Taming the urge to click

Abstract

We describe the development of a user interface for a mobile museum guide based on handheld devices. The system provides audio, video, graphics and text content to visitors of a world cultural heritage site, the Weltkulturerbe Völklinger Hütte [2]. The focus of this paper is on the design process and how the user interface was adapted step by step in order to meet the needs of visitors and account for their observed behaviour. We found that principles generally thought of as good, such as overview and free access to information at different levels, turned out to be of less use than expected for a general audience, and even contraproductive to the task of conveying focused information.