Towards the design of a virtual heritage experience based on the World-as-Support interaction paradigm

Abstract

We present the initial design stage of a Virtual Heritage experience for a bomb shelter built during the Spanish Civil War, namely Refugi 307. The shelter currently belongs to the History Museum of Barcelona which provides guided tours through the cultural heritage site for schools and the general public. The aim of the study was to define the requirements for the design of a first prototype based on the World-as-Support interaction paradigm. We conducted an ethnographic study and Participatory Design workshop to analyze different aspects of the requirements and to include multiple needs and viewpoints of the involved stakeholders. Based on the outcomes, we outline the potential for activities to foster (1) contextual-awareness between the learning content and the cultural heritage site, (2) environment-awareness in relation to missing objects in the physical space and (3) social-awareness to embody feelings related to solidarity and empathy.