Temporality in Cultural Informatics

The present work wishes to highlight the role of temporality in cultural informatics and provides a review of concepts and practices. Temporality is often overlooked during the interaction design of cultural technologies, although aspects of it are crucial for the success of a cultural experience. Many researchers decide to support the visitor before, during and after her visit, planning for a continuation of the visit and providing an extended time frame. In addition, in technology assisted cultural experiences, temporality is again a key concept, since in different types of experiences can be synchronous or asynchronous. Furthermore, there are apps that directly ask the visitor to provide the estimated time of visit, in order to plan content delivery and experiences accordingly. Visitor studies also reveal that the amount of time people spend at a cultural space depends on external factors like tiredness, weather, etc, but also on internal factors such as visitor's personality. For all the above, specific examples are provided. When interaction in cultural informatics is designed, aspects of temporality should guide the design processes, thus the paper concludes with a summary of important design points.