One of the preconditions for genuine sustainability is a heritage that is present anywhere and anytime in everyday life. We present PLUGGY, a Pluggable Social Platform for Heritage Awareness and Participation. PLUGGY will address the need of society to be actively involved in cultural heritage activities, not only as an observer but also as a creator and a major influencing factor. With PLUGGY, we aim to bridge this gap by providing the tools needed to allow users to share their local knowledge and everyday experience with others, together with the contribution of cultural institutions. Users will be able to build extensive networks around a common area of interest, connecting the past, the present and the future. It will be powered by its users and puts people’s values, aspirations and needs first. Users of PLUGGY will be the providers of information about cultural heritage in the everyday and ordinary, real life. Through its social platform and by using its innovative curation tools, designed to solely focus on a niche area in social media, citizens will be able to act as skilled storytellers by creating fascinating personalised stories and share them through social networking with friends, associates and professionals. In this paper, we describe a structured formative and summative evaluative approach of PLUGGY’s core concepts, which results will be used to inform and improve its design.

This paper reports on the exploration of potential design opportunities for social media and technology to identify issues and challenges in involving people in generating content within a cultural heritage context. The work is divided into two parts. In the first part, arguments are informed by findings from 22 in-depth semi-structured interviews with representatives of cultural institutions and with people from a general audience who recently participated in a cultural activity. The key findings show that social media could be used more extensively to achieve a deeper understanding of cultural diversity, with opportunities in redefining the expert, extending the experience space, and decentralising collaboration. To further support these findings, a case study was set up evaluating the experience of a mini audio tour with user-generated (i.e., personal stories from a local audience) vs. non user-generated (i.e., professional stories including facts) narratives. These were delivered using text and 3D sound on a mobile device. The narratives were related to a built environment in central London near world-renown museums, cultural buildings, and a royal park. Observations, a standardised spatial presence questionnaire, and a short open interview at the end of the tour were used to gain insights about participants preferences and overall experience. Thematic analysis and triangulation were used as a means for understanding and articulating opportunities for social media to better involve and engage people using user-generated narratives presented through 3D sound.

PlugSonic is a suite of web- and mobile-based applications for the curation and experience of 3D interactive soundscapes and sonic narratives in the cultural heritage context. It was developed as part of the PLUGGY EU project (Pluggable Social Platform for Heritage Awareness and Participation) and consists of two main applications: PlugSonic Sample, to edit and apply audio effects, and PlugSonic Soundscape, to create and experience 3D soundscapes for headphones playback. The audio processing within PlugSonic is based on the Web Audio API and the 3D Tune-In Toolkit, while the mobile exploration of soundscapes in a physical space is obtained using Apple’s ARKit. The main goal of PlugSonic is technology democratisation; PlugSonic users—whether cultural institutions or citizens—are all given the instruments needed to create, process and experience 3D soundscapes and sonic narratives; without the need for specific devices, external tools (software and/or hardware), specialised knowledge or custom development. The aims of this paper are to present the design and development choices, the user involvement processes as well as a final evaluation conducted with inexperienced users on three tasks (creation, curation and experience), demonstrating how PlugSonic is indeed a simple, effective, yet powerful tool.