Direct interaction with cultural heritage (CH) artefacts is frequently unavailable to visitors, offering an opportunity for HCI designers to explore integrating material aspects into digitally-mediated encounters with CH artefacts. We argue that a thorough understanding of the material experiences of CH artefacts can open a novel design space, enabling engaging and meaningful interactions with digital representations. Capitalising on this potential, we present a user study where we systematically explore the material experiences of historic pop-up and movable books. Our analysis identifies five key material qualities to inspire augmentation: fold-ability, slide-ability, tear-ability, age-ability, and print-ability. Highlighting how these material qualities can inspire novel interactions with their digital representations, we present two extended-reality (XR) prototypes of a CH book. With our work, we present HCI designers with a novel approach on designing CH experiences, firmly rooted in materiality, challenging the prevalent paradigms of 'technology-driven' or 'as-realistic-as-possible' sensory experiences often found in CH-HCI.

The paper presents the initial stages of a project that wishes to create soundscapes for people with visual impairments at the archaeological site of Souriza-Agrileza (Greece). The students of a music school collaborated with the archaeologists from the local ephorate of antiquities in order to provide appropriate sound clips that would be incorporated in the site, thus “translating” what students see to sounds and music for visitors with disabilities. In addition, the paper includes a relevant literature review that guided the design of the project.