Comic Experience: Narrative & Collaborative Drawing on a Multi-Touch Table in an Art Museum

Most art museums provide audio guides or, more recently, multi-media guides, with static context such as background information to enrich their exhibits with an extra layer of content. Usually, there is no actual interaction with the museum’s exhibit possible, no hands-on experience that fosters a deeper cognitive engagement. The integration of multi-touch tables has a great potential for collaborative experiences. We designed a touch table application that allows for collaborative and active drawing experiences and conducted two usability studies, one in a laboratory setting and one in the field. The design study was structured in three phases: domain and problem analysis, user experience and interface design, and evaluation. The results show that the collaborative aspect – drawing on one picture simultaneously in different personal areas was accepted and praised by the visitors. The study indicates that museums with mostly passive viewable artefacts can profit from interacitve and collaborative content, which enhances the general experience in their exhibitions.