s (1999) object experience classification, the respondents viewed it as a tool for enhancing their comprehension of the objects, thereby facilitating the acquisition of new knowledge.
The majority of respondents prefer sensory, hedonic, and cognitive experiences from their VR usage. This aligns with previous research on the reality-virtuality continuum and the embeddedness of technology in technological devices. Both Slater (2009) and Flavian et al. (2019) postulated that internal devices (i.e., virtual reality wearables) possess the ability to transport individuals into new realms and increase their degree of presence in such realms. Findings concur with such postulation, as respondents express novel sensory, hedonic, and cognitive experiences when they use VR devices. Museum management can leverage the hedonic and cognitive experiences provided by VR to encourage repeat visits from the wearer, given their proven ability to shape the behavioral intentions of potential tourists (Li et al., 2024).
The findings also suggest that we can design VR to enhance the pragmatic and hedonic qualities of museum experience characteristics, thereby producing high appeal, pleasure, and satisfaction from museum visitors (King et al., 2023). Han & Hyun (2017) identified satisfaction as an important and significant mediating factor in influencing intention. Their study also suggests that visitors’ involvement in the museum can further amplify this influence. With VR, museum visitors can engage more deeply through design manipulations in the VR experience, which emphasize interaction and gamification between visitors and museums, as well as between visitors and other visitors.
The questionnaire then included screenshots and a brief video from the game “MarineVerse Cup: Sailboat Racing” to introduce the VR application under development and clarify the scope of the research. We instructed the participants to evaluate the photographs and identify the elements that most captured their attention. The adjectives “interesting,” “exciting,” “cool,” and “nice” (translated from Bahasa Indonesia) frequently indicated a positive response from 95% of respondents to the images. Although most of the respondents reacted positively to the image, some responses leaned toward a neutral impression, as seen by using terms such as “realistic” and “real.” The most captivating part for them is imagining having the experience of sailing while being inside an indoor space. While the immersive experience of using VR technology indeed allows for a more engaging and participatory experience compared to watching a screen, respondents expressed an interest in the interactivity when they are expected to play instead of simply watching. Thus, optimizing user experience is crucial for the VR game.
Based on the open-ended questions, we can categorize the preferred VR experiences into three groups: (1) sailing; (2) historical settings; and (3) underwater scenes, which include either submarine or swimming exploration. The underlying similarity among these three experiences is that they desire an immersive encounter that diverges from their regular circumstances, encompassing changes in time, location, and activities. For instance, due to the specific skill and high expenses associated with diving, several individuals expressed an interest in attempting it through VR. A few participants also imagined the inclusion of more sensory encounters, such as the sensation of water splashing and realistic textures of objects. Unfortunately, the topic of marine life does not align well with the subject and exhibits of the Museum Bahari, which primarily showcases the history of sailing, including a variety of boats from different ages and continents, significant historical figures, and spice routes.
Within the sailing group, several respondents expressed a desire to be a ship captain. However, there were variations in their preferences, such as differing storylines of overcoming storms and serving on warships. Furthermore, some participants expressed a desire for additional recreational pursuits, such as fishing, operating the helm, and exploring the intricacies of the ship’s interior. Similar to the respondents who favored the underwater experience, some respondents who preferred sailing expressed a desire to physically feel the waves and wind on their skin in order to fully engage in the activity.
Meanwhile, the historical settings group comprises respondents who are interested in going to a past period that they have never experienced before, such as the colonial period. This will be distinguished from the clothes, buildings, or the surrounding area, such as the atmosphere of Batavia Port during the 17th century. In other words, they wanted to instantly enter a different dimension without the necessity to travel, even meeting a historical figure who had passed away. Initially, this idea is interesting since there is a room at Museum Bahari that exhibits statues of famous sailors, be they from Indonesia, like the first female sailor named Laksamana Malahayati, or a foreign sailor who once raised the Indonesian archipelago, like James Cook.
In addition to preferences, the research documented the concerns that respondents expressed about the use of VR. These issues can serve as valuable ideas for the museum if they intend to bring VR games to the public. Regarding personal matters, the concerns experienced are as follows:
- Spacers can improve the product’s usability and comfort for visually impaired users.
- The VR experience of being on a ship could trigger symptoms of motion sickness, including dizziness, imbalance, and fear of falling.
- A malfunction, electrical discharge, and other technical difficulties can occur.
- Personal preferences, like adjusting the sound and brightness, are not customizable.
- Horror VR games often portray the appearance of disturbing or shocking elements that could lead to trauma.
In terms of a social-use product that will be exhibited to the general public, the primary concern is hygiene because the VR devices will be shared with others. Furthermore, the devices are limited to individual use, which may result in long queues. Anticipating a brief duration for each round of the VR game raises concerns about comfort, especially for visitors who may find the game experience not worth the significant time they spend waiting in line. It is imperative to take this condition into account to create a more favorable situation.
Research on VR interaction reveals that respondents desire the ability to delve deeply into the VR realm, as well as the opportunity to assume the role of a main avatar or protagonist in the experience narrative. The findings reveal that respondents desire their avatar’s capabilities to go beyond the core museum experiences, but also to provide a supplementary experience that meets their secondary experiential needs, such as engaging in social and recreational gaming activities.
CONCLUSION
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FULL PAPER
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HOW TO CITE
Widarsyah, R., Wiradarmo, A. A., Arief, F. H., & Palesangi, M. (2024). Exploration of visitors’ experience and preferences on Virtual Reality application in museums. Jurnal Sosioteknologi, 23(3), 374-386.
REFERENCES
In the full paper
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