Designing Historical Tours for Head-Worn AR

Cultural heritage sites, such as historic buildings, ruins, or archaeological digs can provide a glimpse into the past via physical and/or geographic context. Augmented Reality (AR) can be used to enhance real artifacts and places to allow for deeper understanding. However, to date, AR experiences for history education have been primarily handheld experiences on smartphones or tablets. The design and use of head-worn AR for on-site history education needs further investigation. In this work, we aimed to explore best practices for creating such experiences. We describe the design and evaluation of Solitude AR, a head-worn AR experience exploring the history of Solitude, a historic site on the campus of our university. We present findings from a user-experience study of Solitude AR and lessons learned for the design of future head-worn AR experiences for on-site history education.