The Museum of the Web. A quantitative study into the Cultural User Experience of Digital Storytelling practices in Virtual Museums

Not only the Covid-19 pandemic, but also developments in virtual tourism and climate change emphasize the importance of museums changing their business models. Developing virtual museum services is currently one of the most important of these changes, especially since remote cultural consumption has severely increased during the past year. The development of virtual museums - interactive virtual spaces that provide information and exhibit cultural objects in digital format - has rapidly increased since the notion was first introduced in the 1960’s. Simultaneously, a visitor-centred approach emerged, giving rise to a shift from the modernist museum to the post-museum. Virtual museums fall in line with this approach, as they allow for new types of interaction with online visitors. Storytelling is an important practice that allows visitors to engage in their own story. The application of digital storytelling practices in virtual museums creates an opportunity to not only provide a solution for the current restrictions, but to change the museum business model accordingly with a changing society. This study shows the importance of digital storytelling for virtual museums by conducting a user-centred research, focusing on Cultural User Experience. Cultural User Experience is measured for three virtual museum services of the British Museum, all practicing a different approach to Digital Storytelling. An in-between-subject showed the story is the most important, as no significant difference between digital storytelling and regular storytelling was found in any of the constructs. What the research did find, is that a service that incorporates digital storytelling practices brings about a stronger emotional response and is perceived higher in hedonic qualities than a service that is immersive but offers no explicit storytelling. The study also showed that the application of storytelling for the British Museum services was not enough, as the digital storytelling practices applied did not significantly differ from the regular storytelling practices in perceived user experience or future behaviour. In order for museums to change their business models, virtual museums need to become even more interactive, offering communities to engage and actively share their story. The findings of this research prove the importance of digital storytelling for virtual museums, but show that in order for visitors to really connect with the virtual museum, museums need further develop their virtual services. This research provides insides the museum sector could use in the development in new services and sheds a new light on Cultural User Experience.