Connecting User Experience with Immersive Informal Learning: CMNH Hall of Botany Study

Harrington, Maria, C. R. (2020). Connecting User Experience to Learning in an Evaluation of an Immersive, Interactive, Multimodal Augmented Reality Virtual Diorama in a Natural History Museum & the Importance of Story. In Proceedings of the iLRN 2020: 6th International Conference of the Immersive Learning Research Network. San Luis Obispo, California. June 21–25, 2020.

Abstract: Reported are the findings of user experience and
learning outcomes from a July 2019 study of an immersive,
interactive, multimodal augmented reality (AR) application, used
in the context of a museum. The AR Perpetual Garden App is
unique in creating an immersive multisensory experience of data.
It allowed scientifically naïve visitors to walk into a virtual
diorama constructed as a data visualization of a springtime
woodland understory, and interact with multimodal information
directly through their senses. The user interface comprised of
two different AR data visualization scenarios reinforced with
data based ambient bioacoustics, an audio story of the curator’s
narrative, and interactive access to plant facts. While actual
learning and dwell times were the same between the AR app and
the control condition, the AR experience received higher ratings
on perceived learning. The AR interface design features of
“Story” and “Plant Info” showed significant correlations with
actual learning outcomes, while “Ease of Use” and “3D Plants”
showed significant correlations with perceived learning. As such,
designers and developers of AR apps can generalize these
findings to inform future designs.