Business Process Management Journal

Managing adaptive orientation systems for museum visitors from an IoT perspective
Ludovico Solima Maria Rosaria Della Peruta Vincenzo Maggioni
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To cite this document:
Ludovico Solima Maria Rosaria Della Peruta Vincenzo Maggioni , (2016),"Managing adaptive orientation systems for
museum visitors from an IoT perspective", Business Process Management Journal, Vol. 22 Iss 2 pp. -
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/BPMJ-08-2015-0115
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 Managing adaptive orientation systems for museum visitors from an
IoT perspective

1. INTRODUCTION

In recent years there has been a rapid increase in the variety and quantity of information accessible
through the internet (Weber & Weber 2010).
This growth is mainly due to two factors: the progress in the field of network communication and
mobile (and wearable) devices that allow people to be “always on”, and the evolution of social
networking and collaborative tools (Kahr-Højland 2010; Falkow 2011; Roman et al. 2013).
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New technologies and network models are working together to provide the physical world with
features of accessibility, interconnection and ultimately of intelligence (the Internet of Things -
IoT). Over the next few years, this will lead to a single digital experience.
The promises inherent to the IoT can be structured through a set of arguments.
As a first line of reasoning, in an evolutionary situation, organizations need to take into account the
fact that human behaviour is irregular and unpredictable, and so is the management power that can
decouple growth from rigidity and so improve, in terms of efficiency, the way knowledge resources
are used, leading, eventually, to the detailed understanding of user choices and behaviour
(Trequattrini et al. 2012 a; Trequattrini et al. 2014; Trequattrini et al. 2012b; Del Giudice &
Maggioni, 2014; Campanella et al. 2013a; Campanella et al. 2013b; Maggioni & Del Giudice 2011;
Soto-Acosta et al. 2015; Palacios-Marqués et al., 2015a; Palacios-Marqués et al. 2015b; Soto-
Acosta et al., 2010).
The IoT environment, therefore, implies that we can access large amounts of data which inform us
about the conditions and situations (i.e. combination of customer profiles, marketing messages,
delivery methods, etc.) that have resulted in a successful marketing outcome.
Software applications make “sustainable growth” possible, by optimizing the many sets of observed
data and protecting organizations from problems of inertia as they arise (Sen et al. 2014; Swan,
2012).
In order to model human behaviour in a variety of applications, the basic opportunity offered by the
IoT is to use technology to match user profiles with the types of recommendations that they are
likely to be responsive to.
According to the perspective of our research, recommender systems are a mainstream solution for
continuing to extend the range of market initiatives, opening up new pathways of competitiveness
 and consumption, which, in turn, can be filled with new, and constantly upgraded, products and
services.
In this overall framework, the IoT in general, and recommender systems in particular, play a
significant role, by addressing the lines of argument in cultural contexts such as museums
(European Commission & Eposs 2008; European Commission 2013; Fleisch, 2010; Gartner, 2013;
Glasser et al. 2007; Guo et al. 2012; Heller Baird & Parasnis, 2011; Höller et al. 2014; ITU 2005,
Solima, 2014).
Museums then (continue to) face the paradox of sustaining steady diversity in cultural consumption
within a closed, finite and definite system, with limited stock and resilience. However, museums
could improve their efficiency greatly in terms of their use of resources, by allowing the IoT- and
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more specifically IoT based recommender systems - to manage their visitor’s complex relationship
with the objects exposed and with the knowledge system belonging to museum scientific staff.
The implicit assumption here is that this complexity can be decomposed and translated into
structured digital information, using technological methods to enhance, monitor and process visitor
behaviour.
Museums can, apparently, not only optimize their cultural production system and services, but also
their decision-making processes (Hooper-Greenhill, 1992 and 1994; Chan, 2009; Solima 2014).
Accordingly, in this paper, we have examined the problems that museums face in determining what
knowledge is suitable for dissemination purposes, looking at how this process presents itself and
how it can be supported by information and digital resources, when existing knowledge about the
process is distributed across a wide number of objects, like the ones which represent a museum’s
permanent collection (Chia et al. 2014).
By using IoT applications capable of monitoring and analyzing the visiting processes taking place
in a museum, in this research, the aim is to address the issue of recommendation systems which can
be developed to offer advanced information services to visitors.
The process of implementing a recommender system can provide the outline of the main
implications and effects of advanced, market-driven digital orientation, as museum visitors are the
starting point for innovation and the creation of value.
The research method employs a qualitative exploratory multi-case study: the method used has
consisted in crossing the information currently known on the most advanced communication
technologies (ICT) with the requirements of enhancing museum services, in order to determine the
possible trajectories of applying the former to the latter.
Following an inquiry into the museum context, the conclusion of the analysis is that the IoT can be
considered as a decisive step in the transition from a museum-centric knowledge system to a user-
 centric knowledge system (Solima, 2015). Sustainable development is, now more than ever, an
intrinsic part of how to use digital knowledge management to balance vast and diverse quantities of
data with customer needs.

2. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

2.1 General aspects of the Internet of Things.

Digital traces of our daily activities left on the web, smart-phones or other devices such as ATMs,
are the new microscope for measuring the global and interconnected society of today. The volume
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of data available on individuals and their consumer choices is set to grow exponentially, in line with
the success of the IoT. With this term, we refer to an environment where (digital) communication
no longer takes place between single objects and people, as is the case now (Waardenburg &
Hekmon 2012). Communication will instead take place between a growing number of objects, with
sensors and network access, which can connect to each other and exchange information. These data
are then returned to the user, in an immediately understandable way (Atzori et al., 2014; Höller et
al., 2014).

Objects, given the means to identify themselves to each other, communicate about themselves and
retrieve data from other objects – regardless of their owners’ intentions – potentially becoming
“smart objects”, that is, with their own intelligence, in the measure in which it is possible to
determine beforehand their behaviour in function of the data they generate and receive from the
external environment (Jara et al., 2014a). The field of application for the IoT are virtually limitless.
We expect its use to spread throughout homes (smart house), in production units (smart firm) and in
cities (smart cities), within energy distribution networks (smart grid) and so on.

For companies, this means that they will be able to use their resources more productively, obtaining
greater effectiveness and efficiency in terms of corporate performance. More in general, the
innovation process will benefit greatly from the diffusion of the IoT and is it to be expected that,
over the next years, there will be a constant flow of new products and services with new functions,
which we can only imagine today (Kelly, 2010; Li et al. 2012; Martin-Brualla et al. 2014).

For users, the IoT will determine a significant change in the social and economical landscape, with
benefits linked to the new products and services made available to them, although issues concerning
privacy and the safety of personal data will have to be weighed very carefully (Weber, 2010).
 Big data emerged as a new tool to speed up knowledge and improve the quality of our decisions as
individuals, institutions and enterprises. “What can be observed is that the limiting factor in big
data analytics is the amount of time and effort that the user can invest in the sense-making process”
(Friesen et al. 2014 pag.89).

The diffusion of IT technology and the growth of digital information offer users the possibility of
employing digital resources as tools to be used in any situation and in any occasion (Gubbi et al.
2013). It has led to personal devices (whether wearable or not), to tools helping users in all and
every aspect of their life. This makes the problem of managing and organizing this mass of
information a clear priority in terms of finding new solutions that can improve user experience
(Durgasreenivas et al. 2014; Falkow 2001; Ijaz et al. 2013; Jara et al. 2014b; Martínez-Sanz 2012;
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Mincolelli et al. 2014; Proctor, 2011).

Bits and bytes become predictive knowledge (through suitable algorithms, it is now possible to
deduce useful information for making future decisions) but, on the other side of the coin, tracing
every operation generates a mass of surplus information and there is the real risk of being unable of
isolating the correct information on which to concentrate and of getting bogged down in useless or
incoherent details.

In order to improve the users’ experience, it is first necessary to gain a detailed understanding of
their choices and this involves identifying the mechanisms that allow information to be filtered in a
way that adapts to the user. In general, any system is defined as adaptable (Dooley, 1996) if it has a
certain dynamic association and is able to modify its behaviour on the basis of changes to its
environment and can, therefore, adapt to the changed conditions.

Think, for example, about human beings. They, by their very nature, are able to adapt to changes in
the environment in which they live and the context in which they operate. Human beings are,
therefore, systems that can learn and, as a consequence, can change their behaviour. In a strictly
information context, an adaptive system is an application that can learn on the basis of received
input and to change its output so that it can adapt to changes in the environment.

The environments where adaptive systems can be used are many, in research and in commercial
fields. They include what are known as Recommender Systems (RS) (Resnick & Varian, 1997;
Adomavicius & Tuzhilin, 2005; Herlocker et al. 2004; Koren et al. 2009; Burke, 2002; Ricci et al.
2011).These are systems that try to reduce the number of possible options the users can choose
from, suggesting only resources or material most closely linked to the preferences explicitly
expressed by the users and (implicitly) by their observed behaviour.
 During the recommendation process, there are typically three steps involved in constructing a
recommendation. 1. Acquiring user preferences; 2. Elaborating a recommendation using special
techniques; 3. Presenting the recommendations to the user.

Many different parameters may, however, come into play when defining the recommendation, such
as the type of suggestion proposed, the method in which a suggestion is presented and how it is
generated.

The suggestions can also be guided by commercial objectives, favouring certain proposals or, more
simply, being more profitable for the organization promoting them.

In the context of reference, that of museums, visitors will find themselves in a situation of
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information asymmetry, which can often hinder them from making an informed choice about what
to view and, therefore, how to set about organizing their visit. This can also be aggravated by a
general lack of time and because, even in inform learning situations like museums, the visitor’s
attention tends to drop over time if there is no continuous stimulation. All this has a negative impact
not only on the enjoyment of the visit, but also on the effectiveness of the educational aspect of
museums, which, arguably, is one of the reasons for their very existence.

2.2 IoT, museums and visitors: towards a better and more enjoyable experience

An increasingly import factor within the context of museum management literature is the analysis
of certain aspects that relate to museum visitors and, more precisely, their behaviour during their
visit (Hooper-Greenhill, 1992 and 1994). This growing interest can be traced to the shift in strategic
perspective that has concerned a great number of museums worldwide. Until recently, the fulcrum
of the decisions taken by a museum’s scientific staff was the nearly exclusive concern of studying
and protecting their collections, while nowadays the focus is increasingly on the public and their
experience of a museum visit (Chan, 2009; Solima 2014). At international level, studies on the
museum-visiting public have evolved deeply over the years, going from merely analyzing the
demand, for conspicuously didactic purposes, to becoming a genuine support to the museum’s
strategic planning and subsequent management activity (Bradford, 1994; McLean, 1995; Tobelem,
1997; Kotler and Kotler, 2000; Gilmore and Rentschler, 2002).

