Presented at the British 2014 HCI conference by Brian O’Keefe, lead experience architect This presentation explores the role of Blending Theory as a framework to aid in design decisions while deploying mobile experiences for heritage storytelling. Blending Theory provides a structured way of thinking about how digital and physical spaces can be brought together to create new experiences in blended spaces. In this presentation, we describe the development of an app that aims to enhance the visitor experience to a heritage destination in New York State. We show how the blended spaces framework was used to guide the development of the app and provide evaluation data that highlights the effective UX that resulted. Heritage stories and augmented digital characters are used to guide a visitor from one point of interest to another, providing an engaging user experience.

1. EffectiveUI
Brian O’Keefe Ph.D.!
Lead User Experience Architect
A UX and Product Design Studio

2. A Blended Space for Heritage Storytelling
O’Keefe, B., Benyon, D., Chandwani, G., Menon, M., & Duke, R.
Blended Spaces is an extension of mixed reality
spaces, but at the level of physical place rather
than product.

3. but, WHAT IS DIGITAL TOURISM?
BLENDED SPACES… what?

4. DIGITAL TOURISM
TRADITIONAL
TOUR GUIDES
WAYSIDES
PAMPHLETS
MIXED MEDIA
AUDIO TOURS
INSTALLATIONS
WEBSITES
EXPERIENCE
AUGMENTED REALITY
TRIP PLANNING
EXPLORING

5. BLENDED SPACES
WHAT ARE BLENDED SPACES?
Blended Spaces are space where a physical space and a
digital space have been carefully co-designed.
!
Blended Spaces is an extension of mixed reality spaces,
but at the level of physical place rather than product.
Benyon, D., Mival, O., Ayan, S. (2012). Designing Blended Spaces. Proc. BCHCI 2012. ACM Press (2012), 398-403.

6. MIXED REALITY SPECTRUM
1. Milgram, P. and Kishino, F. A taxonomy of mixed reality visual displays. IEICE Transactions on Information and Systems E77-D, 12 (1994).

7. MIT TANGIBLE MEDIA GROUP
HIROSHI ISHI ICEBERG MODEL …giving physical form to digital information.
Ishii, H., & Ullmer, B. Tangible Bits: towards seamless interfaces between people, bits, and atoms. Proc. CHI 1997, ACM Press (1997), 234-241.

8. however
Blended Spaces are more than just mixing realities…
!
Blended Spaces have a coherence… their own properties.

9. CONCEPTUAL BLENDING
http://markturner.org/blending.html
The Riddle of the Buddhist Monk:
1. Fauconnier, G. and Turner, M. The Way We Think. Basic Books, NY, USA, 2002.
• Blending Theory is a theory of
knowledge creation, coming
originally from linguistics research.
• It shows how we can see
similarities, but also recognize the
differences between the domains
to understand a new experience.
The Riddle of the Buddhist Monk:

10. PRESENCE
International Society of Presence Research
Presence is the sense of being in a place, of ‘being there’.
Presence is often defined as the ‘illusion of non-mediation’.
1. Benyon, D. Presence in Blended Spaces. Interacting with Computers, 24, 4 (2012), 219-226.

11. but, HOW DO YOU DESING FOR
BLENDED SPACES?

12. BLENDED SPACES FRAMEWORK
Fauconnier, G. and Turner, M. The Way We Think. Basic Books, NY, USA, 2002.
!
Imaz, M., & Benyon, D. Designing with Blends. MIT Press, MA, USA, 2006.

13. BEING IN SPACES
• Spaces and places are media: environments in which
we act and shape the media itself.
• People engage in activities in spaces. They navigate
through the physical and digital spaces.
• People transition between the physical and the digital,
giving them layers of experience.
• Designers need to design for experience in blended
spaces.
• Another view of presence as “the intuitive, successful
interaction within a medium” (not breaking the blend)

14. Okay… BUT SHOW ME!

15. BLENDED INTERACTIONS STUDIO PRESENTS
MOBILE EXPERIENCES FOR TOURISM PROJECT
When: Oct 2nd :: Where: GCVM Conference Center, Mumford NY :: Time: 3pm - 5pm

16. WHAT IS THIS PROJECT?
The Mobile Experiences for Tourism Project is
a NYSCA 2013 grant that will improve the
tourism experience through innovation in
technology, art, history, and culture.
Total Award $106.000
Started January 2013

17. CASE STUDY
GENESEE COUNTRY VILLAGE MUSEUM

19. GENERAL VISITOR PROBLEMS
[1] Guides, being volunteers, are not
always present
!
[2] The village is large and easy to not
know where to go
!
[3] You need more than one day to feel
like you have seen the village.
!
[4] Not easy to figure out what some
buildings are or what stories they hold.
lost visitors

20. OUR VISITOR STRATEGY
Create fun interactive experiences for School
Children to inspire the adults to interact.

21. INTERACTION METHODS
THEIR METHOD OUR METHOD
• audio tours!
• QR Codes!
• Dial Up Services
• Location - Based!
• Geo Fences!
• Scalable Systems!
• Content Management System

22. BLENDING SPACES AT GCVM

23. PHYSICAL SPACES
ONTOLOGY
TOPOLOGY
AGENCY
VOLATILITY
O’Keefe, B., Benyon, D. & Mival, O. A Blended Space for Tourism: Genesee Country Village & Museum. CHI 2013 Blend13 Workshop. ACM Press 2013.
!

