Gamified and Accessible Cultural Heritage: An AR Framework for Inclusive Experiences

Designing accessible yet engaging Cultural Heritage (CH) experiences is a necessity for a more inclusive edutainment experience that both preserves CH and expands people’s knowledge and interest in their heritage more broadly. Many designers have explored the integration of concepts, including multisensory design, digitization of CH, gamification, and emergent technologies in their CH experiences to achieve that. However, researchers often address these concepts individually, leaving a gap in combining them to create a holistic guideline for designing enjoyable CH experiences for all. This research investigates the question of whether we can design a comprehensive framework that merges digitalization, gamification, multisensory design, and accessibility to enhance CH experiences for all. This study introduces the CHx toolkit, which is the output of desk research and data analysis in order to identify the overlapping elements and sub-features across a pilot project in digital CH, including enjoyable informal learning, gamification, and multisensory design, through Augmented Reality (AR). The toolkit is then tested through two experiments in the context of Egyptian CH, each focusing on a different sensory stimulus and AR application. The first experiment is a gamified experience conducted at the Modern Museum of Egyptian Art; the second one is an AR scavenger hunt game at the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization. While this stage did not involve formal evaluation, preliminary qualitative feedback from observers suggested the approach was engaging and accessible. These exploratory applications demonstrate the framework’s adaptability and inform the design of future, measurable user studies to validate its impact.