Intangible Cultural Heritage and Digital Communications

Abstract: ICT aims to democratize the access to information for individuals despite their professional, social and/or personal objectives. Digital artifacts became an interactive way to promote the contact between individuals and entities while pursuing information about a particular issue. Intangible Cultural Heritage is an area of knowledge which by means of digital artifacts can expand its field of action. The impact of digital artifacts on ICH on creation, management and delivery of information was recognized by ICOMOS and European Union; however the knowledgeable entities do not invest on the conception of this kind of documents. The results are inefficient websites which communicate information as if they were traditional static documents. Recurrently, considerations of communication and interaction design are excluded from digital artifacts’ conceptual process. The authors elected three Portuguese cases which illustrate the scarcity of information, an interface difficult to interact with, the failure of inclusive design principles, a questionable aesthetical and functional layout and navigation and particularly the nearly inexistence of interaction chances for the user. This paper proposes an analysis of the impact of digital artifacts on ICH, as well as the design concepts along the conceptual process of these digital artifacts, namely websites. The main objective is to propose a set of guide lines to help creative professionals conceive websites oriented to ICH in order to attract and support different kinds of users.

Keywords: Design, Cognitive Ergonomics, Human Computer Interaction, User Interfaces, Intangible Cultural Heritage and Digital Communication

DOI: 10.54941/ahfe1001241

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