We recently discussed the current benefits of AR and VR in museums and shared resources and successful examples. Institutions all over the world are playing with this emerging tech, seeking practical-yet-cool ways to use it. Like it or not (and I know many do not), technological integration is the future. Museums should aim to stay abreast of the developments — after all, the effects on humanity will be huge.
Today, let’s acknowledge some of the cons of AR and VR, the things a museum has to consider before entering into this visitor engagement sphere.
1. Technical Challenges
No surprise, but AR and VR systems require significant technical expertise to set up and maintain. You need to have or hire out someone with the know-how to select the right equipment, develop or adapt software, and troubleshoot issues. You also have to be prepared for the inevitable technical malfunctions or glitches that require immediate attention or otherwise disrupt the visitor experience.
Another thing to anticipate, as journalist Tim Deakin puts it: Museums need to be aware of the incoming tech obsolescence.
That means brands at the forefront of VR and AR now may not be major players in the future. It’s a potential risk to invest in a brand or branch of this tech that might become obsolete when things shake out.
2. Accessibility Issues
From an accessibility and inclusion standpoint, not all visitors will be able to use AR or VR technologies. Though smartphones are more common than ever, not everyone has one, and those visitors won’t be able to access smartphone-based AR experiences.
People with certain disabilities — physical, cognitive (neurodiverse), hearing, visual impairments, even motion sickness — may find these technologies difficult or impossible to use. Museums need to ensure people with disabilities are not excluded from immersive experiences.
In general, until recently, not much research has been done that focuses on AR/VR accessibility for users with disabilities. Fortunately, that’s starting to change:
- Virtual Environments Accessibility Guidelines
- Inclusive AR/VR: Accessibility Barriers for Immersive Technologies
- Virtual Reality Accessibility: 11 Things We Learned from Blind Users
3. Learning Curves
As with any new technology, there are learning curves associated with using AR and VR. Visitors, especially those who aren’t tech-savvy, may struggle to use the equipment or apps properly. This can lead to frustration and a less enjoyable museum visit, the opposite of what you’re going for. Tech-averse folks tend to be pretty set in their ways, too, which means they likely won’t try to engage with something intimidating.
And let’s not forget learning curves for volunteers and staff. There’s a chance your docents could be acting as de facto IT workers at times. Will they be able to handle that?
4. Gimmicky Experiences
As the Smithsonian addressed way back in 2018, adopting these technologies can sometimes feel more like a commercial gimmick than a true contribution to the museum visitor experience. It can be perceived as something that turns museums into amusement parks and other entertainment venues (i.e., a bad thing?).
Ultimately, per the Smithsonian, the perception and application should be thus:
AR is a technology, like any other technology, and it does not have an intrinsic value per se, but rather exists through the content it carries and the intent of the developer. To avoid what Sola called the “technology trap” back in 1997, meaning the pursuit of technology for its own sake, AR needs to be a solution to the visitor experience by effectively weaving the virtual with the physical into the narrative, and ensuring that the interface becomes an integral layer, a storytelling tool. (Source: Concerns and Challenges Developing Mobile Augmented Reality Experiences for Museum Exhibitions)
5. Content Development
Following that thread, if VR and AR interfaces are to avoid gimmickry, they should be crafted as effective storytelling tools that deepen a visitor’s experience. Easier said than done. Creating high-quality AR and VR content is complex and time-consuming.
The tech side requires things like 3D modeling, animation, and interactive design. The content side, as always, requires figuring out how to present information that is accurate, engaging, and educational. Marrying the two sides requires significant collaboration between technologists and curators.
6. Isolation
One of the primary challenges of VR is its tendency to isolate users from their surroundings. Unlike traditional museum experiences, which are shared, social, and grounded in the real world, VR can create solitary experiences.
In fact, when we picture AR/VR tech in a museum, we often imagine a lone visitor having an individual experience. How will your potential VR/AR experience work for a big group that visits the museum?
AR, while less isolating than VR, often means holding a screen to your face for extended amounts of time. Put simply, this can detract from being truly present in a space, something people value about museums.
