An observational study for developing digital technology in the museum

Abstract

This study aims to understand the behaviour of visitors of the Negeri Sembilan State Museum, Malaysia based on visitor demographic information and activity patterns. 30 volunteers were observed during their visit to investigate how they interact with tangible objects that are exhibited in the museum space. All participants were never exposed to any digital technologies in the museum before. A qualitative approach was adopted where an evaluation toolkit for museum practitioners and observation framework was used for data collection. Our findings indicated that dioramas received much more attention from the participants than the artefacts and labels display. This pointed to the inadequacy of the exhibition style where it did not capture nor attract the participants to stop, interact or obtain information from the artefacts. The gap may be filled in by the usage of digital technology in museum exhibitions as it has the potential of providing interactive features that would attract visitors and create engagement with the artefacts in the museum.