Redefining Virtual Museum Interactions to Enhance Art Appreciation: A Participatory Approach to Interaction Framework

Virtual reality (VR) is being adopted widely in art museums to enhance immersive visitor engagement and art appreciation. However, most virtual museums (VMs) focus on the during-visit phase, without fully considering the unique opportunities offered by virtual interactions across the broader art appreciation journey. This paper addresses this gap through a participatory design study and a new conceptual framework proposal. First, we investigate how museum enthusiasts engage with artworks across the pre-, during-, and post-visit stages, capturing their creative aspirations for potential VM interactions using a superpower analogy method. Based on these findings, we identify eight new design opportunities for enriching VM experiences. Then, we introduce a Human–VM Interaction Framework , which builds upon the two foundational models of Human-Building Interaction (HBI) and the integrated visitor framework, to provide a comprehensive view of the VM interactions. Finally, we demonstrate how the framework can be used as a generative design guide for extending existing VM interactions into new dimensions and bridging interactions across different phases of the museum visit. Our findings with the proposed framework offer fresh perspectives for VM design, showcasing the untapped potential of VR interactions for enriching art appreciation experiences in VMs.