Readings:
Digital stuffs always contain more dynamic and diverse contents than physical ones, and it makes experiences in museum become more fascinating, and customized. Besides, because of the flexibility and larger space for creativity, once a digital platform is built, it will be able to fit in various situations, which makes it more economic and last longer than traditional physical exhibits in museums.
Disney's museum AR App is a simple but compelling approach for screen based AR applications. The designers took one of our biggest concerns when visiting an art museum or gallery -- we are not allowed to touch or change the paintings. With the help of AR, visitors will be able to do crazy things on a famous art piece. It is even more attractive that they can not only change the color of the painting, but by throwing color balls to it in such a childish way. They make it more dramatic and unserious by adding a funny sound to each color ball. Although it is a simple experience without much serious learning outcomes, it still successfully enhances the interaction between visitors and art works, and makes the tour in a museum less quiet and serious.
While building AR and VR applications is hard and expensive for museums, the team from Sheffield Hallam University brought another direction. By taking museum people as their target user, the team developed a tool for them to simply build interactive objects in the museum without much technology background. I think it is a unique and potential approach because of its flexibility. By giving the opportunity of taking design decisions to museum staffs who are more familiar with their exhibits, the team is creating a new and open platform which contains a lot of possibilities.