The behaviour of a visitor within a museum is determined, according to Davey (2005), by three
variables: the visitor’s personal features, structural-type factors and a combination of both. Several
personal features, like age and gender (Diamond, 1994; Imamoğlu and Yılmazsoy, 2010) and
 nationality (Goulding, 2000), not only affect the decision-making processes involved in the
“purchase”, but also how the visit is actually conducted, combining to determine, for example, the
level of physical effort required during the time spent within the museum halls. A factor that should
never be underestimated is that, first and foremost, visiting a museum does not simply involve
moving continuously around the exhibition space, but also standing for long periods of time,
especially when - as is often the case - there are few sitting areas planned along the exhibition route.

Jeong and Lee (2006), on the basis of research carried out on thirty South Korean museums,
verified that there is a correlation between the physical properties of the museum – making a
distinction between the exhibition context, the surrounding environment and the size of the area -
and the level of satisfaction gained from the experience. They highlighted, among other things, that
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the size of the exhibition space is relatively insignificant in terms of assessing a visit, but has a high
impact on the visitors’ physical and mental tiredness, since their mental fatigue must also be
brought into the equation. This is determined by the intellectual effort that every visitor makes
during a visit, and is connected to a whole series of factors, such as the person’s level of education
and previous experience of other cultural areas or of the museum itself. The ability to remember and
elaborate information varies substantially from person to person and is never infinite, especially
when considering that an individual’s intellectual resources tend to decrease in function of the time
and effort sustained (Bitgood, 2009).

The combined result of these two different aspects is extremely important when trying to
understand the museum’s visitors, given that physical and mental effort have both an impact on
people’s actual behaviour and their level of enjoyment during their experience. It also affects the
learning process triggered in each person, in terms of understanding and remembering the
information channelled through the museum information system.

Visiting a museum implies that visitors follow a decision-making process, by first selecting a
museum visit from among a number of options on how to spend their free time extra-moenia, that
is, outside their domestic walls. Having identified the museum as the place deputized to satisfy their
interests (recreational, socializing, learning, etc.), users must choose a specific museum, and so
incur in implicit costs that are linked to the time spent in searching for useful information to help
them make their choice. Once the actual structure is identified, which can also depend on the
services available, the user must face logistic matters, connected to choosing the best solution for
actually getting there. This set of options represents the portion of decisions that are carried out in
advance, before actually making the visit, as this starts when the visitor enters the museum area.
 On entering the museum, the visitor will have to make a further series of choices linked, very
briefly, to where to go - whether to visit the whole museum or only parts - and what to see. This
need becomes all the more clear when considering that a museum visit normally only lasts a couple
of hours and that this short period of time strongly restricts the number of objects that can be
viewed, which inevitably are only a small fraction of those exhibited (Diamond, 1994; Imamoğlu
and Yılmazsoy, 2010; Goulding, 2000).

It should be pointed out, however, that visitors are in a situation of substantial information
asymmetry, as, in general, they do not have the knowledge necessary to make a well-informed
choice about which sections of the museum will interest them most and which, among all the
objects and works of art on show, reflect their desire of knowledge most closely. For this reason,
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visitors, in general, will rely on the indications prepared by the museum scientific staff, who often
propose different itineraries on the basis of distinct parameters that, in turn, can relate to features
belonging to the visitor and the visit (level of scholarship, specific interests, available time, social
aspects) or to the collections, and so based on various thematic arrangements (period, techniques,
subjects, etc. or the importance of the objects exhibited).

In order to improve the quality of a persons’ visit and, therefore, their experience, museum
scientific staff will intervene to “reduce complexity” - where the complexity consists of the vast
number of objects in the collections kept in the museum - and guide the visitors’ choices, thereby
simplifying their process of deciding which works they want to dwell on during the time spent in
the museum. While this type of approach has the advantage of providing a logical framework of
reference for the visit, on the other hand, the recommended itinerary can generate dissatisfaction in
the visitor, such as the feeling of being regimented, and consequently, the perception of being less
free to explore museum as they please (Klein, 1993). Furthermore, their dissatisfaction may also
depend on the fact that the itinerary proposed by the museum’s scientific staff only reflects in part
their own preferences.

Despite this, it is normal for museums to provide visitors with various types of information support,
including to help them find their way around the museum, either by placing appropriate signs or by
handing out free plans and leaflets at the entrance, so that visitors can work out where they are in
relation to the collections and where these are located within the museum, and also how to reach the
objects they have chosen to see (or, more precisely, those chosen by the museum scientific staff)
(Bradford, 1994; McLean, 1995; Tobelem, 1997; Kotler and Kotler, 2000; Gilmore and Rentschler,
2002).
 When used, this information is, therefore, extremely important, since it guides the visitors’ actual
behaviour. In addition, it is one of the main expressions of a museum’s intangible capital, and
specifically, the set of knowledge of which their scientific staff have custodianship. The fact of
identifying an itinerary implies that an individual is able to interpret the objects belonging to the
museum’s collections within a wider picture with all the logical relationships that emerge between
the many objects, where reciprocal links become clear - and therefore understood - even in the eyes
of the visitor. By implementing a visit itinerary, museum scientific staff will put visitors in the
condition of looking at reality through their own eyes, and they will be guided in their (rational)
discovery of groups of works and objects, since, otherwise, there would be the risk that, to visitors,
they would merely seem to have in common the fact of being placed together in the same exhibition
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space.

