THREADS: A Digital Storytelling Multi-stage Installation on Industrial Heritage Eriana Panopoulou (&) , Konstantinos Kouros, Aikaterini Pasopoulou, Giorgos Arsenikos, Spyros Vosinakis, Panayiotis Koutsabasis, Modestos Stavrakis, and Damianos Gavalas Department of Product and Systems Design Engineering, University of the Aegean, 84100 Syros, Greece {eriana.pan,k.kouros,a.pasopoulou, g.arsenikos,spyrosv}@syros.aegean.gr, {kgp,modestos,dgavalas}@aegean.gr Abstract. Storytelling enables us to connect through narratives that create reflections on our experiences. When storytelling concerns cultural heritage, it brings forth tangible and intangible assets that characterize activities and events of the past, which may sensitize visitors of a cultural site. In this paper, we present our cultural storytelling project THREADS, a four-station installation that narrates a story of a worker in a textile factory. The system comprises: (a) a welcome station (an animation on public display) that explains the main story and challenges to visitors, (b) the fabric design station (multi-touch display) where the visitor can create a simple fabric for production, (c) the punched cards station (Arduino mechanism), where the visitor codes their initials to binary form and receives a punched card, (d) the Jacquard production station (gesture- based interface with Leap Motion and Unity), where the visitor uses the card to repair a mechanical loom. THREADS has been installed in an abandoned building of a textile industry, which operated between 1914–1986, and it is now renewed and open to visitors. A preliminary empirical evaluation of THREADS revealed that it is not the variety of technologies that engages users, but a storyline flow that retains their attention and interest. Keywords: Digital storytelling Á Heritage tourism Á Industrial heritage Digital cultural heritage Á Textile 1 Introduction Storytelling has been associated with cultural heritage since the beginning of time, from folklore narration to carrying on a society’s cultural identity. Tales of parents, grand- parents, and historians about who they/we were, what they did, and how they did it bear the identity of the referred social group. This identity, along with historical artifacts, shapes our own dynamic set of ideas, principals, and beliefs (a culture), and links us to a legacy. To preserve and effectively embrace and pass on cultural heritage, storytellers need inspiring means to capture their listeners’ attention and empower their retention. To trigger emotions and experiences, people should be exposed in a rich environment © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2018 M. Ioannides et al. (Eds.): EuroMed 2018, LNCS 11196, pp. 457–469, 2018. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-01762-0_40