Virtual dioramas transform natural history museum exhibit halls & gardens to life with immersive AR

The original motivation and design process of the AR Perpetual Garden App is discussed in detail. Available on Apple iTunes and Google Play Stores, children and parents, teachers and students, may download and learn with it now, thus amplifying the learning impact of immersive experiences even at home. Inspired by the dioramas of the past, both the creation process and their use in museums as interactive, multimodal, knowledge artifacts are discussed and carefully analyzed. This paper may be of interest to researchers and practitioners alike. First, as a way to understand and generalize the critical design factors used and to extend findings into their design research, and second, as an iterative design and development process model, learner-user experience (LUX) design, extensible to other domains.