Designing location-based educational services for school students at cultural institutions: the case of the National Portrait Gallery of Australia

Abstract

Cultural institutions provide important benefits for society and for the visitors who come to them. Their staff need to understand how information technology can augment the visitor experience, and how to engage with their visitors to design programs that will meet visitors' expectations for greater interaction. Using an iterative, design science based approach, coupled with design thinking workshops bringing stakeholders together, we showed how location-based educational services coupled with mobile apps on handheld devices could be designed to enrich the experience for school students visiting the National Portrait Gallery of Australia.