Co-Designing Digital Solutions: How the Community of Eleusis is Shaping a Virtual Exhibition Archive and an AR App

Throughout March and April in Eleusis, two community engagement events were held to give local residents the opportunity to actively shape and co-create two digital solutions: a Virtual Exhibition Archive (Virtual Museum) and an Augmented Reality (AR) application.

These workshops were designed to ensure that the final outcomes connect meaningfully with the lived experiences, memories, and concerns of the community. The process began with the collection of nearly 200 responses from residents from a questionnaire that was shared online, which provided valuable insights into preferred themes, types of content, and proposed locations for the digital experiences.

The first co-design workshop, held on the 5th of March 2025, focused on collaboratively developing the initial content outline. Participants were invited to engage in discussions around Eleusis’ industrial heritage and the environmental impact of its industrial activity, the two themes that had emerged as the main themes of interest in the preliminary survey. The structure of the first workshop included a short introduction to HeritACT and the proposed digital solutions, followed by interactive group discussions. Participants worked together to define key historical narratives, identify meaningful objects to include in the digital tools, and select relevant locations across Eleusis that the AR app could take into consideration and  implement. They also participated in a matching exercise to determine the most appropriate content formats for each theme and setting. 

During the workshop, the community expressed strong interest in content related to the everyday life of factory workers, the transformation of Eleusis before and after industrialization, and the ongoing consequences of pollution on the local environment and public health. In terms of format, there was a clear preference for visual and narrative-rich media, including photographs, archival material, personal testimonies, videos, and voice recordings.

The second co-design workshop was built upon the findings of the first. Its purpose was to refine and specify the content that would be integrated into the Virtual Museum and AR application. Participants worked with the three thematic narratives that had been synthesized from the 1st co-design workshop. 

Participants in the second session engaged in a series of hands-on activities. First, they discussed the kinds of stories, facts, and perspectives that should be included in the digital experiences, using those three thematic narratives as a guide. Then, they reviewed a curated selection of archival materials and chose those most relevant to each theme, taking into account historical accuracy, community significance, and potential for user engagement. Finally, they participated in a site-object matching activity, selecting specific objects that would be digitally linked to the five heritage sites that are connected with the HeritACT project, via the AR application. These objects were chosen based on their alignment with each site’s history and their potential to enrich the overall storytelling experience.

As the project progresses, the input gathered during these workshops will inform the next stages of development, including storyboarding, 3D object scanning and the technical design of the applications. These steps will ensure that the final digital solutions are not only visually compelling and educational, but also fully aligned with the needs, preferences, and values of the Eleusinian community.

Both workshops were driven by the belief that cultural heritage should be experienced and shaped by those who live within it. By inviting community members from a variety of backgrounds, HeritACT aims to reflect the identity of Eleusis through the solutions it is going to implement in each pilot city, but also embody the principles of inclusion, accessibility, and participatory innovation.

However, active and effective community participation demands the constant evaluation and monitoring of the community engagement events and workshops held throughout the whole duration of the project. As a tool for this, a set of questionnaires will be shared with the community in order to evaluate aspects of the activities such as creativity, attractiveness, sense of inclusion, level of interaction, quality of the knowledge acquired, duration, clarity, and adequacy of the facilities and services. This way, the HeritACT team will be able to constantly monitor its events and activities by receiving feedback from the community and proceeding with corrective actions. 

That’s why we kindly ask all participants in HeritACT’s community engagement activities to take a few minutes to complete our post-activity feedback form. Your responses are anonymous and voluntary, and they help us in a vital part of the project in order to, among other things, understand how accessible and inclusive our events truly are, ensure that our workshops welcome everyone equally and make the necessary adjustments so that all participants, regardless of age, background, or ability, feel supported, included, and inspired.

Fill in the form here, your insights allow us to shape future activities to be even more engaging and welcoming!