Search

Developers of museum service systems want to know what users think about their systems and they often design questionnaires to capture users' opinions. However, there are usually serious gaps between what developers want to know and what the users really think about the system. The present research aims to develop a questionnaire that takes into consideration the user's point of view, including opinions of people who do not want to use the system. We put the plan into practice by gathering opinions such as feelings, demands, and expectations about the systems from the general public. (Contains 1 table and 3 notes.)

While opinions from the general public are certainly important, opinions from the museum staff are also necessary to improve user service systems. this article introduces two groups of museum staff who have evaluated the usability of mobile guidance systems in Japanese museums. One group is the research team who used the PDA system in the National Science Museum, Tokyo, and the other is the user-support staff of Kitakyushu Museum of Natural History and Human History. In the former research we asked the members of the group to give their comments about the usability of the PDA, and in the latter research we conducted open-ended interviews individually with the museum staff. As a result, we obtained various opinions from each group. They often differed in their opinions from those of the general public. (Contains 2 figures and 5 notes.)