Moreover, the need for orientation determined during a museum visit is not dissimilar to that found
in big commercial centres or very large “social” places like airports, where people often have
difficulty in finding their way or knowing where to go to get to where they want to be. In a
museum, orientation issues and the choice of which works to view is even more delicate, since, if
the information available is not organized properly or is not clearly intelligible, a visitor may
become anxious. This, in turn, may determine an impromptu type of behaviour, leading to, in the
words of Goulding (2000, p. 271) – a “blind exploration” of the museum. There is also the very real
risk that a visitor may add to this sense of “physical” disorientation that of cognitive bewilderment,
which can have a severe impact on the entire experience and, therefore, on their approach to future
cultural consumption. A museum visit that generates a negative reaction in the visitors can
condition their behaviour regarding their next cultural choices, so that, potentially, in the future the
visitor will not only avoid that specific museum, but all museums and other cultural organizations,
excluding them from the range of possible options when considering how to spend their free time.

Increase in levels of satisfaction regarding a museum visiting experience will, therefore, have
considerable implications in terms of how it markets its services (Hume, 2011). This can involve,
for example, working on the visitors’ loyalty and, therefore, on their tendency to visit the museum
again in the future, or the possible positive/negative repercussions in promotional terms connected
to the users sharing their (favourable/unfavourable) opinions on social medial with express
reference to their own visit.

It should also be pointed out that museums are unlikely to know whether their planned itineraries
are actually - and to what degree - followed (and appreciated) by the visitor. To understand this, the
museum must implement timing and tracking research systems, with the end purpose of analyzing
 visitor behaviour, observing where they go, when they stop to rest, the time they spend in proximity
to specific works and the routes they follow (Yalowitz and Bronnenkant, 2009; Serrell, 1998).
Generally, these analyses are carried out using researchers who pick out visitors at the museum
entrance and follow them during their visit, noting all the required information on a plan of the
museum halls with the location of the works. Sometimes, in part because of the costs involved, this
survey is carried out using audio-video devices (vom Lehn, 2006). These analyses, together with
descriptive surveys that concentrate on the visitors’ social-demographic profile, come under the
category of behavioural studies on museum demand. According to Kawashima (1998), the main
fields of analysis on museum visitors refer to the market (current and potential demand), the
purchasing process (reason for the visit), the actual experience (behaviour during the visit) and the
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post-purchase phase (learning).

The importance of implementing a suitable museum orientation system is also linked to the fact that
the opinion expressed by visitors at the end of their visit is, understandably, the result of the
combined evaluation of a number of aspects, each contributing to the general picture, which will be
more or less favourable on the basis of the single assessments made of all the individual aspects that
make up the overall experience. For visitors, the important factors are not only the aesthetic or
cultural-historical value of the objects and works on show, but also how they can obtain suitable
indications to move easily within the museum spaces, how they can access the desired information
on what they are viewing, and also whether there are rest and refreshment areas, toilets or shops
where they can purchase publications or gadgets of various kinds.

What the museum offers to its visitors is, therefore, a complex service, composed of a number of
segments belonging to the offer system, some of which (typically refreshment services and
merchandising) are often outside the museum’s own sphere of control; so, there is clearly the risk of
misalignment between the - commercial - choices made by the private companies managing these
services and the educational approach of the museum. A greater understanding of what forms a visit
experience can support the choices made by the museum staff in relation to the factors, under their
control, that can have a positive effect on the quality of the service offered (quality of performance)
and, as a consequence, on the user’s satisfaction (quality of experience).

This issue appears even more relevant considering that, as has been recognized for some time, one
must not talk generically and indifferently about museum public, but rather of publics, that is,
groups of individuals who are tendentially homogeneous for factors such as the reason for the visit,
need for information, etc. This aspect is also important when looking at the information made
available to museum visitors, which should not be prepared - as often happens - following a
 standard approach to communication and imagining that visitors can all be addressed in the same
way, but rather providing information on the basis of their visiting behaviours.

Given the above analysis, we advance the following propositions:

a) a museum visit normally last several hours, but this time is, naturally, insufficient to view all the
exposed objects that belong to the museum’s permanent collection; therefore visitors must chose
which ones to see;

b) museum visitors normally find themselves in a condition of information asymmetry and, on the
basis of the information available, are not able to select on their own which works would interest
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them most;

c) visitors, who are subject to information asymmetry, will often rely on the information provided
by the museum, in the shape of suggested itineraries; these are a standard sequence of works
considered to be suited on average to specific types of visitor (for example, families or students).
Not all museums offer even this type of help;

d) it is reasonable to imagine that, if the museum was capable of proposing more highly
personalised itineraries, visitors would enjoy their visit considerably more;

e) a highly personalized museum visit can be achieved if the visitor can use a adaptive orientation
system that takes their preferences into account, expressed (implicitly) by their behaviour and
movements during their visit;

g) a system of this kind – which can be achieved within an IoT-type context – must, however, be
able not only to trace the movement of every visitor within the museum, but also of identifying the
works that attract their attention most and must be able to adapt the proposed itinerary immediately.

