Use of XR technologies for fostering visitors' experience and inclusion at industrial museums

Abstract

The study presents the research conducted and the solutions adopted to integrate Extended Reality applications in situ and online to enhance visitors' experience of the Tomato Industrial Museum "D. Nomikos" with emphasis on the needs of people with hearing impairments. This paper outlines the methodological, technological, and museological approaches undertaken to integrate XR in ways that will foster the engagement with the narratives of people who worked at the premises and describe the production process. Storytelling and narration are key elements of the museums’ museological design (Sylaiou and Dafiotis, 2020) and therefore including visitors with hearing impairments through XR technologies that allow users to perceive audio tours and verbal accounts through real-time visualization of spoken language by an especially adapted speech to text functionality. Moreover, the paper explores the challenges faced throughout the effort to engage audiences and help them relate with the industrial heritage through exploring the exhibition by generating interest through multimodal resources accessible to all. To engage viewers, we developed interactive applications so that visitors will undertake to fulfill workers' tasks as in role-playing. The result of our approach is a balance between coming to close contact through digital narratives with the people of the time, ensuring inclusion of people with hearing impairments, while offering interactive visualizations of the exhibited machinery functions.