Tangible Cultural Analytics: Using Augmented Reality to Research Cultural Artifacts

Research has shown that cultural heritage researchers encounter a number of challenges during their research process when working with artifacts and ephemera. Their current processes can be costly and time consuming, and include extensive amounts of both online and offline research. This MRP aims to aid researchers during their research process by providing a digital solution to ease some of the pain points that they currently face. This digital solution is in the form of an augmented reality mobile application. This paper will analyze the definition of augmented reality and how it is currently used in the cultural sector, identify the problems researchers face through primary and secondary research, provide a solution to those challenges, describe the user flow of the mobile application, and use the Design Thinking model to explain the design decisions made for this prototype. This MRP is in collaboration with the Ryerson Synaesthetic Media Lab and the University of Toronto’s Thomas Fischer Rare Book Library, and was completed with group members Daniella Kalinda and Ben Ashley.