Gifting in Museums: Using Multiple Time Orientations to Heighten Present-Moment Engagement

ABSTRACT

HCI has recently increased its interest in the domains of museums and gifting. The former is often oriented primarily towards the past, while the latter is often oriented towards the future, in terms of anticipating the receiver’s reactions. Our article provides a sustained and well-evidenced new theoretical framework on the role of time-orientation on the design of forward-oriented (gifting) experiences in past-oriented (museum) settings. This Temporal Experience Design Framework develops from the analysis of two such studies, one smartphone app and one VR experience using passive haptics. Both interventions prompted the user to reflect on the past while planning a gift or donation for future consumption. We apply a novel combination of analyses to both projects using the lenses of conversational storytelling, performance, and human geography. Our analyses reveal the power of orienting users towards the past and the future – simultaneously – to enhance the present moment of a performative engagement. Our aim is to provide a conceptual framework that can help design researchers to identify, name, and understand how time-orientation can be used to enhance user and visitor experience. We also extrapolate design guidelines that we expect may be fruitful outside these contexts.

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to acknowledge their project collaborators, those who worked on the projects discussed, and the many anonymous participants whose feedback made this analysis possible.

Background

Much of the actual design work that we propose for this article has been published elsewhere (see Back et al., 2018; Spence et al., 2019; Løvlie et al., 2019; Spence et al., 20202020). The first author has also already published a theoretical paper in answer to vagueness or contradictions within the HCI literature around the difference between sharing and gifting (J. Spence, 2019) as informed by these designs.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Horizon 2020 Framework Programme [727040].

Notes on contributors

Yitong Huang

Jocelyn Spence ([email protected]) is an interaction design researcher with an interest in performative experience design, performance, gifting, and cultural heritage; she is a Research Fellow in the Mixed Reality Lab at the University of Nottingham.Dimitrios Darzentas ([email protected]) is an interaction designer and design researcher with an interest in the digital footprints left by hybrid digital/physical objects; he is a Research Fellow in the Mixed Reality Lab at the University of Nottingham.Harriet Cameron ([email protected]) is an HCI researcher with an interest in human geography, cultural heritage, and critical theory; she is a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Horizon Center for Doctoral Training at the University of Nottingham.Yitong Huang ([email protected]) is an interaction design researcher with an interest in the Internet of Things; she is an Assistant Professor in the School of Media and Communication of Shanghai Jiaotong University.Matt Adams ([email protected], https://www.blasttheory.co.uk) is a multidisciplinary artist with an interest in interactive art to explore social and political questions; he is an artist in the artist group Blast Theory.Ju Row Farr ([email protected], https://www.blasttheory.co.uk) is a multidisciplinary artist with an interest in interactive art to explore social and political questions; she is an artist in the artist group Blast Theory.Nick Tandavanitj ([email protected], https://www.blasttheory.co.uk) is a multidisciplinary artist with an interest in interactive art to explore social and political questions; he is an artist in the artist group Blast Theory.Steve Benford ([email protected]) is Professor of Computer Science with an interest in mixed reality, virtual reality, augmented reality, and digital art and performance; he is a Professor of Computer Science and leads the Mixed Reality Lab at the University of Nottingham.