Envisioning, designing, and rapid prototyping heritage installations with a tangible interaction toolkit

A body of HCI work focuses on cultural heritage settings, such as museums, galleries, and historic sites – domains where established digital technologies such as interactive screens and mobile guides are used by end-users individually and in groups, and where innovative designs can be deployed in order to augment the user experience through a variety of interaction frames, from mixed reality, to tangible, embedded, and embodied interaction (see Hornecker & Ciolfi, 2019 for a review). In recent years, the focus broadened from creating interventions and evaluating them with visitors, to realizing open-ended technological platforms that cultural heritage professionals (such as exhibition designers and interpretation officers) can adapt and appropriate for their institutions and to which they can contribute their own expertise. A common approach is the creation of toolkits, where software and – in some cases – hardware, and related support materials are made available to non-experts to realize digital experiences in museums and exhibitions. In this way, the introduction of novel digital technologies in heritage settings is no longer limited to external interventions (through specially commissioned commercial projects or collaboration with researchers), but is possible at the hands of cultural professionals who can bring their know-how on visitor engagement to interactive exhibition design.