Most museums use printed methods to support indoor navigation and visitor engagement. However, modern museum visitors’ needs are not always met using such static approaches. This thesis investigates how indoor wayfinding and visitor engagement in museums might be improved through augmented reality (AR). I design “MRsive”, a handheld AR tool using a user-centered design approach. The goal is twofold: simplifying the required cognitive effort in navigating the museum space, and boosting visitor engagement with artifacts through multisensory interactions. MRsive uses computer vision to detect visual features of the space and locate visitors indoors and recognize exhibits. To evaluate my design, I conduct user-testing at the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) followed by semi-structured interviews. The participants’ responses showed a considerable improvement in the speed, accuracy and ease-of-use when completing wayfinding or engagement tasks. I hope the findings will contribute to the future development of other AR systems with similar goals.

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