Investigating an Online Museum's Information System Instructional Design for Effective Human-Computer Interaction

Information and communications technology (ICT) tools have completely altered the way museum curators design many of their exhibits. The literature reveals many interesting studies, which explain the unique nature and characteristics of the Web-based environment, to provide many educational advantages. As a consequence, online learning is now an important agenda for many museums. They have become learning institutions in their own right as they enhance their exhibits to leverage the opportunities offered by ICT tools; thereby providing a wider (cognitive) thinking space for their online visitors. Although the role of museums in supporting the formal education of the general population is usually associated with visits to a physical museum, the online museum environment is now playing an important part in providing more information to people, as well as further enriching their life-long learning experiences. Nevertheless not enough is known about the educational effectiveness of online-museum exhibits. This paper describes a doctoral project, underway in Australia that examines the human-computer interaction (HCI) which occurs when people access online museum exhibits.