Cultural Heritage (CH) is a challenging domain of application for novel Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), where visualization plays a major role in enhancing the visitors’ experience, whether onsite or online. Technology-supported natural human-computer interaction is a key factor in enabling access to CH assets. Following the successful workshops at AVI 2016, AVI 2018, AVI 2020, AVI 2022, and AVI 2024, the goal of the AVI-CH 2026 workshop is to bring together researchers and practitioners interested in presenting and discussing the potential of state-of-the-art advanced visual interfaces in enhancing our daily cultural heritage experience. This year, the workshop theme is Hybrid Reasoning Methods behind Interactive Cultural Heritage Applications. Seven papers were accepted, covering topics ranging from augmented and virtual reality for heritage sites, knowledge graph exploration, conversational AI architectures, digital preservation of multimedia art, computer vision for historical audio recordings, cross-device visitor behaviour in virtual museum tours, and LLM-driven adaptive content in VR museums.

This research explores how Interactive Multimodal Tangible Interface (IMTIs) exploiting advanced technologies such as 3D printing and microcontrollers to enhance museum experiences for blind and low vision (BLV) visitors. It investigates the potential for these technologies to create more inclusive and engaging museum environments. Four IMTIs were developed in collaboration with two blind volunteers, with each IMTI using a different interaction technique (autoplay, pushbuttons, and scanning sensors) developed in the pilot phase and having a different shape to align with the museum installation being presented. After refining the concepts, three of the four IMTIs were redesigned and developed into high-quality IMTIs and evaluated by BLV visitors (n=30). The results showed a clear preference among BLV visitors for using pushbuttons to operate the IMTI. Additionally, the research identified key areas for improvement, including 3D printing techniques for producing replicas, audio guide content, and design decisions that can enhance users’ sense of control over the IMTI. These findings offer valuable insights for the future development of tactile replicas that promote contextual understanding, while contributing to a more inclusive and engaging museum experience.

Cultural Heritage (CH) is a challenging domain of application for novel Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), where visualization plays a major role in enhancing the visitors’ experience, whether onsite or online. Technology-supported natural human-computer interaction is a key factor in enabling access, both on-site and online, to CH assets. Recent advances in ICT enhance visitors’ access to online collections as well as their CH experience onsite, bringing even wider audiences than those who visit the physical museums. The range of visualization devices – from tiny smartwatch screens, through large situated public displays, to the latest generation of immersive Head-Mounted Displays – together with the increasing availability of real-time 3D rendering technologies for online and mobile devices and, recently, Internet of Things (IoT) approaches, Social Robotics, requires exploring how they can be applied successfully in CH. Following the successful workshops at AVI 2016, AVI 2018, AVI 2020, AVI 2022 and AVI 2024 and a large number of recent events and projects focusing on CH, the goal of the workshop is to bring together researchers and practitioners interested in presenting and discussing the potential of state of the art advanced visual interfaces in enhancing our daily cultural heritage experience. This year the workshop theme will be: AVI for accessibility in CH.

Choosing between two or more alternatives, ranging from relatively simple alternatives to more complex ones, is a common and important task. Visualization techniques may help users to examine differences between such alternatives. The potential contribution of an adequate visualization may increase as the comparison becomes more complicated, when the compared alternatives include multiple dimensions, and when they are examined over time. We propose a novel visualization technique designed to represent the temporal evolution of multiple dimensions between two competitors at a glance. We exemplify how the visualization supports the comparison of two events according to their changes in eight discrete emotions over time. We report on a study that compared our suggested visualization with two common visualization techniques. User performance and preferences were measured under a formal task taxonomy, using Twitter data of real-world events. The experimental results indicate the effectiveness of our visualization as demonstrated by task completion time and accuracy.

There is an increasing evidence that data visualization is an important and useful tool for quick understanding and filtering of large amounts of data. In this paper, we contribute to this body of work with a study that compares chord and ranked list for presentation of a temporal TV program genre similarity in next-program recommendations. We consider genre similarity based on the similarity of temporal viewing patterns. We discover that chord presentation allows users to see the whole picture and improves their ability to choose items beyond the ranked list of top similar items. We believe that similarity visualization may be useful for the provision of both the recommendations and their explanations to the end users.

There is increasing evidence that user characteristics can have a significant impact on visualization effectiveness, suggesting that visualizations could be enriched with personalization mechanisms that better fit each user's specific needs and abilities. In this paper, we contribute to this body of work with a study that investigates the impact of six user characteristics on the effectiveness of time series visualizations, which was not previously investigated in relation to personalizing Information visualization. We report on a controlled user study that compare four possible time series visualization techniques. User performance and how it was affected by user characteristics was measured while performing tasks from a formal taxonomy using Twitter data about real-world events. Our results show that both the personality trait of locus of control and the cognitive ability of verbal working memory influence which visualization is more effective when dealing with demanding and complex tasks. These findings extend the need for personalization to visualizations for time series data, and we discuss them in the context of creating systems that can utilize knowledge of the user's specific characteristics in order to present the most suitable visualization for each user.

Visitors often tend to visit museums in groups, mainly with family or friends, yet most of the today mobile museum guides focus on supporting the individual visitor. The technology described in this paper allows supporting groups of visitors in addition to individuals by providing context-aware services aimed at supporting the whole group. These include context-aware communication and alerting services that are provided by the museum visitor's guide system developed in the framework of the PIL (PEACH-Israel) project, as an example case of a larger variety of possible context-aware services.