Towards a Gamified and Accessible Cultural Heritage using Augmented Reality

Learning about history and cultural heritage (CH) is shifting from its static non-interactive state into a more dynamic and engaging experience due to the adaptation of educational institutes such as Galleries, Libraries, archives, museums and schools (GLAMS) emerging technologies, gamification and multisensory design to create more attractive CH experiences that are inclusive and accessible to everyone (Partarakis et al., 2017, p. 373).

Although different concepts of digitalization, accessibility and gamification have been addressed frequently in the CH field and based on observations and literature analysis their sub-features and elements often overlap, the absence of a holistic guideline that combines all these concepts for designers to enable them to attempt to form the optimum CH experience for All opens the doors for the possibility to create one. This research identifies a framework that combines elements of: digital cultural heritage, enjoyable informal learning, gamification in cultural heritage (CH), multisensory design, accessibility in CH and Augmented reality technology (AR) in order to create a holistic framework for Accessible Gamified Enjoyable Learning in CH using AR, that is implemented in the context of Egyptian CH that can be applied inside and outside museums with the intention of its usage globally.

The framework will be created from a combination of desk research, the analysis and reviewing of the literature of the areas concerned. The validity of the proposed framework is tested through three different experiments in the Egyptian CH context. The approaches outlined in the framework will be added gradually into the experiments as they progress and according to the needed elements in each experiment.

The first experiment creates a gamified accessible experience using AR which will be tested in the Modern Museum of Egyptian Art (MMEA), the second creating an AR scavenger hunt multisensory mobile game to be tested in the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization (NMEC) and the last experiment creates an AR CH tactile card game.