Interactive applications in museums today

The protection of cultural heritage, bridging the past and the future, enabling people to establish emotional bonds with their own histories, cultures and ethnic origins, and helping them develop different perspectives in this respect can be realized through museums. With the changes experienced in museums today, the understanding of exhibition has started to be shaped according to the needs and demands of the society. With the introduction of technology into human life, making it a part of their lives has now spread the use of technology in museums. Museums change the purposes and methods they use to keep up with the changing and developing era in the 21st century, making computers, communication and interaction technologies a part of our lives. Today, with the use of technology, exhibitions in museums have diversified and transformed so that people can communicate with objects, touch, feel and interact with objects, except for showcases. With many different interactive applications such as touch screens, simulations, kiosks, virtual and augmented reality applications, holograms and video mapping in museums, a different understanding of exhibition is encountered. The use of interactive applications and communication tools that enable interaction in museums has enabled us to approach museums from a different perspective today. In this study, how interactive applications have effects on museum visitors is discussed. Within the scope of the study, a questionnaire form was aimed to be applied to each 50 visitors of Göbeklitepe Visitor Welcoming Center, Mardin Museum and Hasankeyf Museum by using the easy sampling method by putting a quota. Since Hasankeyf Museum was closed during the pandemic process; only 100 visitors have been included from two museums. T-test and one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) were used within the scope of the research tested. T-test and ANOVA analysis revealed no differences between the groups. It has been determined as the most important outcome of the research that interactive applications have positive effects on museology as well as museum visitors.