# A Gamified Augmented Reality Application for Digital Heritage and Tourism
## 4 Discussion  
This section will discuss the evaluation results of the e-Tracer AR app and will perform comparisons with the results of other studies regarding similar applications. AR apps that require special equipment such as wearables, Smart Glasses, IoT devices, and prior user education/training on how to use the special equipment are excluded from these comparisons. Those should be considered non-similar approaches in the context of everyday museum experience by wide audiences. In general, AR technology opened up new navigation and visualization possibilities for museum visitors. It can introduce interactivity, tour guides, games, and 3D projection capabilities without a possible damage to the artefact: qualities that are needed to balance static museum content and fight visitor's boredom. According to other researchers [8,48] and also the experts' panel in this study, these seem to be the main advantages of the technology-supported augmentation AR has to offer in visitor's experience. Regarding the e-Tracer AR application, one very important usability result that emerged from the experts' estimates is that the used visual metaphors and the overall interaction design were self-explained and well-known to users from other AR experiences and apps they may have used. One expert found that the visual metaphor for the available time that appeared as a green line (gauge bar), which progressively moves to the right of the screen as time elapses, was not very clear. More specifically, it was not clear to the reviewer if the time bar refers to the overall quiz time or the time given to the current question. This issue was noted as major, and finally, it was fixed by explaining in the help files that each question may have a different available time, according to its difficulty. Although not a heuristic violation, one expert recommended that the AR quiz app should display a message to prompt the user to explore the physical space in the AR questions. This message, in addition to the flashing brackets, would reduce the risk of user's laziness or boredom. Two experts identified a problem in the system's ability to adapt to the position and orientation of the user, especially in poor lighting conditions. It is true that the interior of the Silversmithing museum at Ioannina is quite atmospheric, leading to an intended low lighting condition; thus, the object detection algorithm of the AR app would have difficulties performing well under such conditions. This issue could be overcome if markers were placed in the center of bright spotlight cones. There could be more places in the museum where light would be enough to allow maximum performance for the object detection mechanism, but this may require either the rearrangement of museum exhibitions or the placement of additional spotlights targeting the museum artifact markers. Another issue that was identified as blocking/critical by two of the experts was the non-adaptability of the app to poor device profiles. Actually, the e-Tracer AR app requires a relatively new hardware profile and updated software from the hosted tablets; otherwise, the app may not start at all. Luckily, the mobile devices used by the wider audiences are getting better and better, and in the near future, this will not be an issue. On the other hand, within the e-Tracer project, there is a provision for the supported museums to supply tablets to the visitors who wish to experience the AR functionality of the application. The results of the comparison between the e-Tracer AR app and other AR applications for museums (based on literature findings and the opinions expressed by the experts) presented evidence that AR games appear to be a promising approach that is meant to create extra motivation to museum visitors, especially young children.