Experiencing Authenticity of the House Museums in Hybrid Environments

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper presents best practices in designing hybrid environments for house museums, showcasing how the integration of digital technologies can enhance the visitor experience while preserving the historical and evocative qualities of the spaces. The potential of integrating advanced digital technologies in house museums is explored. It discusses the tension between the evocative nature of these spaces, which are imbued with personal stories of past inhabitants, and the need for preservation and immobility of the spatial arrangement. The seamless approach is proposed as a way to enhance the emotional and atmospheric aspects of the space by overlaying interactive, context-driven digital layers in a dialogue between the digital and physical realms. The methodology employed in the paper involves a literature review to establish the main research themes and an examination of case studies. The case studies are selected based on the experiential value of the interior spaces. The analysis of the chosen cases focuses on three criteria: the formal dimension of the technology and its relationship with the space, the narrative plot that conveys socio-cultural atmosphere or personal stories of the inhabitants, and the engagement of visitors, either individually immersed or collectively involved in rituals.

 

The paper is written in very good English.

 

Literature is well reviewed.

 

The paper exhibits a lack of illustrations that would significantly help the comprehension of the reader for the environments described. In addition, some figures that illustrate the spatial arrangement of technological components and the visitors would further help the reader.

 

The literature review and the description of case studies occupy the majority of the paper, while discussion is only a small proportion of it. This is a shortcoming because the interest in the paper is in the new elements provided by the proposed work.

 

The conclusions drawn in the discussion section appear to be the authors’ opinions and seem not to be based on a formal evaluation method, such as questionnaires or interviews. Thus, the way of resulting in these opinions should be clarified and, further, make clear whether these comprise novel research based on visitor surveys, expert opinions, or elements found from other articles of the literature.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

It was with a great interest and enthusiasm that I read the article “Experiencing Authenticity of the House Museums in Hybrid Environments”. The subject under study is very pertinent and actual, in a time that digitalization gains space in several fields, and it is increasingly an integral part of the cultural and tourist experience. Furthermore, not many studies focus on museum houses, which gives this work a certain originality.

This work is essentially descriptive, it seems to me exploratory in nature, the basis for future more specific approaches. Nevertheless, the manuscript complies with almost all the established norms for the articles of this publication. The article is well organized and the objectives and the purpose of the study are clear. However, please note the followings:

- In the Abstract I miss I little bit of introduction/background before the purpose and needs to outline more main findings.

- In the Case Studies section, it was not clear to me what criteria were used to choose them. Why these and not others? Do they fit into a certain sub-typology of spaces? Where are they located?

- The Discussion section is fragile and not very consistent. There's a real discussion missing that provides a bridge between literature review and these results. I suggest that this section be further developed.

- In the Conclusion line 473 correct Digtal to Digital; I would recommend the authors to end this section with the main contribution of this research, and also explain the main limitations as well as future research directions.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

I find that the authors properly responded to the comments of the reviewers and that the paper merits publication.

English is fine. Perhaps a grammar tool could be used to polish English a bit, but the paper is readable.

Reviewer 2 Report

Thank you for submitting the revised version of your paper. The current version has been substantially improved and the authors responded to all the suggestions made in the first round. I would like to highlight the insertion of figures, which greatly enriched the work and helped to interpret the content of the text.

I only have doubts about the existence of two points which basically refer to the same thing (4. Final remarks and 5. Conclusions). A note to be aware that the caption of figure 3a and 3b is unformatted.