Advanced Interaction Technologies for Accessible and Engaging Cultural Heritage

This paper describes a web-based system composed of an authoring tool and a cross-platform mobile application, based on augmented reality and Bluetooth Low Energy technology, aimed at improving the visitor experience in a museum through tailored, accessible and engaging content and interaction. The system proposes itself as a low-cost solution for museum organizations, both in terms of required technical devices (visitors' smartphone is exploited for experiencing the augmented reality solution) and professional skills needed for long-term content maintenance. As to the latter, the authoring tool allows museum curators to create and manage all necessary contents that make up an app instance, including the structure of the museum, artwork descriptions and related materials (photos, videos and speeches) suitable for the different user profiles. A preliminary experimentation of the system demonstrates the feasibility of the proposal.