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This paper presents the MAC App, an application designed for an italian archaeological museum in the Avellino province, the Museo Archeologico Carife.
Since the application was intended to be specifically tailored to this museum, a thorough investigation about the MAC’s history, location, holdings, assets, weaknesses, and ambitions preceded the actual design process.
All things considered, we concluded that an application would be the best fit for the museum’s needs and ambitions. The prototyped app we designed has a double function:
On the one hand, the MAC App represents a collector of information — an all-inclusive container of accessible data to get to know the museum and explore it;
On the other hand, it serves as a guide.
In fact, not only does it feature a traditional guide (containing written and audio contents), but also — and most importantly — an interactive one. The latter is organised according to three different thematic paths: by choosing one of them, the visitors will be engaged in a captivating treasure hunt guiding them through the Museum’s holdings.
The app is:
A cheap and long-term solution which solves the lack of having professional guides;
A straightforward promotional resource.
The app includes:
Information about the museum and its surroundings;
A traditional and an interactive guide.
The app leverages on meaningfulness and authenticity to create an engaging experience.
This project has been realized as the final examination project for the Digital Heritage and Multimedia course (Interaction Media Design + Museology, Museography and Virtual Environments) held by Sofia Pescarin and Simona Caraceni.
It was designed by Francesca Borriello and Laura Travaglini, currently attending the Master's Degree in Digital Humanities and Digital Knowledge, University of Bologna, a/y 2021-22.
The MAC (Museo Archeologico Carife) is a small yet fascinating archaeological museum: it aims at disseminating knowledge and new perspectives on the pre-Roman history of Baronia — the area to which Carife belongs.
Twenty years after its original conception, MAC opened to the public in 2019 as the result of the collaboration between the Municipality of Carife and the ABAP Superintendence of Salerno and Avellino, with the authorization of the General Management of Mibac.
In order to better understand the MAC, its history, vision, and organisation we got in touch with Flavio Castaldo, the museum director. Mr. Castaldo — who is a professor in literature and archaeologist — agreed to a meeting: we thus had the opportunity to interview him and gather first-hand information about the institution. What follows derives from his words and our research.
«A traveller reaching Irpinia will come across a number of hills and very narrow valleys. In such a landscape, the Ufita valley represents an exception: here, in fact, a flat landscape opens up as a wide valley surrounded by mountains. The richness of this territory lies in its valley and in the presence of the Ufita River. »
Carife is a village in Campania (Southern Italy): it lies 30 km away from its province’s capital (Avellino), in the historical and geographical area known as Baronia, whose territory stretches across the Apennine watershed line, between the upper and middle valley of the river Ufita.
After several archaeological excavation campaigns carried out in this area, a large amount of remains have been brought to light. These finds bear witness of human presence which go back to the ancient Neolithic, up to the Roman conquest of the area (III BC) and beyond (Hellenistic and Byzantine ages). Of course, the dense and continuous population has been favoured by its geographical position, by the proximity to the Ufita River and its flourishing valley.
«The Museum tells the history of Baronia between the VI and IV century BCE. The findings of the Roman villa expand this timeframe to the Roman age (II to I century BCE).»
Since then, a museum was envisioned to preserve, expose and tell the story of these and other findings: after more than twenty years, in 2019, the MAC museum finally came to life.
Today, its three rooms host the rich ceramics and precious grave goods coming from three necropolises and some Roman remains from the late Republican and early Imperial age ( an artisanal complex for the production of bricks and a Roman villa).
«All throughout the VI century BCE, Baronia was a crossroad of political and economic relations between the Tyrrhenian and the Adriatic coasts. By the end of this century the Samnite ethnos was born.»
Room I exhibits findings from the Castel Baronia Necropolis, the most ancient one (VI century BCE): these remains — including some beautiful, early local ceramics and weapons— witness the birth and development of the Samnite ethnos.
«The two necropolises found in Carife witness a moment of great economic and political power: the IV century BCE. It was then that the Saminites came in contact with the Romans: after engaging in pacific commercial relationships, the two civilizations eventually came up against each other. The resulting conflict ultimately led to the Roman conquest of the area.»
