Framing Interaction through Engagement in Interactive Open Ended Environments

In this paper we present preliminary pilot study of how people's interactions can be characterized in open-ended environments through the concept of engagement. By open - ended environments we refer to physical spaces that construct content and associated semantics through non-didactic methods supportive of non - linear navigation. This work presents an overview of an approach to interactions as mapping human actions and their characteristics, through which behavior features can be identified. The interpretation is based on the extension of previous work, the Kinetic Inter-Acting System, that interprets, visualises and offers means for analysis of the interaction process between parties enabling visual reasoning about the quality of interactions. The approach is examined in the context of new developments in museums that perceives them as becoming creative and reflective agents in digital humanities. Examples are taken from a large public immersive exhibition that relies upon interaction delivered through various modalities for content assimilation and participant experience.