Summary
This paper presents a special type of MAR—an augmented reality smart glasses (ARSG)-based mobile guide that served as a testbed for exploring the potential of ARSG to enhance visitor experience at outdoor CH sites. They developed the ARSG-based guide with location and orientation-based functionalities that provided visitors with context-aware information regarding the points of interest (POIs) in their field of view (FOV). We compared it with a more conventional smartphone-based guide (identical application). The results show that visitors are positive towards using ARSG as a tool for exploring cultural heritage (CH) sites and learning about exhibits. The results also highlighted several challenges that must be overcome before an ARSG-based system can be fully implemented for outdoor CH sites.

Innovative VR tools and techniques
- Context-aware mobile augmented reality (MAR) technologies.
- Smart glasses.

VR in education
The two guides they developed served as a testbed to pursue their primary research objective: to explore the potential for enhancing cultural heritage outdoor experience with ARSG.
The execution of visitor evaluation trials confirmed the perceived usefulness, ease of use, and enjoyment of our visitors’ guide on both platforms. Furthermore, results show that smart glasses can be more appealing to visitors of cultural heritage venues than the smartphone.