EUROGRAPHICS Workshop on Graphics and Cultural Heritage (2021) A. Chalmers and V. Hulusic (Editors) Capture, Processing and Presentation of Digital Cultural Items: Feedback from cultural heritage practitioners C. Ferraris, C. Gatzidis, T.Davis and C.Hargood 1 1 Bournemouth University, United Kingdom Abstract The trend of digitizing analogue artefacts from cultural heritage collections to create cultural digital items remains ongoing. The user experience of Cultural Heritage Practitioners (CHP) should be understood in order to support academic efforts in producing practical contributions that benefit those working with cultural digital items. In this publication we follow a series of semi-structured interviews with 10 CHPs and supporting technical professionals who work with cultural digital items on a daily basis. We then code their responses for theme, analysing their thoughts and concerns regarding key topics connected to cultural digital items such as interactivity and the challenges of digitization within the culture heritage sector. CCS Concepts • Human-centered computing → Human computer interaction (HCI); • Social and professional topics → Cultural charac- teristics; 1. Introduction Digital curation has embraced digital technologies in an effort to engage with visitors in both real world locations and online. The perception of museums has moved from them being regarded as guardians of cultural collections and towards providing experiences that inform and educate [Bla12, HG13, NBE17]. Digital cultural items, whether they are generated from analogue items or ‘born digital’, have become an increasingly important tool in the cultural heritage practitioner’s tool box. This is irrespective of whether they are part of online collections, shared interactive stories or virtual recreations of cultural sites [GFE19]. With the COVID-19 pandemic restricting movement and public gatherings, many cultural heritage practitioners have found them- selves required to generate more digital content from their collec- tions. Digital cultural items offer many advantages, with the po- tential to increase accessibility, to be capable of integration in a variety of exhibitions and to provide levels of interaction not feasi- ble with their analogue counterparts [GCR17, GFD09]. While many institutions are involved in digitizing their collections, the artistic, technical and social challenges of preparing and presenting digi- tal cultural items, as well as engaging with dynamically changing technologies that render them possible, is the responsibility of in- dividual cultural heritage practitioners (CHP) [PGMBR17]. And yet, efforts to understand those using collections and appli- cations plus the associated data and the value they place on digital resources have primarily focused on the user or systems adopted by institutions, leaving the “voice” of the cultural practitioner “sur- prisingly silent” [DRH19]. In this publication we explore how the increasing trend to dig- itize and the push to engage with a rapidly changing set of tech- nologies affects the everyday experience of the CHP and the sup- porting professionals they work with, who help realize cultural her- itage projects through skill sharing and technological support. Moreover, this publication seeks to better understand the chal- lenges facing CHPs and the professionals that support their projects by focusing on their experiences as they continue to tackle issues of generating, managing and working with digital cultural items, with the intent of guiding future research efforts to better support the work of CHPs working with digital cultural items. 2. Background 2.1. UX The study of UX was initially shaped by Donald Norman who, after the publication of his book, ‘The Psychology of Everyday Things’, brought the term ‘User Experience’ to the forefront of de- sign research in the mid-1990s during his employment with Ap- ple [Nor88]. Early studies in related fields focused on such notions as usabil- ity, productivity or learnability [HT06] with a drive towards an in- strumental, task-orientated view of products [FB04]. Specifically, within the study of Human Computer Interaction, UX represents a concerted shift from focusing solely on the instrumental and to- wards considering the human within the interaction and hedonic qualities including the sensual, cognitive, emotional, aesthetic and the ethical [FB04, PLF * 18]. If the questions before were ‘How does © 2021 The Author(s) Eurographics Proceedings © 2021 The Eurographics Association. DOI: 10.2312/gch.20211400 https://diglib.eg.org https://www.eg.org