Accessibility and Augmented Reality into Heritage Site Interpretation: A pilot experience with visitors at the monument Lonja de la Seda in Valencia (Spain)

摘要

This paper summarizes a pilot experiment with Augmented Reality (AR) at this architectural monument declared World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1996. The project aims to increase accessibility to this site and provide users, in this case, visitors to the place, with intuitive experience of this technology. The experience and the application are proposed as a complement to the visit in the real environment, emphasizing the site as a context for situated learning that contributes to knowledge. Comprehensive visits to world heritage sites endow them with extraordinary cultural and social value. Augmented reality was chosen to activate the visit experience of the place by providing elements that can be visualized and manipulated directly by users in the real environment of the building itself without the need for any excessively invasive equipment in this historical and artistic context. This application is proposed firstly, to resolve perceptual issues due to poor lighting, the distance from many details and access to some areas and secondly, to explain some of the more complex construction aspects. This pilot experiment aims to establish initial contact with visitors to the place in order to obtain relevant information for modifications and adjustments to improve the components designed and developed for this site.