Virtual reality (VR) in museum exhibitions often centers on the person using a head-mounted display (HMD), overlooking the experience of co-located visitors. We conducted a user study with 25 participants, using a prototype museum exhibit featuring VR content, one HMD, a tangible controller, and a public display. Our findings identified four user roles: HMD User, Guide, Observer, and Avoidant Participant, shaped by the design, usability, and social context. Guides emerged to assist others, partly compensating for the usability and lack of embedded instructions. Observer and Avoidant roles revealed missed opportunities for interaction. Our findings highlight the value of designing for asymmetric participation to support varied and inclusive engagement in group settings with VR in museum settings, and we present design implications to better support this.

Figure 1: An inaccessible graveyard (left), virtually modelled (center), and visited using a custom interface designed for a museum setting (right).

Numerous digital games and media with historical themes aim to educate or engage audiences with heritage. When developing a historical video game, some of the most critical design decisions are centered around finding the balance between an accurate presentation of historical facts and engaging gameplay. This paper examines the game developer's role in selecting and presenting historical content through a case study of a mobile game development process. The design choices and developers' positions related to using historical facts are examined through thematic analysis of interview data and game design documents. Recurring themes in the data reveal a constant interplay between game features and historical content, supported by historical knowledge and technology. In small teams, individual developers often make crucial design decisions while performing multiple roles. As key findings, we report that the resourcing and timing of historical research significantly impacts developers' decisions, and note varying degrees of interest in historical accuracy within the development team.

Virtual reality offers a potential solution to enable visiting inaccessible cultural heritage sites. We present the design, prototyping and evaluation (n = 6) of a virtual visit to a historic graveyard. The Salla World War II graveyard is located in an inaccessible border zone between Finland and Russia. Our virtual graveyard, accessed through a head mounted display, aimed to create an as accurate as possible simulation of the Salla graveyard, including its atmosphere. Users are enabled to navigate the virtual graveyard and place a candle on a grave. Although the simulation was considered immersive, participants wished for more authenticity and details, e.g. being able to light the virtual candle. The work opens discussion on the need for dignity in the design of virtual experiences for sensitive cultural heritage sites.

We describe our work on developing a mobile game that utilizes local history and cultural heritage in its storyline and content. The game is depicted in the town of Kemijärvi, Northern Finland, in the 1920's, and its aim is to encourage visitors and locals to get to know the town's history. The game was designed with input from history experts on the topic, and it introduces local history in the form of a narrated story, where the user has to visit the town's historical places and characters. We present the design process, the game concept and a user evaluation. As the lessons learnt and findings from our design process, we highlight the challenge of finding the balance between historical accuracy and engaging game narrative, and the importance of selecting the target user group and involving them when refining the concept and user interface design.