Can digital interactions support new dialogue around heritage?

Digital technologies in heritage contexts have been both praised and critiqued for the way in which they can mediate the experience of heritage. While many technological platforms and their application to heritage settings have been explored, interaction designers have been largely reproducing one model of engagement with heritage, the one in which an expert curator or guide acts as the voice of the museum, providing information to visitors. Therefore, while interaction design researchers have been working for some time to encourage participation, dialogue, and collaboration around heritage, it is time to consider more deeply who may wish to engage, and to broaden the view of heritage beyond something that carries interpretations established by only one voice. To achieve better HCI and interaction design work in heritage domains, and to achieve what truly can have an impact on this key domain of representation, social cohesion, and reconciliation, researchers must reconsider our approach to bringing interventions into often immutable domains, and to embrace the practiced life of multiple active and intersecting communities.