24. ONTOLOGY
TOPOLOGY
AGENCY
VOLATILITY
O’Keefe, B., Benyon, D. & Mival, O. A Blended Space for Tourism: Genesee Country Village & Museum. CHI 2013 Blend13 Workshop. ACM Press 2013.
!
DIGITAL SPACES

25. BLENDING SPACES AT GCVM

26. TRANSITION REFLECTIONS
Black Smith
Farm Shed
House
House School House
Toll Booth
TECHNOLOGY
• Competing with Ambient Noises!
• Notifications need to be handled with Care!
• Goldie Locks of Geo- Fences!
• Satellites move
VISITORS
• Visitors Interests!
• Cognitive Model of GeoMaps !
• Allow for Flexibility (POI)!
• Periscope Tourism

27. APPLYING BLENDED SPACES

28. ONTOLOGY
Human Storytelling
Heritage Storytelling
HERITAGE STORYTELLING

29. STANDARD MAP
Black Smith
Farm Shed
House
House School House
Toll Booth

30. HERITAGE STORYTELLING
Sanctuary
Search for clues
Solve the Mystery
Meet Alice
Meet Mr
Campbell
Confront Ms Crabapple

31. TOPOLOGY
NAVIGATION

32. AGENCY

33. AGENCY

34. 3 characters x 4 seasons = 12 stories
Twelve reasons to come back
Fall Winter Spring Summer
Marie
Boughton
Child Mystery Christmas Town Picnic Wedding Story
Jeremiah Turnhill Beer Brewing Sledding Day Spring Fair
4th
Celebration
Sam
Turnhill Harvest Festival
Winter
Preparation Spring Planting Barn Raising
VOLATILITY

35. MYSTERY OF THE MISSING CHILD
SAMPLE

36. Go to the Blacksmith
Black Smith

38. Go to the Keiffer’s House
Keiffer’s House

42. EVALUATING BLENDED SPACES

43. ALLENDALE COLUMBIA SCHOOL
17 fifth grade students were selected to be in groups averaging 2-3 students
December 5th 2013
Thanks Martha!

44. ONTOLOGY
C: I would like to create my own historical tour. (88% Agree)
D: I would have preferred a museum map instead of the interactive digital story. (88% Disagree)
E: I would have preferred a human tour guide instead of the interactive story. (62% Disagree)
H: If there were more stories, I would return to GCVM at least one more time. (100% Agree)

45. AGENCY
Digital Characters added Mystery
B: I thought the Digital Characters were strange and out of place (85% Disagree)
D: The digital characters added mystery and made the entire trip interesting (88% Agree)
H: I felt concerned for Jamie at a certain point (30% Agree)
I: I would like to meet other digital characters throughout the site (88% Agree)

46. TOPOLOGY
Students could easily navigate pioneer settlement with the information provided in the story
C: I often felt lost (85% Disagree)
D: I would have preferred a digital map to a mobile compass for navigation (75% Disagree)
E: When I arrived at a location, I took my time to explore (43% Agree)
H: I felt I was apart of the village (69% Agree)

47. IMPROVEMENT OPPORTUNITIES
!
(a) School students were mainly natural when taking the time to
explore the POIs.
!
(b) The majority spent too much time looking at the mobile device
moving from POI to POI
(c) Students didn’t have much empathy towards the digital characters
I would like to create my (88% Agree) own historical tour.

48. ONGOING RESEARCH
Mobile Experiences for Tourism!
Designed by 5th Graders, Created by 5th Graders, Evaluated by 5th Graders

49. SCHOOLCHILDREN MOBILE UX
Rather than children being the consumers of mobile technologies, children
will have the opportunity to design mobile experiences to curate heritage
sites through geo-located storytelling.

50. SCHOOLCHILDREN WORKSHOPS
COLLABORATE DESIGN
RIT STUDENTS AND FACULTY
AC STUDENTS AND FACULTY
Site Visits, Student design,
strategy, workshops, mobile
development
Leverage METP NYSCA 2013 project
to enable students to build historical
stories and learn mobile arts at GCVM
Implement augmented reality,
digital storytelling, deploying
design hardware, prototyping
EVALUATE
PUBLIC SCHOOLS
RELIVE IN CLASSROOM
Relive experience, evaluate,
learning, capture student visits,
* public school determined by GCVM,
SPRING SEMESTER 2014

51. COLLABORATION

52. INTERACTION DESIGN

53. MEDIA PRODUCTION

55. EVALUATION

59. FUTURE WORK
EDUCATION Augmentations following the students back to the classroom?

60. FUTURE WORK
EMBEDDED Changing GEO-Fences and Heritage Story by simply moving objects

61. FUTURE WORK
EMBEDDED Changing GEO-Fences and Heritage Story by simply moving objects
SUPPER!

62. BLENDED INTERACTIONS STUDIO
THANK YOU!