Room II houses archaeological findings from two necropolises in Carife: in particular, they were unearthed in the localities of Piano La Sala and Addolorata, after which they are named.
The necropolis of Piano la Sala was discovered on the bottom of Ufita valley, close to the river: it dates back to V BCE and consists of pit tombs.
The necropolis of Addolorata is more recent: it dates back to the IV BCE and is located in the upper Ufita valley — a dominant position overlooking the river. It mainly contained chamber tombs made of limestone slabs forming a room with a sloping roof (some of them featured an access corridor known as dromos).
The monumentality of these tombs — along with the luxurious grave goods archaeologists found inside— proves that they were aristocratic burials. In the IV century BCE Samnite people — and the tribe of Hirpini in particular— had in fact gained a sound economic and political power, dominated central-southern Italy, stood up to the colonies of Magna Graecia, and were about to meet the Romans — initially as commercial partners and later as enemies in a two-centuries-lasting war.
«Archaeological evidence testifies to the disappearance of the Hirpinian civilization: the Roman furnaces tell us about the moment in which Irpinia became Roman. »
Room III is dedicated to the excavation of an artisan complex intended for the production of bricks and ceramics, active between the late Republican age and the Imperial age (I BCE). This room is also used as an educational space, enriched by the presence of the 1:1 scale reconstruction of the chamber tomb number 7 (IV century BCE), one of the monumental burials discovered in the archaeological area of the Addolorata.
«Currently the exhibition is not sufficiently informative: it is the late outcome of an old project.»
As the reader may have figured out, findings are showcased and organised according to:
Their date.
Although all findings are deeply interconnected (geographically, historically, culturally), no internal thematic path currently links the three separate spaces and their content.
In addition, as Mr. Castaldo pointed out, no regular guides’ service is provided at the MAC:
«Visitors are currently welcomed by civil service volunteers who have been trained to discuss what is on exhibition. […] When possible, some volunteers from Carife — or myself — welcome the most attentive visitors. The Museum is looking forward to organising a professional guides’ service, for example for schools.»
«The necropolis of Addolorata is important and interesting, since no other coeval necropolis can be visited in Campania, apart from the IV-century tombs of the amphitheatre of Capua, Santa Maria Capua Vetere.»
Despite its historical relevance, bureaucratic matters make actual access to the archaeological area in Carife problematic. While the Museum is managed by the municipality of Carife, in fact, the archaeological site is under the jurisdiction of the Archaeological Superintendence. It is therefore impossible for the Museum to make any kind of intervention in the area, which is nonetheless badly maintained and not conforming to the required and desirable standards for visitors' access. However, the Museum holds the keys of the site, and opens it up for interested visitors — under the staff’s keen eye, of course. Despite being extremely close to each other (500 meters) and deeply connected, the Museum and the site belong to different and currently incompatible dimensions: «Geographical closeness does not coincide with regulatory proximity», as Mr. Castaldo puts it.
«Most of the visitors are school students: in addition, local history enthusiasts occasionally come to visit the Museum. »
Visitors are mainly students from middle and high school: the Museum management is especially concerned about the educational potential of its holdings. As we have already pointed out, in fact, part of the third room is dedicated to a tomb reproduction for learning purposes. To further enhance the educational experience at the Museum, Mr. Castaldo is looking forward to setting up a professional and specialized welcome and guides’ service for schools, despite the scarcity of financial resources.
In addition to the youngest, the museum is mainly visited by local history/archaeology enthusiasts or connoisseurs.
«The territory of Baronia is extremely rich, archaeologically speaking: currently, the museum tells about a limited chronological span, if compared to the historical relevance of the area. »
The Museum’s exhibits cover a narrow timeframe: exposed materials belong to the VI, V, and IV centuries BCE, and from the beginnings of the Roman age. Its deposit, though, stores findings from the prehistoric era, as well as much more material from the three necropolises and from a Roman Villa. Finally, the Hellenistic and Roman necropolises which have been unearthed in the surrounding area have not been studied or exhibited at all.
