Service Science, Solutions and Foundation Integrated Research Program [RISTEX/JST]

Activity in this focus area finished on March 31, 2017.

Research Projects

Research Projects Selected in FY2012

< Solution-Oriented Service Science Research, Type A >

Museum Experiences and Service Science Designing Museum Experiences as Services for Inspiration and Creativity

Nakakoji Photo

[] Project Leader
Kumiyo Nakakoji
Director, Key Technology Laboratory, Software Research Associates Inc.
[] Project Overview

  • To view museum services as the cycle of inspirational communication among curators and museum visitors
  • To develop a model to represent, compare and evaluate such inspirational services

[] Approach

  • by being based on (1) the theory of and the supporting environments for collective creativity and (2) the models of inspiration in art production and appreciation processes in cognitive science
  • by evolving the model through workshops and fields studies by closely collaborating with local museums
  • by designing and deploying tools and gadgets in museums as simple probe objects to study how people behave and interact with, and to envision future museum experiences

A museum provides opportunities for people to encounter and experience new value in everyday life; by bringing in different points of view, and coloring and comforting lives differently. Our project looks at a museum as a place where people get inspired through a life-long learning experience; like cabinets of curiosities, which are precursors to museums. We call such type of service a museum provides the inspirational service.
The goal of our project is to build a model to represent, compare, evaluate and evolve what mechanisms would nurture rich inspirational museum experiences, and how museum visitors and stakeholders would be mutually inspired through them. We view that the core element of the inspirational service is the cycle of inspirational communication among visitors and the stakeholders of a museum, including curators, scientists, artists, designers, and community volunteers.
The project consists of the cycle of the two types of codependent studies to evolve the model under construction: workshop-based filed-studies and probe-based studies.
Based on our current understanding of the features of inspirational communication, we design and run a wide variety of workshops by closely collaborating with local museums. While doing so, we design and implement simple software tools and gadgets as probes to be introduced and installed in the workshops. The collected field data is then analyzed to evolve the understanding and further develop the model for inspirational services in museums

Explanatory drawing


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