The following figure (FIG. 1) shows the logical process which start from visitors need related to a
museum visit and end with the implementation of a adaptive orientation system.

INSERT FIG. 1 HERE

 3. Methodology

The article reports an exploratory multiple case study in order to better understanding about these
issues (Eisenhardt & Graebner, 2007). In general, the case study research method is suitable when
the form of the research question is “how”, there is no need of control on events and the analysis is
on contemporary events (Yin 2009). In particular, the method of exploratory case study is useful
when preliminary propositions and hypotheses are absent (Mills, Durepos, and Wiebe, 2010).

The sample was composed specifically of museums that use technology extensively; data collection
consisted of information from 1) museum websites and web pages; 2) interviews with museum
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experts and institutional partners and 3) communication reports and guidelines.

The use of museum apps has noticeably grown over the past few years. Not just the large museums,
but many smaller institutions have been developing applications for mobile devices (smart phones
and/or tablets) hoping to improve the experience of their visitors and so increase their level of
satisfaction.

In general, most of these apps are based on providing museum visitors with additional material on
top of the information which they can access through traditional museum means, either by going
into greater depth (more detailed and complex written matter) or because not otherwise available
(audio and video clips, for example). Beyond giving visitors this further information, apps can also
be used to carry out a number of other functions, linked in some cases to sensors (such as beacons
or RFId tags).

In order to present a more complete picture of the various possible solutions, twelve large or
medium-small sized museums from countries across the world were analyzed in terms of the type
of services being offered through their apps. As we have already mentioned, the choice fell on
institutions that do not simply provide additional and complementary information – as is the case
of the Vatican Museums or the National Gallery of London, which have been excluded from the
analysis for this reason, notwithstanding the great number of visitors they attract. The museums
selected have, instead, recognized the need for, and so offer, advanced digital services in the belief
that this can add an extra something to the experience.

App content was analysed for the following museums: American Museum of Natural History
(USA), Brooklyn Museum (USA), Cleveland Museum of Art (USA), Louvre (France), MET (USA),
MOMA (USA), National Palace Museum (Japan), National Slate Museum (UK), Natural History
Museum (UK), Neon Muzeum (Poland), Philips Museum (Netherlands) and Rubenshuis/Rubens
House (Belgium) (Table 1).
 INSERT TABLE 1 HERE

As shown in the summary table, there are various places and stages at which the advanced visit
support material can be offered. The first distinction is between information given within the
museum setting – most of it – and information provided outside the museum. This latter case is
illustrated by the Metropolitan Museum of New York, which has placed sensors near its entrance to
send alerts to everyone close by who has signed up to the “Place Tips” function on Facebook.

Looking at what takes place within the museum, there are three different stages:

a) before visiting, some museums – such as the National Slate Museum in Wales – ask their
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visitors to specify their choice of media (written, video, audio), to avoid sending them
information in an undesired format.

b) while visiting, most services are active, as would be expected. Apart from providing
additional information, in line with the generality of museums, one of the most extensively
used functions is to help people find their way around, and this is achieved using interactive
maps (the National History Museum) or actual navigation systems based on where a visitor
is physically within the museum (for example, the American Museum of Natural History,
the Louvre, the National Palace Museum and MOMA). Sometimes, these can include
itineraries, indicating the direction to take on a (digital) map of the museum. In some cases,
the app can include a recommendation system (the MET, the Cleveland Museum of Art),
indicating exhibits – chosen by the museum staff - that may be of interest to the visitor. In
some museums (such as the MET and the National Slade Museum) visitors can be alerted
when they pass close to an item with links to additional information. In other cases (of
particular interest here are the Philips Museum and the Rubenshuis), the app includes
games, which are seen as particularly useful to keep their visitors’ attention, especially that
of the younger set. Sometimes, as is the case of the Brooklyn Museum, localization is used
to assist interaction between visitor and museum staff, with visitors asking for information
through their own devices. Bookmarking is a common feature used to keep track of exhibits
that the visitor enjoyed most (the Cleveland Museum of Art, the MET, MOMA), or to talk
about them on the most popular social media platforms (the American Museum of Natural
History, the National Palace Museum and others). In one single case (the Cleveland
Museum of Art), the museum uses the app as a medium for virtual reality or augmented
reality material.

c) after visiting, some museums – and this is the case of the National Slate Museum – use the
app to ask their visitors to comment about their experience and make a donation through
their PayPal account to support the museum’s work.
 4. Results and Discussion

On the basis of the data gathered, it is possible to observe that, in most cases, museums try and
resolve issues most often highlighted by their visitors. These can include requests for further
information about the exhibits and telling visitors where they are or where to go to access museum
services. Only in a few cases have museums really tried to address the problem of their visitors’ lack
of knowledge asymmetry, by suggesting itineraries or activating simple recommendation services,
based upon suggestions given by the museum’s scientific staff. By bringing the IoT into the
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equation, the approach could be addressed from a totally different angle.

