Reinventing the Virtual Museum Post-Pandemic: An Audience-Centric Approach to Enhancing Virtual Exhibitions of Intangible Cultural Heritage

Abstract

Virtual environments have been extensively utilized in museums. During the COVID-19 pandemic, museums in China, both primary and secondary, organized virtual exhibition halls and digital collection retrieval functions. These efforts played a crucial role in facilitating public engagement with traditional culture. However, post-pandemic, public interest in online museums has significantly waned, highlighting the limitations of virtual museums in representing intangible cultural heritage.This study introduces an audience-centered approach to virtual museum design, specifically tailored to the features of intangible cultural heritage such as folk songs and dances. It incorporates Kano, AHP and AD design theories to develop the museum's virtual exhibition method. The process began with identifying 207 audience needs through research, which were then classified using the Kano model. The AHP method was employed to determine the relative importance of various user needs, emphasizing information collection, preservation, display and viewing modes, visual aesthetics, entertainment, public education, and social attributes in virtual museums. To align the design parameters of the virtual museum, the study established a mapping between the museum's functional domain and the design domain, guided by the AD theory's principle of independence. This facilitated a step-by-step evaluation of perceptual and rational solutions through a matrix, clarifying the functional scope and design methods for the virtual museum. This research offers valuable insights for virtual museum design and development, providing a reference for future virtual space projects and enhancing the representation of intangible cultural heritage in digital formats.

Keywords: Virtual Museum, Intangible Cultural Heritage, Virtual Reality, Information Communication

DOI: 10.54941/ahfe1004964