How generous interface affect user experience and behavior: Evaluating the information display interface for museum cultural heritage

• Published in: Computer animation and virtual worlds Vol. 35; no. 1
• Main Authors: Li, Qiang, Wang, Peng, Liu, Zexue, Wang, Changsheng
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Hoboken, USA John Wiley & Sons, Inc 01.01.2024; Wiley Subscription Services, Inc
• Subjects: Cultural heritage; Cultural resources; engagement; generous interface; information behavior; Interfaces; museum; Museums; usability; User behavior; User experience; User interfaces
• ISSN: 1546-4261; 1546-427X
• DOI: 10.1002/cav.2212

Museum web interfaces continue to be important in how users search for information and navigate through digital cultural heritage resources. A generous interface was deemed appropriate for displaying large amounts of digital cultural heritage. However, more example verification is required in this field of study. This study compared the traditional interface and the generous interface of the Liaoning Provincial Museum to investigate the role of a generous interface for cultural heritage collections. Forty second‐year design graduate students were randomly assigned to one of two interface groups: traditional interface or generous interface. Four variables were measured to compare the differences between the two interfaces for the participants. In addition, two parameters, holding time and average retrieval time, are recorded and used to evaluate and compare the impact of the two interfaces on user behavior. The generous interface, according to the findings, is more effective than the traditional interface in increasing participants' engagement with cultural heritage and is perceived to be more aesthetically pleasing. In addition, the generous interface has been proven to be more suitable for casual leisure users to explore cultural heritage information. This research provides the basis and reference for developing the web interface of cultural heritage collections. This study employs an experiment design to observe user behavior and quantitative data analysis methods to investigate the experience and factors influencing users' retrieval and browsing of digital cultural heritage resources. The study compares the difference between generous and traditional interfaces on user information behavior in several dimensions of user experience, namely aesthetics, usability, user engagement, and visual comfort, and seeks to investigate the correlation between them in order to investigate the role of the generous interface of cultural heritage on user experience. Meanwhile, four representative artifacts were chosen to test the user's retrieval time under different interfaces. Finally, the results of the quantitative data analysis and the qualitative analysis of the user interviews are discussed, and conclusions are presented. This study's findings offer design hints and a theoretical basis for improving user experiences of cultural heritage web interfaces.