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VERDIKT-Kjernekomp.og verdiskaping IKT

iObserve. A Multipurpose Platform for Visitor Studies and Audience Research

Alternative title: null

Awarded: NOK 0.50 mill.

The overarching idea in iObserve is to develop an existing prototype from the CONTACT project into a market-ready product used to conduct visitor studies in museums, cultural heritage organizations and other institutions in the cultural sector. iObserve is a unique and innovative tablet-based application that supports real-time recordings and advanced analyses of observations of human behavior and interaction. The aim is to introduce and set a new standard of practice in the field of visitor studies usi ng the iObserve tool, nationally and internationally. There is a real need for learning perspectives, practical methods, and innovative tools that can produce greater insight into visitors learning and engagement than traditional attendance statistics and demographics. Similar to state-of-the-art applications, iObserve will allow individual and coordinated groups of observers to communicate, to note visitor types and track groups movements, to tag movements with customizable interaction categories that m ay be updated on the fly, to link observations with video and audio recordings, interviews, surveys, and other data types, and to access analyses of these rich data sets in the form of graphs, heat maps, charts and other visualisations, e.g., time spent, ?attraction rate and specific frequencies of groups actions. Also similar is the design of an online portal that provides storage and management access to the recorded data, as part of the comprehensive system for collection and visualization, e.g., demog raphics, statistical analysis, filtering and combining of datasets, and comparison of aggregated user data over time. In addition, iObserve contributes two innovations to international developments in mobile tracking tools: the granular level of detail i n the data collection, tracking with a focus on individual and small group interactions; and an interface design that supports intuitive touch-based interactions and visualizations inherent to tablet use.

Funding scheme:

VERDIKT-Kjernekomp.og verdiskaping IKT