The impending affirmation of the IoT was highlighted in the initial part of this work: it is linked to
the progressive diffusion of smart objects that can acquire information about their status and the
external environment, and exchange data and information through a network of other objects and
the individuals who use them. Given the great variety of application contexts in which the IoT is
expected to spread, it seems reasonable to question whether museums will also become smart
environments, since they are, themselves, peopled by smart objects.

Non-adaptive, evolved information systems have been analyzed in current literature. These propose
the same approach as a solution to a given problem even for a past experience. In an adaptive
system, the choice of content or material is not static but is generated or assembled in an adaptive
way. Data about user behaviour is used (through recommender systems) in adaptive systems to
offer potential variations (to the relationship between objects) so that suggestions are more flexible
and can adapt to the user’s need for information and learning, so maximizing their satisfaction
(FIG2).

INSERT FIG. 2 HERE

The museum sector provides an ideal example of how informal learning environments need to adapt
constantly to their visitors interests.

In our work, our aim is to examine how museums build and use a model of objectives, preferences
and knowledge that is specific to each user (a user-centred model), who will receive a set of the
most relevant connections among the objects in the museum’s permanent collection to extend their
learning process. The use of adaptive support technology can help visitors to find the itinerary that
is best for them. At the same time, an adaptive support is less directive and more “cooperative” than
 a traditional itinerary. It can guide visitors when they make choices, showing them what tiny bit of
information they should learn next and what the next problem to resolve is. In this way, museums
are creating new developments in the field of artificial intelligence linked to the learning process.

A privileged area of application for the IoT in a museum context is that of promoting the artworks.
If smart objects are used within a museum, it will be possible - among other things - to prepare an
adaptive orientation system for the people visiting the museum, which would look at the visitors’
previously defined features and also, and above all, their behaviour during the visit. One of the
limits of current museum solutions is linked to the fact that, while it is possible to come up with a
whole number of different itineraries, it is also the case that the works selected by the museum
scientific staff may only in part reflect the visitors’ choices. This problem is typical in an approach
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where the offer is not differentiated, and it works best when the demand segment it addresses is
limited. It is also, however, necessary to balance the increasing tendency of providing even greater
customization of the museum offer with the relative implementation costs.

In a museum, offer differentiation can be achieved through the IoT by customizing the itinerary so
that it takes into account - as mentioned - not only and not merely the visitor “type” profile, but also
the preferences that visitors express during their experience, and the choices made previously by
other visitors. Any artwork that attracts a visitor’s attention for any significant length of time can be
interpreted, in other words, as the expression of the act of acquiring a specific “product”. Following
this logic, an evolved system of recommendations can be developed to advice visitors about other
works they may want to see.

Think, for example, of a scene in which a museum acquires an adaptive orientation system that can
help people during their visit - and significantly improve how they then assess the collections - by
preparing an itinerary and, specifically, a route determined through a sequence of objects (works,
artefacts and discoveries, furniture, rooms, etc.) identified on the basis of the wealth of knowledge
available in the museum and under the guardianship of its scientific staff. A system of this type also
implies that each object in the museum has a sensor linked to a communication system (for
example, a RFID tag) that can perceive any variation to the context of reference and, in the specific
case, the close proximity of an individual.

It can be assumed, therefore, that a person enters the museum equipped with a mobile device with
an app containing the adaptive orientation system downloaded previously, and this app can propose
an itinerary elaborated on the basis of the knowledge in possession of the museum’s scientific staff
and possibly personalized according to the visitors social and demographic features.
 Now, it can happen that the visitor’s actual behaviour in the museum will differ substantially from
that proposed by the system, for example, in terms of the time spent viewing each individual piece
of art, or the actual works viewed, which may not even coincide with what the adaptive orientation
system proposes. In reality, a visitor may easily dwell upon a particular work that was not included
in the original itinerary. In these circumstances, this determines potential variations to the itinerary
proposed by the adaptive orientation system, be it because the total time left for the visit has
changed, be it because the system recognizes that the visitor is interested in an object that had not
been included in the itinerary. In both cases, the adaptive orientation system would re-elaborate the
contents of the itinerary.

Similarly to what happens during a guided visit, when visitors clearly express an interest in
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information about works not included in the standard tour, an evolved adaptive orientation system
has “adaptation” features, and is capable of altering the itinerary proposed in real time, on the basis
of the user’s behaviour (Tanenbaum et al., 2014; Not, Petrelli, 2014).

Consider an environment dominated by the IoT (Vermesan, Friess, 2014), in which each device
activated by the visitors is linked to the internet and is able to transmit to a cloud-based database, in
a totally anonymous manner, the behaviour of each individual, and, by analyzing all this, the system
can identify the “experiential” relations that exist between the various works exhibited. This makes
it possible to determine a further set of links between the museum objects, far more extensive than
the one that museum scientific staff are able to identify. This new set is replenished in real-time by
museum visitors and - for that matter - potentially by other museums.

In this setting, alongside the knowledge in possession of the museum scientific staff and regularly
embedded statically within the orientation system, is the visitors’ “experiential” knowledge,
generated dynamically by analyzing all their different patterns of behaviour taking place during
their visit (FIG. 3).

INSERT Fig. 3 HERE

This knowledge is extraordinarily important, since it cannot be replicated in any other way and is
the result of the enormous amount of detailed data gathered (in describing the IoT, as previously
mentioned, one talks about “big data”), involving all the many “points of view” belonging to each
and every visitor, which no museum staff could possibly reproduce.

