Evaluating the usability and the personal and social acceptance of a participatory digital platform for cultural heritage

Abstract

Nowadays, through the Internet, cultural heritage reaches broader audiences via digital platforms that manage and disseminate cultural content formulating a common sense in societies and supporting society’s cohesion. Various cultural heritage digital platforms embraced the idea of user participation in contributing cultural content. In this work, we evaluate the usability and the personal and social acceptance of a specific participatory platform (Culture Gate) that manages, disseminates and exploits cultural content and services. We associate platform usability with the level of engagement platform’s content and services bring on users. Personal acceptance is related to specific factors like the users’ disposal to disseminate and exploit platform content and services or to actively participate in a digital community. We relate social acceptance to specific factors like the promotion of users’ responsibility towards the online community and the society, the support of intergenerational dialogue and the amplification of a user’s sense of belonging to a society. Evaluation methodology applies a research model based on hypotheses, deriving from the ideas of widely accepted sociological and economic theories, which reflect each of the aforementioned factors. Evaluation results suggest that the test-bed platform is considered usable and acceptable, in a personal and social level, by the users.