The University of Salerno is testing a new 3D portable scanner on some materials in the Museum. It would be possible to:
Use the obtained 3D models to reconstruct the context in which the objects were found/ to which they originally belonged (VR or AR);
Use a 3D printer to reproduce the finds, to be enjoyed by blind visitors and others.
Unfortunately, the bureaucratic and funding times are long.
Considering the archaeological richness of the territory, an archaeological walk throughout the Ufita valley and its sites has recently been organized. In this way, the visitors have not only had the opportunity to get to know the musealised findings materials, but also the sites where they were originally found. Unfortunately, no indications or signaled paths are present to guide visitors without specialized guides to address and direct them.
[^1] He was chief of the Superintendence of the provinces of Avellino, Salerno and Benevento for some years.
[^2] The locations are four: Castel Baronia (Necropolis of Serra di Marco, room one); Carife (the two necropolises of Piano la Sala and Addolorata, room two); Tierzi (locality in Carife, Roman furnaces, room three).
To have a clearer overview of all the information gathered through the interview and before proceeding with our project — still in this very early stage of our workflow — we exploited a set of tools to help us in the design process.
As a first step, we decided to work on our context by making use of ideation cards, identifying — on the basis of our interview and research — the MAC’s key audiences, its assets, and goals.
As one can see above, we identified four target users:
Researchers: i.e. scholars or connoisseurs interested in deepening their understanding of the Hirpini Samnites through an in situ investigation.
Archaeology enthusiasts: any history lover who is driven by passion and curiosity about these bygone times.
School kids: as we have seen, the MAC is mainly visited by school; the direction is indeed particularly keen on enhancing any educational activity.
Local visitors coming from the surrounding areas: they are casual customers, local history lovers or potential users.
We proceeded to identify three of the related MAC’s assets:
Exhibits;
Educational activities;
Outreach activities: these include any kind of project aimed at disseminating knowledge and understanding, such as the above-mentioned archaeological walks.
We then focused on the institutional goals Mr. Castaldo brought to our attention.
These include:
Increasing educational activities;
Increasing visitors’ number;
Using assets in new — more informative — ways.
In addition — as the ongoing Unisa digitization project demonstrates — MAC is also concerned with digitising and acquiring assets. Mr. Castaldo’s words also revealed an interest in increasing visitors’ participation and changing users’ perspective on local history — e.g. deconstructing the false premise that Samnites were no more than shepherds and warriors.
Finally, we turned to consider MAC’s paramount goal — increasing educational activities — and its related users and assets: school kids and exhibits, respectively.
To this regard we identified some motivations:
Stimulation;
Curiosity.
Both stimulation and curiosity two are in fact intended as triggers for the learning process.
Some barriers:
Poor signance: the interview highlighted that MAC’s current approach is not sufficiently informative;
Hidden: MAC is not located in a big town, but in a rural area;
Accessibility: as we have seen, one of the reasons behind the MAC’s holding 3D rendering is that of creating physical reproductions which can be handled by blind people.
Some potential capabilities:
Gaming;
Mixed reality.
And some related technologies:
Smart phones.
After outlining a general frame of our understanding of the MAC ecosystem (our context of reference), we decided to focus on its audience. As we have already highlighted, our interview enabled us to deduce who the regular and potential MAC visitors are. We thus created four personas. Our fictional characters were both intended to be representative (of different age ranges and motivations) and very peculiar: each of them has its own personality, skills, passions and needs.
The process of creating them brought interesting issues to the foreground: for example, it emerged that not everyone has the same confidence with and expertise of technology. Intentionally, we did not create personas with too strict physical difficulties since this would have needed a whole different level of approach.
Here are our personas:
Chiara, a digital-native local student in her teens;
2. Emma, a scholar in her 30s. She is looking for new perspectives on the Samnites’ culture. Being a researcher, her technological skills are above average;
3. Alfonso, a middle-aged archeology enthusiast. He’s an intermittent/casual user, someone who uses technology daily, but never becomes an expert;
4. Gennaro, a novice user in his 60s, not particularly skilled with technology.
Having clearly defined some ideas and goals, we thoroughly discussed about how to put it all together. We finally decided to implement an application prototype. A smartphone app, in fact, presents the following advantages and potentialities:
It is not excessively expensive to devise and implement;
It can work as a collector/container of the manifold aspects and matters we have by now discussed;
It can be accessed by a large segment of the population (nearly everybody owns a smartphone and has a basic understanding of its functioning).
