Cultural VR for the elderly: setting up the experience
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Date
2025
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
The Eurographics Association
Abstract
The paper presents the Firefly project (Fostering vIrtual heRitage Experience For eLderlY) aiming at creating virtual cultural experiences for people over 65 years of age. As the world population grows older, elderly people form a large segment of the population and they are also an important target group for cultural experiences. Cultural heritage can help keep people over 65 physically and cognitively active improving their wellbeing. In addition, people over 65 can provide their valuable knowledge to enrich cultural heritage and pass their knowledge to younger generations. Despite the benefits from involving older adults in cultural heritage experiences, many cultural heritage sites remain out of reach for people of this age group. There are many reasons for this exclusion, like mobility and accessibility issues, financial issues, etc. and important heritage sites, like Delos, cannot be visited by elderly people. Firefly is preparing 3D models of Delos important sites, like the ancient theatre and the House of Dionysos. Firefly is also using a film narrating historical events, capable of involving participants emotionally. Data already collected from older people from two preliminary studies show elders' positive attitudes towards the use of Virtual Reality (VR), but they also revealed their concerns regarding the usability of VR headsets. In addition, the participants also expressed their concerns regarding the ethical use of cutting-edge technologies like VR. Building on the preliminary studies findings, during the next experimentation phase, Firefly will use an interactive CAVE environment to allow elders to access the cultural content, avoiding the use of headsets, while virtually exploring the routes of Pausanias in Peloponnese.
Description
CCS Concepts: Human-centered computing → Empirical studies in accessibility
@inproceedings{10.2312:dh.20253265,
booktitle = {Digital Heritage},
editor = {Campana, Stefano and Ferdani, Daniele and Graf, Holger and Guidi, Gabriele and Hegarty, Zackary and Pescarin, Sofia and Remondino, Fabio},
title = {{Cultural VR for the elderly: setting up the experience}},
author = {Antoniou, Angeliki and Sylaiou, Stella and Lepouras, George and Theodoropoulos, Anastasios and Kyriazi, Maria},
year = {2025},
publisher = {The Eurographics Association},
ISBN = {978-3-03868-277-6},
DOI = {10.2312/dh.20253265}
}