Using Digital Twins to Design and Evaluate Interactive Exhibitions: A Case Study with Handheld AR

Paper Title

Using Digital Twins to Design and Evaluate Interactive Exhibitions: A Case Study with Handheld AR

Publication Info

• Topic area: Leveraging digital twins for designing and evaluating interactive exhibitions with handheld AR.
• Keywords: Digital twins, interactive exhibitions, handheld AR, museum design, spatial storytelling, visitor tracking, UX lifecycle, augmented reality, exhibition evaluation, blended museum.

Background and Problem

• Problem / challenge: Contemporary museum experiences often fail to integrate physical, social, and personal visitor contexts, leading to isolated and less engaging exhibits. Designing interactive exhibitions in large connected spaces remains complex, particularly for spatial interactions and assemblies of interconnected installations.
• Significance: Addressing these challenges can enhance visitor engagement, learning, and accessibility while reducing design costs and enabling iterative refinement of exhibitions.
• Motivation and related work: Prior work in HCI highlights the importance of contextual learning and assemblies of interactive exhibits but lacks tools for designing and evaluating exhibitions in their spatial and social contexts. Digital twins offer potential solutions by enabling spatial prototyping, evaluation, and adaptive storytelling.

Solution

• Proposed approach: The paper investigates the use of a digital twin for designing and evaluating the handheld AR-based exhibition “Stayin’ Alive”, which integrated AR and multimedia content across four floors.
• Novelty:
  1. Demonstration of digital twins for iterative design, prototyping, and evaluation in the context of interactive exhibitions.
  2. Identification of four opportunity-challenge pairs for using digital twins in exhibition design and evaluation.
  3. Integration of spatial tracking and automated evaluation metrics into the digital twin for analyzing visitor behavior.
  4. Exploration of adaptive spatial storytelling and hybrid visit scenarios using digital twins.
• Procedure and key techniques:
  • Capturing 3D scans of the exhibition space at key project phases to create a digital twin.
  • Using the twin for spatial planning, AR content placement, and iterative refinement during design and implementation.
  • Employing the twin for exhibition-wide AR tracking, automated visitor data logging, and situated analysis of visitor behavior.
  • Conducting post-visit interviews and analyzing interaction logs to evaluate visitor experience and engagement.

Results

• Concrete findings:
  • Visitors spent an average of 55 minutes in the exhibition, resulting in a Sweep Rate Index (SRI) of 39.87 ft²/min, indicating slow and deep engagement.
  • Percentage of Diligent Visitors (%DV) was 16.53%, suggesting parts of the exhibition were skipped.
  • Visitor tracking data revealed ergonomic issues and overlooked exhibits due to placement.
  • Post-visit interviews (44 participants) highlighted positive reception of AR and multimedia content but noted physical fatigue and occasional difficulty discovering AR exhibits.
• Advantage over baselines:
  • Automated calculation of common museum evaluation metrics (e.g., Average Holding Time, Attracting Power) replaced labor-intensive manual timing-and-tracking studies.
  • Situated analytics in the digital twin provided richer insights into spatial and contextual visitor behavior compared to traditional 2D visualizations.
• Experiments / evaluation:
  • Quantitative analysis of 1303 visitor logs, filtered to 381 valid sessions after preprocessing.
  • Qualitative thematic analysis of 44 post-visit interviews.
  • Metrics included Average Holding Time, Attracting Power, Sweep Rate Index, Percentage of Diligent Visitors, Walkthrough Rate, Stops at Exhibits, Dwell Time, and Visitor Count per Day.
• Limitations and future work:
  • Limited fidelity of the digital twin (two static 3D scans, no object or state tracking beyond tablets).
  • Academic setting may not fully reflect professional workflows.
  • Findings may not generalize to permanent exhibitions or larger museums.
  • Future work should explore integrated platforms for maintaining digital twins, normalization strategies for evaluation metrics, and adaptive systems for ergonomic and personalized visitor experiences.

Summary

The paper presents “Stayin’ Alive”, a handheld AR-based exhibition on pandemics, as a case study demonstrating the use of digital twins for designing and evaluating interactive exhibitions. By employing 3D scans to create a digital twin, the authors supported spatial planning, AR content placement, automated visitor tracking, and situated analysis of visitor behavior. Quantitative and qualitative evaluations revealed high visitor engagement but highlighted ergonomic challenges and overlooked exhibits. The study identifies four opportunity-challenge pairs for using digital twins across the UX lifecycle, offering practical implications and a roadmap for future research to unlock their full potential in exhibition design, evaluation, and accessibility.