In particular, we wanted our app to serve the following functions:
Promoting: making the MAC, its history and assets known to a larger public;
Aggregating: the app is intended as a virtual space were information, suggestions and functionalities (e.g. buy tickets) of all kinds can be put together;
Educating and entertaining: as we will see in a while, one of the main sections of the app is entirely dedicated to an interactive guide, designed as a game.
In order to implement our prototype, we needed:
A prototyping tool: we made use of Figma, a collaborative online-based editor, for creating graphic contents (e.g. the conceptual maps, the personas, the avatars, the mockup presentation) and for prototyping the interactive guide;
A mockup tool: we chose Balsamiq for the app’s wireframe.
A graphic editor: Adobe Photoshop for the visual elements and The Sims 4 for character design.
The next step was to reflect on the museological approach we intended to adopt and implement in our application.
The MAC holds and manages culturally valuable objects telling the story of pre-Roman Baronia. However, objects do not speak by themselves: since their historical and archaeological importance is not self-evident, they must be properly expressed and communicated to the laymen. Storytelling (as we may say) thus becomes an urgent matter, especially for museums that, as MAC does, hold education and dissemination as their first goal.
As we read on the museum website, in fact:
This considered, our project began as an inductive process: we tried to investigate as thoroughly as possible the museum's peculiarities, assets, lacks, and needs and tried to design an application that was specifically tailored for them.
In defining the museum needs, we considered communication to be:
This definition is pertinent to our case since, as we have seen, the museum’s exposition is far from satisfactory when it comes to informativity: no guides, no suggested paths, and it is impossible to visit the archaeological area. The notion of education, on the other side,
Informativity, thus, is a necessary but not sufficient condition for education, especially as far as the youngest is concerned. Education – as it emerges from the above definition – is not a passive process, it is an activity: keeping this in mind, we tried to design an impactful experience in which students (and not only) could feel emotionally involved.
In order to do so, we kept in consideration the concept of musealisation; as it has been pointed out, in fact:
The musealisation process eradicates objects from their original context:
This re-contextualization – especially when the youngest are involved – can be misleading: it risks to result in the false perception that objects were ‘born’ musealised and to conceal the essence of the musealia as «cose vere». Our idea was thus to stress the link between musalised objects and their original context and use by telling their own, peculiar story.
The app’s interaction and space are closed since the visitor will be involved in a treasure hunt across the museum’s holdings, with ‘clues’ leading from one artifact to the next in a step-by-step process. The ‘participants’ will thus neither choose from which finding to start nor will the path be still meaningful if any intermediate step is skipped.
The interactive path’s content will be made up of a limited number of objects, chosen to be representative of the whole collection.
Finally, visitors’ contributions are not allowed.
Our main goal being education and our idea of education being that of an active process, we decided to design an experience that could both engage and stimulate the users. But what makes an experience impressive, effective, memorable? After discussing these and other related topics, we identified the main focuses and perspectives our application should include and develop.
Meaningfulness: significance is essential both to create an involving experience and to fuel any learning process. To achieve it, we decided to design a game — a treasure hunt — to:
Make the user feel actively engaged, challenged, involved;
Create a sense of purpose, based on some tasks to be fulfilled (i.e. ‘to find something’);
Create a sense of expectation and curiosity;
Stimulate cooperation, since the game can be played in teams;
Authenticity: meaningfulness can be powered by a sense of presence and realism. We thus created three fictional but lifelike characters to guide the visitors through their experiences. Each of the three will make some requests to the user: the nature and purpose of the requests will vary depending on each of the characters’ personalities. In this way, a sense of genuinity and verisimilitude is created.
Of course, characters’ design strongly relies on language and narrative: each of the three characters’ way of speaking will mirror their personality, and to each of them, a different and peculiar narrative will be assigned.
