Leicester Castle Beacon App

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Leicester Castle Tells its StoryiBeacon-based mobile interpretation

Giasemi Vavoula, University of Leicester Sally Coleman, Leicester Arts & MuseumsRheinallt Ffoster-Jones, Museum Wales

Digital R&D Fund for the Arts

• The project was funded by a grant from the Digital R&D Fund for the Arts (Nesta, Arts & Humanities Research Council and the National Lottery through Arts Council England)

• The award was to develop BLE beacon-based heritage interpretation for a historic building

• Project partners:

Leicester Castle

A problem to solve

Starting point

What can BLE beacons do for an empty, listed Castle that opens its doors to the public once a month, with historical interpretation provided only by sessional staff and printed information sheets?

(and for dozens other historic buildings and venues in similar situations?)

BLE beacons

BLE beacons – what you need

• BLE beacons• Content / beacon

management system

• Beacon app• BLE device to run

the app

The Beacon app

The Green Bicycle Murder Trail

The Court Audio Trail

The Family Trail

Interactive guidebooks

BLE beacons @ Leicester Castle• Development & Evaluation Framework: putting

visitors at the centre– Impact on visitors’ perceptions of

• Learning• Enjoyment• Environment

– Information– Activities– Learning opportunities

– Impact on visitors’ use & engagement with space• Length of stay• Pattern of stops at points of interest

BLE beacons @ Leicester Castle

Visitor perceptions of learning

“How much did you learn about the

Castle during your visit?”

z-Test App usersNon-users

Mean 4.02 3.21

Known Variance 1.22 1.14

Observations 113 70

z 4.88

P(Z<=z) two-tail 1.05E-06

z Critical two-tail 1.96

Visitor perceptions of enjoyment

“Overall, how enjoyable was your visit to the Castle?”

z-Test App usersNon-users

Mean 4.44 3.94

Known Variance 0.85 1.03

Observations 113 70

z 3.35

P(Z<=z) two-tail 0.000807

z Critical two-tail 1.96

Visitor perceptions of environment

“How would you rate your experience of:

available information; available activities;

learning opportunities?”

Visitor length of stayDeclared time of start and time of end of visit

All 3 tours that utilised beacons at physical point of interest scored better than tours that didn’t

Interactive guides (unordered list or timeline-based) scored worse than other interpretation approaches

All tours were considered at least ‘OK’ by all visitors

Beacon vs non-beacon tours

Beacon vs non-beacon tours

Visitor stops at points of interest

Pre-app

Visitor stops at points of interest

AppBear with

us, work in progress.

What we’re learning from: visit motives

What we’re learning from: tech attitudesVisitors to other heritage sites in Leicester (no app experience)

Castle visitors who have used the Castle app

Summary – Lessons Learnt• Beacon-based interpretation beneficial for learning and

enjoyment, and increases positive perception of the site as learning environment

• Mixing with non-beacon mobile interpretation ok for learning, but reduces enjoyment

• Potential of beacon logs to understand impact on visitor use of space

• We design for learning-oriented visitors, but it is the socially-oriented visitors who are more keen app adopters

• Mobile confidence does not translate necessarily to willingness to use in a heritage setting

• Mobile confidence and willingness to use increase with good experiences

Questions?

For more information contact:

Sally Coleman, Sally.Coleman@leicester.gov.uk (Arts Lead)Giasemi Vavoula, gv18@le.ac.uk (Research Lead)Rheinallt Ffoster-Jones, Rheinallt.Ffoster-Jones@museumwales.ac.uk (Technical Lead)