A Protocol For Designing And Evaluating Mixed Reality Cultural Experiences In Museums And Heritage Sites Using Spatial Narratives And Metrics

Summary

This protocol provides a standardized methodology for designing and evaluating mixed reality cultural experiences in operational heritage sites, utilizing spatial narratives, interactive interfaces, and multimodal metrics that systematically combine psychological surveys with objective behavioral logs.

Abstract

Mixed reality (MR) applications are increasingly used in museums and heritage sites; however, their deployment often lacks methodological coherence, with spatial narrative, interaction, and evaluation treated as separate elements. This protocol presents a standardized, field-deployable methodology that distinguishes itself from prior evaluation frameworks by integrating dynamically adaptive spatial narratives with a hybrid assessment model. The approach unifies spatial narrative sequencing, guided interactive interfaces, and multimodal user experience metrics—specifically triangulating subjective psychometric evaluations with objective behavioral telemetry (e.g., spatial dwell times and interaction logs). The protocol describes a two-site, three-arm concurrent control trial adaptable to indoor museums and semi-open archaeological venues. Participants are assigned to one of three conditions: a traditional digital guide, a MR static narrative, or a MR adaptive narrative. A standardized six-zone route is implemented, with assessments conducted at baseline, immediately after the visit, and at a 14-day follow-up. Outcome measures include spatial presence, usability, narrative engagement, perceived authenticity, and knowledge acquisition. The protocol further incorporates structured behavioral logging, predefined technical thresholds, and systematic cybersickness monitoring to ensure safety and feasibility under routine visitor conditions. This framework provides researchers and cultural institutions with a reproducible methodology to coordinate spatial storytelling and interface control, enabling rigorous evaluation of MR interventions in heritage contexts.

Introduction

Museums and heritage institutions increasingly employ immersive digital technologies to create novel visitor experiences outside conventional gallery settings. A growing body of literature indicates that recent mixed-reality (MR) studies in museum contexts have increasingly shifted focus from merely providing passive immersive displays to dynamically transforming how visitors interact with exhibits and historical narratives¹. Comparative research indicates that while the quality of digital assets is important, the spatial arrangement of these exhibits within virtual or augmented environments plays a more critical role in shaping the visitor exp....

Protocol

All methods involving human subjects were performed in compliance with the relevant institutional guidelines and approved by the Ethics Committee on Human Research Protection of Shanghai Daji Education Technology Co., Ltd. (Approval Number: 4500AL0512). Obtain written informed consent from all participants prior to any study activity.

1. Participant Recruitment and Pre-screening

1. Recruit adult participants aged 18 to 70 years. Ensure that participants demonstrate sufficient Mandarin Chinese proficiency to comprehend the standardized research instructions.
2. Verify that participants can navigate the route ....

Results

Participant Characteristics and Allocation

A total of 180 participants were recruited, with each of the three conditions receiving 60 individuals (the traditional digital guide control group, the MR static narrative group, and the MR adaptive narrative group). Among the enrolled participants, 109 visited the urban history museum (Site A) and 71 visited the archaeological heritage park (Site B). The three groups demonstrated comparable baseline demographic profiles, including a.......

Discussion

This study positions MR not merely as an isolated display technology, but as a field-embedded interpretative framework that intricately integrates spatial route structures, interface controls, and multimodal evaluation. A primary achievement of this protocol is its operational cohesion. Historically, immersive technologies in cultural institutions have often been deployed as separate supplementary attractions rather than integrated narrative tools. However, recent literature emphasizes that deployable XR experiences in c.......

Materials

List of materials used in this article

Name	Company	Catalog Number	Comments
Event logging system	Research team	Study-specific logging module integrated within MR application (Unity-based telemetry system)	Recording dwell time, interaction events, and session logs
Mixed-reality application platform	Research team	Unity Engine 2022.3 LTS integrated with Mixed Reality Toolkit (MRTK 3)	Presentation of static and adaptive mixed-reality narratives
Mixed-reality headset	Microsoft Corporation	HoloLens 2 running Windows Holographic 22H2	Delivery of mixed-reality cultural experience
Questionnaire survey tool	Research team / Qualtrics XM (Qualtrics, LLC)	Qualtrics XM Platform (cloud-based, 2025 release)	Collection of baseline, post-visit, and follow-up data
Spatial narrative content package	Research team	Compiled AssetBundles (.ab) mapped via JSON configuration scripts	Delivery of six-zone narrative materials
Statistical analysis software	IBM Corp.; GraphPad Software, LLC; R Foundation for Statistical Computing	SPSS Statistics 29.0; GraphPad Prism 10.0; R 4.3.1	Data cleaning, statistical analysis, and figure generation
Randomization software	R Foundation for Statistical Computing	R 4.3.1 with blockrand package	Site-stratified block randomization and allocation sequence generation
Time synchronization system	Institutional server / NTP	Network Time Protocol (NTP)	Synchronization of device clocks for multimodal data integration
Traditional digital guide system	Site research team / museum platform	Custom WeChat Mini Program (API v3.0)	Control-condition content delivery