When such aggregated behaviour-type data is available, it is possible – similarly to the timeline of
the purchases made by users through an advanced e-commerce site (like Amazon, the precursor in
 the development of on-line "recommendations”) – to extrapolate extremely significant correlations
between the various objects that constitute the museum collections. This is used as the basis for
proposing solutions connected to visiting the museum that are not simply linked to the behaviour of
each individual visitor (with their own personal choices), but are based on the synthesis of the
choices made by a great number of people, each of “equal rank”, the normal museum visitors who
do not have - as is normally the case - any specialist expertise.

So, a museum populated by smart objects becomes, itself, smart, because it can elaborate its
knowledge system in function of the “implicit” requests formulated by each visitor. The idea, in
other words, is that the objects themselves become protagonists in generating information inserted
into the network, which points to progress beyond the current model linked to User-Generated
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Content (UGC) and prefigures the affirmation of a new model, which elsewhere has been defined as
Object-Generated Content (Solima et al., 2015)

The level of sophistication of an adaptive orientation system, such as the one described, is a
function of the quantity of available information. Potentially, there are five kinds of such
information:

• information supplied spontaneously by the user, possibly during the process of initializing
the system; in this respect, the information gathered is generally of a social-demographic
type (age, gender, nationality, profession or main interests), or indicates, for example, the
visitor’s preferences concerning the type of material expected (text, audio, video) or their
available time for the visit;

• information supplied implicitly by visitors stopping alongside each objects that attracts their
attention; therefore, through their visiting behaviour;

• further knowledge acquired by each visitor, in function of whether they also owns other
intelligent objects, such as wearable devices (smart-watches, smart glasses, smart bands,
etc.) or, in an IoT context, clothes equipped with smart-tags, which can be used to gather
further information. It should be noted that, in this case, there are a number of problems
linked to personal privacy and, not surprisingly, for the IoT, this is a major controversial
issue (Roman et al., 2013);

• information concerning where visitors are located at any given time within the museum
space, which can highlight possible situations of congestion in a hall or near a specific and
particularly valuable object (as happens often for “superstar” museums or during major
 exhibitions), which can induce the system to suggest alternative routes and, therefore,
maximize the quality of the visitor’s experience;

• the database composed of information collected along visit paths, from museum visitors and
returned under the form of a set of “experiential” connections between the objects contained
in the museum.

It follows that, along this path, precious information can be gathered not only about the visitors and
their set of preferences and about the way the exhibition areas are actually used, but also on the
experiential relationships established by visitors between the various objects that constitute the
collections. By creating adaptive orientation system, the museum can dip into a further system of
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knowledge, in addition to its staff’s knowledge, and, during this process, can substantially modify
how it presents itself, as well as the way in which it is perceived by its visitors (and stake-holders)
and, in a wider sense, by the potential demand.

5. Conclusions, Limits and Criticalities

The paper has several limitations, in particular at a methodological level. Over and beyond the
analysis of literature and the direct knowledge of applications in the field, it is clear that the
research method chosen is of an inductive-predictive type. In particular, the methodology adopted
has crossed the information currently known on the most advanced communication technologies
(ICT) with the requirements of enhancing the museum sector, in order to determine the possible
trajectories of applying the former to the latter. There is no possibility of referring to concrete
evidence, since, at the moment, there is no information about tests involving adaptive orientation
systems similar to the one hypothesized in this work. This lack of study cases for reference was not
considered to be an insurmountable obstacle, because, here, the attempt was precisely to develop
the hypothesis of applying a (new) technology within a context that, at least on paper, seems to have
all the necessary features not only to implement a solution such as the one proposed, but also to
benefit from the use of this solution in a significant measure, in terms of improving the museum
decision-making process.

From the point of view of criticalities, we must consider the technical feasibility of the hypothesis
of applying the IoT to the museum sector. In this regard, it should be noted that, in broad terms, the
technology needed to develop an adaptive orientation system, such as the one described, is now
 effectively available. It would seem, therefore, that there is no technological variable as such acting
as a barrier to entry and capable of inhibiting the development and implementation of the system.

It is also true that, at the moment, it is difficult to identify the precise overall dimension of the
investment in terms of human and financial resources, since the variables are too many, as are the
available technical solutions, which can differ substantially one from another, with economic
implications that are, as a consequence, highly variable. It is also true that continuous scientific
progress and the reach of the potential interests in play have generated, over the years, a clear
evolutionary trajectory, which has led to growth in technological performance and the simultaneous
decrease in the costs to access the technology. In the presence of a trend of this type is reasonable to
expect a further decrease, over the coming years, of the costs connected to the use of these
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technological solutions.

If on the one hand it is obviously necessary to make a non-irrelevant investment in terms of human
and financial resources, on the other, the arrival of the IoT anticipates, even for museums, an
extraordinary interesting scenery, where the visitor is at the centre of scientific and management
thought. Indeed, differently from what has happened up until now, there will be a great amount of
available information on the visitor, albeit in aggregated form, and this will back the progress of a
careful and informed decision-making process, capable of “unblocking” the true potential of the
museum, allowing these institutions to carry out a primary role in developing and building a
modern society in continuous evolution.

