Elina Luiro's research while affiliated with University of Lapland and other places

We describe our work on developing a mobile game that utilizes local history and cultural heritage in its storyline and content. The game is depicted in the town of Kemijärvi, Northern Finland, in the 1920's, and its aim is to encourage visitors and locals to get to know the town's history. The game was designed with input from history experts on the topic, and it introduces local history in the form of a narrated story, where the user has to visit the town's historical places and characters. We present the design process, the game concept and a user evaluation. As the lessons learnt and findings from our design process, we highlight the challenge of finding the balance between historical accuracy and engaging game narrative, and the importance of selecting the target user group and involving them when refining the concept and user interface design.

Virtual reality offers a potential solution to enable visiting inaccessible cultural heritage sites. We present the design, prototyping and evaluation (n = 6) of a virtual visit to a historic graveyard. The Salla World War II graveyard is located in an inaccessible border zone between Finland and Russia. Our virtual graveyard, accessed through a head mounted display, aimed to create an as accurate as possible simulation of the Salla graveyard, including its atmosphere. Users are enabled to navigate the virtual graveyard and place a candle on a grave. Although the simulation was considered immersive, participants wished for more authenticity and details, e.g. being able to light the virtual candle. The work opens discussion on the need for dignity in the design of virtual experiences for sensitive cultural heritage sites.