Understanding attitudes on mixed reality heritage.

Abstract

As Hypertext is applied to new domains and areas the potential for mixed reality Hypertext at culture heritage sites is increasingly evidenced. As with many other applications of Hypertext this in turn creates a need for accessible and powerful authoring tools for creating mixed reality experiences. In the spirit of both user centric and product centric design we seek to inform future technologies supporting mixed reality hypertext and games for cultural heritage by exploring both player and designer attitudes towards mixed reality and authoring tools. We present our findings from three studies exploring these attitudes, a survey of players (n=52), a set of interviews with players (n=12), and indepth interviews with mixed reality designers (n=5). Findings reinforced expectations for educational and functional experiences, with a shared preference for real-world history, but also collection patterns of play, and social experiences. The results further emphasised the need for novel authoring tools focusing on locative experiences with in-situ testing capabilities that might be used by varied teams of contributors at different project phases.