6. Implications for practice and future research

Using various survey methods to observe how visitors behave when spending their time in a
museum is simultaneously an abstract exercise and the projection of real-life types of behaviour. It
is certainly possible to extend the various contexts in which people can be so observed and include
how they react when viewing the objects exposed and how they interact with on-site museum staff.
We can also differentiate analytically between the various groups of visitors, recording and making
use of contextual data (visit time and frequency, for example). Even when a wide range of
behaviour is observed in this way, it can only give a rough indication about the actual experience of
museum visitors. Much of what can be used to explain individual visiting behaviour can be
identified by integrating the surveys with other sources of information, looking specifically at the
various different ways in which data can be collected on site.
 Beyond these intrinsic limitations, we should also note that the observation of visitors’ behaviour in
a museum is directly related to the tendency on the part of museum scientific staff to suggest and
pre-define itineraries to be followed when visiting the museum’s exhibition halls. Although this
type of approach has the advantage of giving people the means for visiting a museum logically, for
visitors, a recommended tour of this kind can also generate a cognitive conflict, and they may feel
that they are being steered excessively, perceiving, at the same time, less freedom to explore and
make spontaneous discoveries (Klein, 1993).

In a management perspective, it should also be stressed that, with reference to its strategic and
operational decisions, a museum can benefit substantially from the information it can glean through
a visual survey. By gaining a deeper understanding of what makes up a visitor’s experience,
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scientific staff at the museum can make more informed decisions concerning the factors over which
they have control and so improve the quality of the service offered (performance-related quality)
and, as a consequence, also improve the user’s level of satisfaction (quality of the experience).

The significance of the museum visitors’ level of satisfaction can also be understood better when
we look at how the centrality of the individual is progressively gaining importance in modern
society. This can be traced, in great measure, to the evolution of the internet and the devices used to
access information available on the web. In this context, the outcome of the process to acquire a
product or service is the result of an increasingly informed choice on the part of the user, who will
have previously assessed all the aspects of the complex system in which the offer is inserted, as well
as the possible alternatives seen in the light of the opinions expressed online by other buyers. This
is also true for museums, organizations that, increasingly, have to face the erosion of their
competitive position and which must, therefore, learn to listen more, thereby acquiring a greater and
more diverse wealth of information about their public/s.

Future research must be extended to the analysis of other types of museum

(historical/archaeological and art galleries) where, because of the more extensive and more varied
objects to choose among, recommender systems are of greater use, especially as the more objects to
be connected, the greater the information asymmetry.

In the light of these considerations, we fully hope that basic research in this field will become more
systematic and be founded on sound theoretic references. Experimental studies, multi-disciplinary
theoretical frameworks and an effort to gather data using an array of different methodological
methods can all play a part in creating a trajectory striving towards progress and improvement in the
surveys used to observe the behaviour of the public when visiting museums.
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Biography

Maria Rosaria Della Peruta received her PhD in Business Administration from the University of
Naples ‘Federico II’ and performs research activity at the London Business School (Department of
Business Administration). She has more than 30 publications with mainstream journals and
publishers and he hasactive collaborations and affiliations with universities across the globe. She
serves as the Associate Editor of relevant journals like the Journal of the Knowledge Economy
(Springer) and Journal of Innovation and Entrepreneurship (Springer). Her interests deal with
knowledge management, cross cultural management, family business management and innovation
management.

Ludovico Solima is Associate Professor of Business Management an teaches Heritage Management

at the Second University of Naples; besides academic activity, he often teaches in several national
and international courses and takes part in many conferences and workshops. Since 1996, he has
been involved in theoretical studies – through the publication of books and articles – and field
 research on behalf of Public Institutions, especially in marketing and visitors behaviour issues;
recently, he has been studying the application of new technologies and accountability issues in
museum sector.

Professor Vincenzo Maggioni is Full Professor of Business Management at the Faculty of

Economics of the Second University of Naples (since 1994). In this University he served as
Director of the Management Department and of PhD Program in Entrepreneurship and Innovation,
too. He was Dean of the Faculty of Economics of the Second University of Naples since 2002 to
2010 and President (2006-2008) of the National Conference of the Deans (Economics and
Statistics). He previously taught Marketing Management at the University of Cassino, Business
Management at the "Federico II" University of Naples and Business Management and Business
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Organization at the University of Salerno.

 FIG. 1

From visitor needs to the adaptive orientation system

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FIG. 2

How to enhance visitors satisfaction through a recommender system

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Fig. 3

Visiting behaviour as "fuel" for the recommender system

Downloaded by University of Pittsburgh At 02:03 08 March 2016 (PT)

MET
Louvre

MOMA

Rubenshuis
Neon Muzeum
Philips Museum
Brooklyn Museum
Museums

National Slate Museum

Natural History Museum
National Palace Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
American Museum of Natural History
Country

JP
FR

BE
PO
GB
GB

NL
USA
USA

USA
USA
USA
alert via Facebook "Place
Tips"

visitor viewing preferences

OUT PRE-
SIDE VISIT

extra information on
exhibits
interactive map
visitor indoor location
navigation
tour
reccomendation system
VISIT

information alert
games
expert answers
exhibit bookmarking
share via social media
AR/VR solution
comment on museum
experience

donation viaPayPal
END VISIT