Abstract
The attributes of museum develop continuously. Museums were established by and for the aristocrats in the past, whereas serving commoners as an educational institution for the public nowadays. Museums don’t have as many teaching staff as in ordinary educational institutions, though. When the teaching staff is deficient, an enormous application of mechanical navigation devices becomes a highly practical solution. Closed-circuit television, walkman, and interactive computer are widely used at present. The PDA navigation system, however, has the merits of the above devices, i.e. multimedia, interactivity, on-demand program supply and portability, and is also able to contribute to the interactions between the museum collections and museum visitors. The aim of the thesis is to find out how to use the simplest software and hardware structure to design an economical and feasible PDA navigation system. The research uses the “Portrait Exhibition of Jiang-Long-fang Aboriginals （江隆芳原住民人像主題展）” in 2004 at Tsinghua University（清華大學）as an experimental exhibition using the PDA navigation system to complement the current service of museum navigation. The layout of the navigation text uses the originated model which combines the “basic navigation” and “advanced learning” function to satisfy both the basic and advanced learners who have different levels of knowledge demands. The research, in the hope of bringing back the visitors, applies the theory of learning and the idea of knowledge acquisition in the form of entertainment appreciation. In terms of constructing a feasible system, this thesis provides detailed analyses of and suggestions to the selection of hardware, demonstrating medium, the indexing and locating system, the form of the navigation text, and the way an user accesses the navigation. As for the management of PDA navigation, which troubles museums the most, the researcher applies the logic of the World Wide Web and its successful development process, and uses its experiences as the theoretical base for managing and promoting the PDA navigation system.