The Elf-AR-QA System Based on IoT Cross-Media and Discussion of Emotional and Pleasure Design

Taiwan’s Hsinchu Assembly Hall is a historic building leftover from the Japanese occupation. Recently, “Memory Texture Interactive Experience Museum in Hsinchu Assembly Hall” was held after reconstruction. It integrates different technologies to allow people to learn the history and architecture of Hsinchu Assembly Hall. In this case, we developed the Interactive Elf-AR-QA system on the interactive experience museum, which is based on IoT Cross-Media System we created before. In the system, we used the knowledge of Hsinchu Assembly Hall as its data and used the smartphone as a tangible user interface. Using their own smartphones, the audience can participate with the exhibits by the “fish” and “pour” actions. The “fish” action can collect and answer question data of the exhibit art-works. The “pour” action can deliver the result into the iPad, where the audience can get the Elf number corresponding to the correct answers and then start to play the AR game based on our interactive Elf-AR-QA system in the Stone Lantern. This research used marker-based AR technology to augment cute Elf creatures on the Stone Lantern surface. In our system, we designed the “crack” pattern as the AR marker, which subtly conforms to the feature of the Stone Lantern and the demand for AR recognition. The iPad’s tangible feature also allows the audience to explore the Elf creatures among the Stone Lantern.

This research integrates the cultural knowledge of Hsinchu Assembly Hall into the QA System, and according to the result audience can play with the Interactive Elf-AR system on the Stone Lantern; such application is rare in museums in Taiwan. This research also discussed emotional design and pleasure theory and produced questionnaires for verification. The result shows the Elf design’s success and proves that the system did increase the motivation of the audience, which made them want to know more about the culture of Hsinchu Assembly Hall. After the experience, the audience did gain pleasure. We hope that through this kind of interactive design, we can increase the motivation to understand Taiwan’s culture and history and get exciting and enjoyable experiences in the process. In the future, we also hope that this system and research can be applied to more cultural and creative industries.