2.3. Discussion
In Study 1, we investigated to what extent the availability of the
digital museum guide M3 influenced visitors' behavior in the nexus
exhibition. First of all, we found that while M3 is an integral part of
nexus, only about a third of the visitors used it for accessing information
about the presented books and manuscripts. Additionally,
even those visitors who used the M3 made more than half of their
stops in front of a showcase without accessing information from the
digital guide. Thus, although visitors accessed the M3 in the gallery
a substantial number of times, an even higher proportion of stops in
front of a showcase were taken without making use of M3.
The most important difference between M3 users and non-users
concerned their length of stay. More specifically, on average M3
users spent about 60% (16 min) more time in the exhibition than
non-users. This, together with the finding that M3 users stopped at
significantly fewer different showcases than non-users, indicates
that M3 users pursued a visiting strategy that was more selective,
along with scrutinizing individual exhibits more extensively. Thus,
in line with previous research findings (Kuflik et al., 2011; Lanir
et al., 2013), the digital museum guide resulted in the visitors
focusing their attention on fewer showcases but with prolonged
examination time. This was most probably because the digital
guide offered additional information about each exhibit within the
showcase.
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Besides these differences, users and non-users of M3 were
largely similar in their behavior. M3 use was not systematically
related to social context and also had no influence on number of
verbal interactions with other visitors or museum attendants.
Further, in line with previous studies (e.g. Bitgood, 2006), both
showed a strong tendency to follow the exhibit along its linear
path, stopping at roughly the same number of showcases. Path
linearity was slightly more pronounced for non-users than for M3
users on a descriptive level. This was most probably due to M3's
integrated recommendation system which suggested for every
exhibit to view several related objects in the exhibition. However,
this difference did not reach statistical significance, p ผ .10. Also,
the pattern of showcase attraction across nexus was largely similar,
as indicated by the significant correlation between the popularity
ranks of the showcases. Finally, in line with previous research
(Bitgood, 2009; Davey, 2005), both M3 users and non-users showed
signs of museum fatigue, this becoming apparent because their
stopping frequency decreased with increasing position number of
the showcase.
While Study 1 allowed us to determine the visitors' general
behavior patterns as well as to estimate differences and commonalities
between users and non-users of the digital museum guide,
its analytical resolution was restricted to the level of just the
showcases themselves; that is, the attraction power of the 39
different showcases, but not of the various objects within each
showcase, could be determined. Assuming that visitors' selection
heuristics primarily operate on an object level, we conducted a
second study in which we analyzed the visitors' frequencies of
accessing information about objects in nexus via the digital guide
M3.