AR Paintings
Project
Introduction
Augmented Reality (AR) is an interactive experience that uses digital technology to overlay visual and audio elements onto the Real world. The use of this technology can create unique interactive experiences that blend the physical and digital world. For this study we wanted to see what effects adding AR animations to paintings could have people's engagement with that artwork. The results of this study later turned into a publication.
Purpose of Study:
The purpose of this study was to explore the effect Augment Reality (AR) could have on viewing artwork. To see if adding AR animations could make the artwork more engaging than just as static painting. This study explored this concept from a museum perspective as well as a Human computer interaction (HCI) perspective.
Museum Perspective
For the museum perspective, we wanted to view the paintings as if they were a museum exhibit. A/B testing was done to compare how people viewed the paintings with and without the AR animations. To get an accurate measure how people felt we used the Museum Experience Scale (MES) as a means for comparison
Human Computer Interaction (HCI) Perspective
For the Human Computer Interaction (HCI) perspective we viewed the AR paintings as people interfacing with a piece of software. We tried to measure the overall experience of viewing the paintings with AR technology. To get an accurate measure of this experience we used the User Engagement Scale (UES).
Augmented Reality (AR)
Augmented Reality (AR) is digital technology that overlays visual and/or audio elements over physical space to give the illusion that the digital elements are in the real world. This technology can be used to create a "mixed" or enhanced reality that blends the digital and physical worlds.
Using AR to show a digital object in the real world
For this project the program Artivive was used to create the AR experience. A few simple stop motion animations were created based on the ideas and Artwork of Ron Throop. These animations would play when using Artivive to scanning the paintings. These animations would give more context and life to the paintings. Artivive could also be used to read a small description about the paintings.
Using Artivive to create the Augmented Reality elements
Museum
Perspective
Museum Perspective
To study this from a museum perspective an A/B method was used; one group would view the paintings with the Augmented Reality animations while the other would just view the paintings normally. After each group viewed the paintings they would answer the museum experience scale (MES) to measure their experience of viewing the paintings. The scores were then compared to see if the AR was a positive or negative.
Museum Experience Scale (MES)
The Museum Experience Scale (MES) is a questionnaire design to measure the overall experience of viewing a museum exhibit. The scale is divided into 4 categories: Engagement, Knowledge/Learning, Meaningful experience, and Emotional Connection. Each category is measured on a 1 - 5 scale with 5 being the highest.
Group A
This group would view the paintings with the AR animations.
First participants would be given instructions on how to download Artivive the AR app used for this project.
Next participants would be given a short tutorial on using the AR app
After completing the tutorial participants were asked to view each painting using Artivive to see the AR additions for each painting.
Group B
This group would view the paintings without the AR animations.
Participants were told to observe each painting for minimum amount of time before moving onto the next one.
After observing all the painting, they would complete the MES to measure their experience
After viewing all of the artwork each participant would then complete the MES to measure their experience.
MES Results
For the MES we compared the scores from group A (the group that saw the paintings with the AR animations) to the scores of group B (the group that saw the static paintings without the AR). In every category group A scored higher than group B; there was also a significant difference in all categories except for Meaningful experience.
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From these results we can tell that the Augment Reality elements had a positive effect on viewing the Artwork. Adding AR to the paintings seems to enhance the overall viewing experience. For the Meaningful experience category Group A scored higher but there wasn't a significant difference; From this we could potentially derive that the Meaningfulness of the experience comes mostly from the Artwork and not the AR additions or that the AR was not strong enough to cause a strong enough effect.
HCI
Perspective
Human Computer Interaction (HCI) Perspective
To study this from an HCI perspective we had all participants view the paintings using the AR app Artivive. After observing all the paintings with the AR animations participants would answer the User Engagement Scale (UES) to rate their experience of observing the artwork and using the Artivive app.
User Engagement Scale (UES)
The User Engagement Scale (UES) is a questionnaire design to measure the overall experience of interacting with a piece of software. The scale is divided into the 4 categories: Focused Attention, Perceived Usability, Aesthetic Appeal, and Reward. Each category is rated on a 1 - 5 scale with 5 being the highest score. The scores of each category are averaged together to determined the Engagement/Overall score.
Results
The User engagement scale (UES) is a survey containing 30 questions. Each question is on a Likert scale of 1 - 5 asking subjects how much they agree with the statement presented. With 1 being strongly disagree, 3 being neutral, and 5 being strongly agree. All the questions in a category were averaged together to get a score for said category. Averaging the score of each category was used to calculate an overall / engagement score.
The scores for each category are positive showing good results. They suggest that viewing the paintings with AR was able to create an engaging experience. However there is still room for improvement and fine tuning.
Conclusion
This project was able to explore it's main question of if adding Augmented Reality animations could make viewing artwork a more engaging experience. It found evidence to suggest that the AR enhanced the overall experience and was a positive influence. This study still have limitations such as a small demographic group of mostly mid 20 somethings that are very comfortable using technology; and also using limited amount of Art from a very specific style. The results from this study do provide compelling answers but there is still more to explore on this topic.
The results from this study were later published in the Journal of Arts & Humanities. The full study can be seen below. I liked to thank Damian Schofield and Ronald Throop for their help on this project.
