Visits to cultural heritage sites are generally social in nature, yet resources to support these sociable experiences are often individualized, catering to the solitary visitor. Digital technologies offer means to disrupt this predicament, encouraging social engagements in cultural contexts. Here we present the results of a user study that systematically investigates the effects of face-to-face group conversation and physical interactions within a digital cultural storytelling experience at the Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük, with the objective of promoting engagement, learning, and perspective taking. Seeking to articulate the benefits and weaknesses of promoting social interactions in digital storytelling settings, we start with a story-based experience that was designed for individual use, we extend it with novel system-driven interaction prompts, and then we evaluate the two versions with 102 participants. Our findings provide statistically significant evidence that conversation is related to longer and more absorbed participation in the experience and greater learning regardless of personality traits. Where social interaction is purposefully integrated into the story, more conversation is generated, and these interactive prompts do not disrupt the story flow even though participants report awareness of them. Finally, certain tendencies among users affect their talkativeness and enjoyment, providing future designers of digital stories with guidance to better address audience needs.

Open laboratories (OpenLabs) in Cultural Heritage institutions are an effective way to provide visibility into the behind-the-scenes processes and promote documentation data collected and produced by domain specialists. However, presenting these processes without proper explanation or communication with specialists may cause issues in terms of visitors’ understanding. To support OpenLabs and disseminate information, digital media and efficient data management can be utilized. The CAnTi (Conservation of Ancient Tiryns) project seeks to design and implement virtual and mixed reality applications that visualize conservation and restoration data, supporting OpenLab operations at the Acropolis of Ancient Tiryns. Semantic Web technologies will be used to model the digital content, facilitating organization and interoperability with external sources in the future. These applications will be part of the OpenLab activities on the site, enhancing visitors’ experiences and understanding of current and past conservation and restoration practices.

This paper describes on-going research investigating movement and behaviour patterns of visitors in archaeological sites as a way of informing interpretive planning. A critical point of this study was the development of a hybrid methodology for collecting and assessing data on visitor movement around archaeological sites and of the things that visitors value the most during their visit. This paper demonstrates the methodology developed mainly at Gournia, a Minoan archaeological site of eastern Crete in Greece. Apart from recognised forms of observation and the collection of qualitative data, technologies such as Geographical Positioning System body tracking, geo-tagging and applications of Geographical Information Systems were employed. The interpretation of the processed data provided a better insight and an overview of the site's affordances for movement and as well as the weaknesses of the current interpretation infrastructure. Additionally, the methodology extends to a visitor-sourced approach to reveal the site's ‘hot spots’ by combining hotspot analysis with a thematic analysis of the geo-tagged images captured by visitors.