Methodological Framework for the Design and Development of Applications for Reactivation of Cultural Heritage

Abstract

The need to preserve and live in cities with value and care for cultural heritage makes information technologies a tool to locate, document, describe, and visualize important urban contexts. With technology resources and the convergence of media such as text, data, maps, charts, pictures, and virtual models, among others, cultural heritage can be celebrated, contemplated, and admired more easily. However, creating an application for reactivation of cultural heritage by citizens remains a challenge because there is no clear methodology to be followed for its development. As far as we know, no one has proposed a methodological framework for applications in this field to determine which aspects should be considered and which tools should be used to successfully develop a cultural heritage application. This article proposes a methodological framework that allows a developer to categorize the type of cultural heritage application to develop and determine which types and quality of resources should be used in the application to provide good usability while fitting project requirements. The methodology is applied for the reactivation of Cisneros marketplace at Medellin, in Colombia, as a case study for testing the framework proposed. This article is part of a project called Reactivation of Cultural Heritage in Colombia using Information and Communication Technologies.

Mobile Augmented Reality for Cultural Heritage: Following the Footsteps of Ovid among Different Locations in Europe

“…However, the development of applications that targets reactivation of CH in local citizens remains a challenge [52]. In this sense, it is of the utmost importance to take into account the process of evaluation of digital cultural resources.…”

“…Usability was evaluated in [58] using four different methods. In [52] a methodological framework was proposed, which allowed developers to categorize the type of CH application and to determine which resources should be used. Santos designed a questionnaire for usability evaluation (HARUS), which was composed of two sub-questionnaires, namely the comprehensibility scale and the manipulability scale [59].…”

Augmented and Virtual Reality for Public Space Art

“…The authors in [9] propose a methodological framework for designing and developing applications for cultural heritage. The reference frame of the methodology is represented through a scheme with 3 axes: technology (visualization, AR, VR, serious games), application category (fixed/mobile indoor, fixed/mobile outdoor) and type of content (text, pictures, audio, video, animations, 3D models).…”

“…Fig. 4 shows the current and future state of the application, according to the methodological framework described in [9] and already-mentioned in the "related work" chapter. The current features of the app are highlighted in blue: the app allows users to visualize text and pictures about the artworks, which are, according to the above-mentioned framework, fixed outdoor (individual monuments placed outdoors) as well as mobile outdoor (set of monuments placed outdoors, related between them, such as those belonging to a thematic park).…”

“…Screenshots of the ArtTM appwith envisioned AR and VR icons (buttons) Current and envisioned future scheme of the ArtTM app according to existing methodology[9] …”