[^3] «The scientific and set-up project aimed at providing a better understanding of the territory’s archaeological richness; this was done following a traditional museological approach focused on scientific and didactic information.»
[^4] «Sia la presentazione dei risultati della ricerca effettuata sulle collezioni (cataloghi, articoli, conferenze, mostre); sia la messa a disposizione degli oggetti facenti parte delle collezioni (esposizioni permanenti e informazioni ad esse connesse). Questo assunto presenta l’esposizione come parte integrante del processo di ricerca [...]». Desvallées and Mairesse 2009, p.37.
[^5] «Ha un legame con la nozione di risveglio, che tende a suscitare la curiosità, a condurre a porsi domande e a sviluppare la capacità di riflessione. [...]. È un processo di sviluppo che presuppone cambiamento e trasformazione più che condizionamento o “inculcazione”, nozioni con le quali essa è in contrasto.[...]» Ivi, p.43.
[^6] «Un oggetto museale non è solo un oggetto in un museo. Attraverso il cambiamento di contesto e il processo di selezione, di tesaurizzazione e di presentazione, si opera un cambiamento dello status dell’oggetto.» Ivi, p. 61.
[^7] «La musealizzazione comincia con una fase di separazione (Malraux, 1951) o di sospensione (Déotte, 1986): degli oggetti o delle cose (cose “vere”) sono separati dal loro contesto di origine per essere studiati come documenti [...]» Ibidem.
[^8] Cfr. Caraceni 2015.
[^9] Cfr. Beltramini, Gagliani 2012, p. 60.
[^10] Ibidem.
[^11] Ibidem.
It is now time to present the MAC App.
We made use of two tools:
Balsamiq to create a mockup describing the structural components;
Figma to elaborate some graphical proposals for the implementation.
The following navigation map resumes what we have just exposed about the app’s structure and describes the users’ interaction with it, how they will approach it and what they will be able to do.
Now that we have outlined a general overview of the MAC App, we will discuss the main focus of our design: the interactive guide.
As we have just shown, when the users choose this type of guide over the traditional one, three symbols will be displayed: without further explanation, blindly, one must be picked. That's where the fun begins.
Once they click on it, depending on the chosen symbol, an avatar will appear and their path will start.
This fictional character will guide the users in their visit by keeping them entertained by telling their own story and by engaging them in a treasure hunt across the museum’s holdings.
When all the sought-after objects are collected and the path is over, the user will be rewarded with the possibility to see the character’s tomb as it was at the time of burial. The grave will be reconstructed via AR exploiting the 3D rendering project that is currently carried out by the University of Salerno. The AR experience will either take place in the museum, where the 1:1 chamber tomb reconstruction is, or – better – in the archaeological site itself. In fact, it is reachable with a ten-minute walk from the MAC.
The three fictional characters of our App were designed drawing inspiration from three extant tombs found in the Addolorata necropolis. By analysing the burials’ contents as they were unearthed by the archaeologists, and by studying Samnites’ history and customs, we reconstructed the profiles of our avatars:
Maio Vestricio Surreone,
Nilde Velina,
and Enclopio Ponzio.
In addition, we resorted to our own creativity and imagination, and to a collective repertoire of archetypes, as will be detailed in the following pages. For the actual character design, we made use of The Sims 4, a life simulation video game. Once we built the three “Sims”, we made them interact and took pictures of their expressions. Each of them is shown with two different looks: one when she/he was alive, and one dead.
Let us now focus on Maio Vestricio Surreone for a moment.
When it came to prototyping, we decided to implement the interactive path of one specific character, our protagonist Maio. In doing so, we tried to bring our cognitive focuses to the foreground. In particular, among our goals was to make the user feel engaged, challenged, amused, and intrigued. To achieve this, we designed Maio’s personality to be realistic, genuine, and strongly characterised: he has his own language, gestures, passions, and concerns. He has a story of his own and interacts with the user asking him for help in order to restore his tomb.
Do you remember Chiara, the teenage loner girl? In order to understand if our App actually complied with our intended users and their goals, we discussed and wrote a brief scenario titled The school trip.