7. Maintenance and Updates
AR and VR technologies require regular updates and maintenance to keep them functioning and to improve the user experience. This ongoing need for technical support can be a drain on museum resources and staff.
Museums that use VR have to be very mindful about how to run the exhibit. For example, think about a staff member posted in a dark room, putting on VR headsets to reset them after each use. More than an hour of this will lead to headaches, depth perception issues, and unpleasant fuzziness. Staff rotations and VR breaks are essential. Side note: In this example, it would be better to code for an auto-reset function or set up a separate monitor that mirrors the VR for remote resets. But we don’t yet have across-the-board best practices, so errors like this will continue to occur.
Maintaining any hardware used by visitors is an ongoing chore. Tablets and touch screens need to be locked down to the essentials, but crafty visitors still find ways to mess with your devices. Physical damage, accidental or intentional, is always a consideration, as is a constant power supply, whether from cord or battery.
And when it comes to updates, we must always keep in mind how quickly things move in the tech world. An award-winning app or interface might be seen as outdated or ineffectual in a few short years.
8. Visitor Fatigue
Overuse of AR and VR can lead to visitor fatigue. As mentioned in the previous point, prolonged use of a VR headset can cause physical discomfort. AR can contribute to stimulus overload. After COVID brought about the ubiquity of QR codes for restaurant menus, some people are fatigued by the concept of QR codes or AR markers altogether and may avoid interacting with them.
In the broadest sense, people often visit museums specifically to get away from screens and smartphones.
When you decide to include AR or VR in your museum, it’s important to think about the logistics of the visitor experience. Will audiences have enough time to participate in the AR/VR programs and still enjoy the rest of the visit? On the flip side, will the AR/VR experience be significant enough to be worth visitors’ time (and thus, your development time and expense)?
9. Ethical and Privacy Concerns
Using AR and VR technologies can raise ethical and privacy issues, some of which we are only starting to understand. Data collected from visitors’ interactions with these technologies — biometrics, location, facial recognition — need to be handled carefully to protect their privacy.
The ethical implications of how this kind of intimate data is used, stored, and protected is a big deal. Transparency is key, and visitors need to be made aware of the data they are sharing.
To put the data issue in perspective, news just broke that Facebook’s parent company Meta will pay Texas $1.4 billion to settle a lawsuit that accused the company of using personal biometric data without users’ authorization.
Relate read: AR and VR Ethics: Creating a Responsibly Developed Future
On a different ethical front, as we journey deeper into this technological integration, museums will need to be mindful of the implications and potential divides between institutions that can afford these technologies and those that cannot.
10. The Money
Saved the “best” and perhaps most obvious for last. The first question any museum of any size asks about anything is, “How much?” There’s no getting around it: Implementing AR and VR is expensive, prohibitively so for many museums. In general, you’ll pay for quite a few of the things we listed above:
- Development. Includes costs for programming, design, content creation, and testing. Development costs for a custom AR app could start at $10,000. VR development costs are significantly higher, starting at around $30,000.
- Hardware. There’s quite a range here, depending on what you’re doing. Specialized VR or AR hardware will obviously cost more than a setup in which visitors use their own smartphones.
- Content creation. This goes hand in hand with development and refers to the museum-specific digital content, like 3D models, animations, and interactive elements. It will likely run a few thousand dollars, at least, depending on the detail and volume of content.
- Licensing/software. Some platforms and tools require licenses or subscriptions, which should be budgeted as an ongoing cost. This can range from a few hundred to several thousand dollars annually.
- Maintenance/updates. To keep your VR or AR relevant and functional, maintenance, updates, and content additions are a must. This can involve additional costs, sometimes calculated as a percentage of the initial development costs.
- Training. You might have expenses related to training staff to use and maintain the VR/AR program and integrating the new tech into your museum’s existing systems.
What’s the takeaway after all this negativity? It’s certainly not that museums should avoid incorporating AR and VR technologies. Rather, it’s important to implement strategies that mitigate the drawbacks. And going forward, it will be crucial to balance the novelty and immersion of AR and VR with the authenticity and educational mission of the museum.
