Testing times: Virtual heritage, 'time travel' and the user experience of museum visitors: a case study of an enriched time-based virtual heritage world

Abstract

Time is fundamental to human experience - it is how we make sense of the world. Time is critical to place in general and heritage place in particular. As well as the built environment, it determines both the cultural context and the phenomenological affect experienced at a particular place at a particular time. This thesis argues that time-based virtual heritage supporting navigable time, or time travel with agency, offers two different but complementary opportunities for heritage learning. Going to a specific place at a specific time gives users an informed idea of what it was like then and travelling through time in a time-lapsed fashion reveals the changes that occur over time. Heritage is culture through time yet curiously time is almost entirely absent from virtual heritage despite the power of 3D computer graphics to support time-based virtual worlds. This thesis describes the creation and testing of a time-based virtual heritage world on a museum audience. Navigable time is shown to be a popular and powerful tool for creating affective experiences with virtual heritage and fostering engaging learning opportunities. Additionally this thesis argues for, and the findings support, the importance of providing users with a range of activities in a virtual heritage world.