User-Centric Design Methodology Proves Essential for Heritage XR Development Success

Methodology Investment Prevents Wasted Development Effort

VAARHeT project validation of user-centric design methodology demonstrates that substantial investment in early immersive prototyping with non-technical heritage stakeholders, dedicated domain-expert liaison roles, and iterative feedback cycles proves essential for successful heritage XR development outcomes, preventing wasted effort on capabilities seeming valuable in abstract specification discussions yet delivering minimal operational benefits when confronted with actual museum workflows and visitor behaviours. Initial design sprint from August through November 2024 consumed nearly three months creating rudimentary Mozilla Hubs virtual environments enabling Āraiši Ezerpils museum staff to experience spatial collaboration and voice interaction before articulating specific technical requirements, transforming abstract possibilities about what XR might accomplish into tangible experiential understanding through hands-on exploration rather than relying on verbal descriptions or imagination alone. This early prototyping investment enabled heritage professionals who had never used VR headsets or navigated 3D virtual spaces to viscerally comprehend technology capabilities and limitations, fundamentally improving requirements quality and preventing specification errors that would have required expensive refactoring during implementation phases when architecture decisions constrain subsequent adaptation flexibility.

Dedicated Liaison Role Value and Domain Expertise Bridging

Cordula Hansen from Technical Art Services serving as dedicated liaison between heritage domain expertise and technical XR development capabilities proved transformative for project success, managing expectation calibration from both directions whilst translating high-level museum goals into specific technical requirements that engineering teams could implement whilst ensuring alignment with heritage sector quality standards and cultural sensitivity. Hansen's dual competency in user experience research methodologies and digital cultural heritage technologies enabled productive requirements discussions where museum stakeholders articulated needs in terms technical teams understood whilst developers assessed feature value through heritage operational lenses rather than technical sophistication criteria divorced from institutional missions and visitor service objectives. Liaison role participation in both Āraiši internal planning sessions and XR Ireland technical scrums maintained awareness of evolving priorities and emerging constraints on both sides, enabling proactive misalignment identification before manifestation as project delays or deliverable disputes that reactive conflict resolution addresses less effectively than preventive communication. This investment demonstrated principle that miscommunication cost, wasted development implementing misunderstood requirements, and project failure from accumulated small misalignments vastly exceeds skilled intermediary costs, making dedicated liaison roles essential project infrastructure rather than optional overhead to minimise, with applicability extending beyond VAARHeT to other specialised XR development contexts requiring bridging between technical capabilities and domain-specific operational requirements.

Transferable Lessons for Heritage Technology Development

Methodology lessons transfer to broader heritage technology development contexts beyond voice-activated XR including digital collection management, 3D documentation platforms, conservation workflow systems, and visitor engagement applications. Invest substantially in domain immersion before proposing technical solutions, with time spent observing actual museum operations, participating in existing workflows, and understanding institutional culture proving essential for developing solutions fitting within rather than requiring wholesale restructuring of established practices. Prototype early with deliberately incomplete implementations inviting collaborative refinement rather than polished demonstrations suggesting design finalisation, creating psychological permission for stakeholders to request changes and express concerns ensuring solutions serve genuine needs. Validate assumptions through hands-on user testing with representative populations rather than expert opinions or specification reviews, with actual interaction revealing usability friction and value propositions proving different from predictions. Maintain flexibility about implementation approaches whilst preserving objective clarity, recognising how capabilities combine to serve outcomes matters more than whether specific technologies get incorporated, enabling pragmatic substitutions when integration challenges make original plans impractical. These principles demonstrate successful heritage XR requires more than technical excellence, with organisational culture understanding, workflow integration requirements, and user capability profiles determining whether technically sound solutions achieve adoption and sustained value delivery.