Bluetooth Low Energy Beacon-based Positioning for Multimedia Guides in Heritage Buildings: a Case Study

This paper presents an investigation into the impact of integrating Bluetooth Low Energy Beacons in mobile guide applications in heritage sites. We present findings from the evaluation of a BLE beacon app, with visitors at a historic building in the UK midlands. Our development and evaluation framework focused on the visitor experience, particularly how the introduction of the app impacts visitor perceptions of learning and enjoyment, and of the historic building more generally as an environment for learning. We also explored how use of the app impacts visitors’ use and engagement with the space in terms of length of visit, how they navigate the space, where they stop, in what sequence, etc. We found significant improvement in visitor perceptions of how much they learned during the visit and how much they enjoyed their visit. We also found that the app had a positive impact on visitor perceptions of the site as a learning environment, and an overall positive impact on the length of the visit. Visitors were asked to rate tours that used BLE beacons to identify location at different levels. We found that tours that used beacons to identify points of interest within a room scored higher than tours that used beacons to identify a room, and that visitors who took both kinds of tours reported more learning but their perceived enjoyment was lower.