History Hunt : Raising User’s Curiosity towards Places of Historical Value using Narrative-driven, Location-based Augmented Reality

Abstract: Today our society is greatly built on modern technologies. In most parts of the world itis a social standard to have access to a smartphone and the Internet. Being able to keepin touch with others, consuming information, or being entertained independent of placeand time are assumed standards. From an entertainment perspective, the interactivemedium has changed in the modern society, the gaming community is still growing, andfor many it is a daily routine to play some sort of game, either on the computer, tablet orsmartphone. However, new ways to engage the user in fun activities are still beingexplored. At the same time, the consumption of media and use of digital technologiesraises concerns towards health issues and time spend outside in the nature, according tocritics. Pokemon Go, a smartphone application released in 2016, presented a possiblesolution to this problem, encouraging users to go outside and catch Pokemons due to thelocation-based nature of the application. The need to physically move to certain placesin order to catch a certain Pokemon facilitated not just people’s exercise, but also socialaspects as one would likely meet other players trying to catch Pokemons. While this is astep in the right direction, I strongly believe that this technological advancement couldalso be used for other entertaining and beneficial needs to people. This thesis investigates an approach of using similar technologies compared to thoseused in Pokemon Go, combined with narrative elements and a linear task system, inorder to create an experience with the purpose to engage users with local places ofhistorical value. By using geolocation-based technology, the application guides the userto places of historical value, while augmented reality (AR) elements are used to raisethe user’s interest, and further engage them in an interactive way. The developedapplication allows the user to solve tasks, which require interaction and exploration withthe real world environment in order to gain the necessary information, related to thehistorical value of the place, to solve the task. To provide a more meaningful scenario,all this is accompanied with a complete narrative. Design and concept have beenevaluated by four experts within explorative discussions, which lead to the laterimplementation of a digital prototype. This prototype was then tested and evaluated,providing practical feedback and insights. The user interaction study, conducted withnine participants around the Linnéparken area in Växjö, suggests that the users overallfelt engaged interacting with the application and the real world environment. They alsoseemed to have developed a better understanding about the local history by gaining newinsights about the information and areas presented to them. Users also stated that duringprevious visits to the area they had not payed attention to the statues and otherinformation signs, thus resulting in a new experience visiting the area facilitated throughthe use of the developed application. The users were positive about exploring even morepoints of interest in the future if presented this way, indicating their acceptance towardsthe developed application. Some users also stated that the narrative elements made theexperience interesting and motivating. While both application design and concept wereunderstandable, the applied navigation system would need further improvements,although all users were successfully able to navigate to the real world points of interest.The AR-features seemed to increase the user’s enjoyment, while being useful at thesame time, as the AR-markers provided necessary clues considering where to findanswers to the presented questions as well as a sense of progression with the narrative.