Research followed a participatory design approach, involving the target audience throughout. A survey of 33 respondents explored how people travel in Sweden: their patterns, preferences, and pain points. It showed a clear appetite for digital, engaging, and interactive experiences, which moved the project from a broad, divergent exploration toward a convergent direction.

A competitive analysis of existing museum and AR apps mapped how others structured navigation and interaction. In parallel, a teammate visited the Sigurd rune carving in person, photographed it, and gathered its history and background, so every piece of content in the prototype was real and specific to the site rather than placeholder.

The team also grounded the design in academic research on gamification, AR, and game mechanics. Studies showed that gamification and AR significantly improve cultural-heritage learning and engagement (Garcia et al., 2024; Hincapié et al., 2021), while stressing a balance between education and entertainment, and cultural sensitivity. This directly shaped a core principle that AR should enhance the history, not overshadow it.

Target audience:

• Swedish tourists travelling within Sweden.
• Users of all ages with varied technical experience levels.

Below are the survey findings and the four personas that narrowed the project's focus:

From the research, four personas were built, each representing a different age group and need, from a 12-year-old who wants history to feel like a game, to a 64-year-old who values simplicity over high-tech. They spanned a wide range of technical comfort, and included a visitor with sensory and accessibility needs.

Designing for all four is what pushed the app toward familiar, accessible interaction alongside its AR features, ensuring it worked for young, tech-comfortable users and older or less tech-confident ones alike.

Below are the four personas that shaped the design:

The divergent phase used rapid, low-cost prototypes, paper, transparent overlays, and Wizard-of-Oz AR simulations, each built to answer a specific design question and tested across age groups, from young children to a 61-year-old. Each prototype produced a finding that shaped the final design:

• Traditional map navigation. Do different ages find a familiar, Google-Maps-style map engaging enough? A younger user found it intuitive and familiar; an older user found it easy but wanted bigger icons and more guidance.
• AR navigation. How do different ages experience navigating with AR? The younger user was curious and engaged; the older user was doubtful, finding it tiring to hold the phone up and potentially too complex.
• AR authenticity. Can it be immersive and authentic at once? Younger testers found Vikings shown in the real environment engaging and credible, and asked practical questions, such as how it behaves in the dark or rain.
• Analog AR game. Can AR gameplay engage without advanced tech? Children engaged enthusiastically with moving paper icons to collect points; the teenager wanted more scoring complexity; adults wanted clearer instructions.
• Rune translation overlay. Can we improve understanding of runic script? The "discovery moment" when the translation appeared delighted testers of all ages, children loved uncovering something hidden, and an older tester valued its simplicity and accessibility.

Findings: younger users embraced AR, while older users wanted simplicity and guidance. That split is exactly why the final design balanced both, immersive AR for those who want it, and a familiar map with audio for those who don't.

Below are the exploratory prototypes tested across age groups:

Before building the final AR prototype, a base prototype was created in Figma to test how everything worked together. It used the filter dimensions functionality, data, appearance, and spatial structure (Lim et al., 2008), with high interactivity and resolution and medium-to-high fidelity, to explore the experience as a whole rather than in separate pieces.

Testing showed that much of the prototype matched users' conceptual model (Norman, 2011): the map, categories, and reward system were easy to understand because the icons and behaviours felt familiar. Two clear gaps emerged, though, the app needed an introduction to give users a basic idea of what to do, and the storytelling needed to be broken up in a more engaging way.

Below is part of the Figma base prototype used to test the full flow: