Emotion-Driven Intervention Design in Public Art Installations: Enhancing Visitor Engagement and Well-Being through Emotional Data Clustering

Abstract

Public art projects have enormous potential to enhance emotional well-being and inspire self-reflection; little research has been done on leveraging emotional data—absent demographic information—to design customized visitor treatments. Emphasizing elements like optimism, leisure, and utility, this article explores emotion-driven intervention design by analysing the emotional involvement of 6,559 visitors to the Happy Here interactive installation. Four emotional groups—K-means clustering helped guests to be separated: Cluster 1 (n = 1,187) showed the most engagement (e.g., optimism: 4.61, relaxation: 4.51); Cluster 2 (n = 774) exhibited the lowest (optimism: 1.54, relaxation: 1.33). Emotional clarity and problem-solving (r = 0.58), as well as optimism, relaxation, and usefulness (r > 0.5), were shown to be significantly correlated, thus suggesting that changing one emotion could increase general well-being. Temporal studies found the most emotional involvement during nighttime and weekend visits, suggesting that settings influence visitor experiences. These findings underline the significance of personalizing treatments to emotional profiles and maximizing exhibition schedules to improve involvement at high-impact periods. Using emotional data alone, this project generates adaptive and inclusive public art installations that foster deeper emotional relationships and enhanced visitor well-being, therefore setting the basis for future research and practical applications in the design of emotionally intelligent public spaces.