“After the first hour of school, Chiara and her class exit the building to reach Carife, where they will visit the local archeological museum. On the bus, the girl takes her seat and immediately puts her headphones on, trying to kill the – albeit brief – time of the trip with music. Once at the museum, the teacher invites her students to download the MAC application, where they will find a small team game: as she explains, it consists of a treasure hunt across the museums’ holdings. When the research is over, the players will be rewarded with a surprise. Tickets in their hands, the fifteen present students – divided in three groups and supervised by their teacher and by the two museum’s volunteers – find their way to the app’s section containing the game. Each of the groups chooses one of the three available paths by clicking on the symbol they are most curious about: at the end of the game, each group will explain to the class what they have found and learned. Chiara freezes when her team chooses her as their captain. “You have the highest score both in Art and History, you must lead us in this!”. Her worst nightmare – public speaking – is real! But how could she say no to such a heartfelt plea? Although initially sceptical, she will soon make up her mind: the interactive route her group has chosen is so stimulating, the game so challenging, and the character so fun, that Chiara and her squad forget what a burden it is to talk in public and tell their story. They can’t wait to share it and find out what the other groups found instead… and they are so curious about the final reward that they put as much effort as possible in discovering and finding all the treasures that the museum hides.”
We identified some steps and related professional figures needed to actually implement the MAC App:
A software developer in charge of the back-end;
A user experience expert and/or a designer for the front-end and all the aesthetic aspects of the app;
A professional, such as an archeologist in this specific case, to verify the scientific accuracy of the contents;
For the interactive guide a game designer, a game developer, a sound engineer, an Italian voice actor (and at least an English one too) will be involved, and a 3D modeller for the Augmented Reality part.
In the foreseen workflow, all these professionals will be needed and will be asked to cooperate. In the specific case of the MAC, some institutions and professionals are already collaborating with the Museum. In particular, as we have already pointed out, the University of Salerno is carrying out a digitization project (3D scanning) on some of the Museum’s holdings. The resulting 3D models could be effectively included in the AR reconstruction of the archaeological sites.
Moreover, the ABAP Superintendence of Salerno and Avellino and the Municipality of Carife should cooperate and play a role in order to dissolve any bureaucratic obstacles regarding the necropolis linked to the Museum.
During our interview with Mr. Castaldo, we had the opportunity to get to know an archaeologist who is currently working on Carife and nearby archaeological areas. She and a number of her colleagues would be at disposal for a sound reconstruction of the historical background.
As we have already mentioned, the MAC is looking forward to expanding its exhibition both by including remains currently stored in its deposit and by acquiring new holdings from the Hellenistic and Byzantine sites. The MAC App could thus be enriched with new contents and materials by creating new thematic paths and interactive stories.
CATEGORY | NEED TO BE ENHANCED | INTERACTION | SPACE | CONTENT | VIRTUAL/REAL | VISITORS' CONTRIBUTION |
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To visualise the presentation belown click on this symbol in the upper right corner, then select and . Finally, move through the slides by using this command .
B
Education
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Selected objects
Real with virtua + Virtual on real
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Beltramini and Gaiani 2012. Beltramini, G. and Gaiani, M. Palladio Lab. Architetture palladiane indagate con tecnologie digitali, Vicenza, Centro Internazionale di Studi di Architettura Andrea Palladio, 2012.
Caraceni 2015. Caraceni S. Designing a taxonomy for virtual museums for the use of AVICOM professionals, Plymouth University, 2015.
Desvallées and Mairesse 2009. Desvallées A. and Mairesse F. Concepts clés de la Muséologie, Paris, Colin, 2009.
Salomon 2010. Salomon, E.T., Samnium and the Samnites, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2010.
The team worked in synergy throughout the whole process, from the preliminary steps to the implementation parts, exchanging opinions, knowledge, and capabilities.
Laura put into play her editing and design skills, sharing them with Francesca and teaching her how to put them into use for the project.
Francesca, brought in her knowledge of history and archaeology, which she studied during her Bachelor's. Being born in Irpinia, she was happy to share her passion for its territory with Laura.