Designing Impactful AR for Heritage: From Storytelling to Co-Creation

Since joining SENSEcity in January as an experience designer, I’ve found a strong alignment between my own values and the way the studio works. There is a shared belief that the process matters just as much as the outcome. How we get there is just as important as what we create. Who is involved, whose voices are heard, and how meaning is shaped along the way all influence the impact of the final experience.

This people-centred, collaborative mindset has always guided my approach to design, and it it is deeply embedded in our work at SENSEcity. Together, we have explored how augmented reality can do more than visualise. It can open up dialogue, surface memory, and create space for reflection. In our practice, AR creates impact in two ways: through the stories it tells and through the process of shaping those stories with others.

Impact 1: through the story

At SENSEcity, we use AR to add something that’s invisible but meaningful to our surroundings. A virtual layer that sits quietly on top of the real world: what happened there, what was felt, what’s been forgotten or silenced. There’s something deeply metaphorical about that, and it’s part of what makes AR so powerful. It opens a window into a moment in time when something important, shocking, surprising, or extraordinary happened right there. And in doing so, it creates a quiet contrast with the present. That tension between what we see in reality and what lies beneath is what gives AR its emotional weight.

That is exactly what happens in Historiscope by placing short animated scenes of medieval life into real castle grounds, visitors can experience past events unfolding in the same spot they are standing. 

Historiscope user looks at the distance to see a medieval life scene through AR lenses.

Other creators have also explored inspiring applications of AR. An early example is Border Memorial: Frontera de los Muertos by John Craig Freeman, where AR skeletons mark the GPS locations of migrants who died crossing the U.S. border, hits you with quiet force. It’s shocking, but not loud. It’s emotional, and the emotion comes from making absence visible.

Border Memorial AR app interface. Source: johncraigfreeman.wordpress.com

Another powerful example, the Roosevelt Island XR Bus, transports visitors into a simulated future shaped by climate change rather than going back in time. It’s a powerful way of showing what might come, not just for the sake of spectacle, but to spark real-world planning and discussion afterwards. That’s where AR becomes more than storytelling. It becomes a call to action.

The third example in this section, Kinfolk app by Movers and Shakers NYC, places virtual statues of underrepresented groups’ icons in public spaces. Names and faces that often aren’t given space in our physical places. The contrast between physical and digital space provokes reflection on who gets remembered and who doesn’t.

The Kinfolk AR app interface. Source: guernicamag.com

Impact 2: through the making

So yes, the story matters, not the medium. But just as important is how that story comes to be.

The second kind of impact lies in the design process itself: in who gets involved, how decisions are made, and whose perspectives shape the experience. When communities are part of the making, not just the viewing, the project becomes a tool for dialogue, reflection, even healing. It’s not just about showing a story but building one together. And that process can be just as transformative as the AR layer itself.

Because in modern (social) media, the drill is simple: people either consume stories made about them or they craft the stories themselves. That balance of power matters. AR is no different. It is a medium that carries power and choices, just like any other. 

But AR still has a high barrier to entry, and precisely because of that, it tends to carry content that matters. We don’t waste resources on such a big project. In the cultural sector, especially, the quality and meaning of content are everything. That’s where community-led design comes in. It’s not just more inclusive, but it’s more accurate.

Stories rooted in lived experience capture the complexity, nuance, and contradictions. Involving community members in curating and shaping AR experiences ensures that local perspectives aren’t flattened into a single version of history, but held in tension, just like they are in real life.

For heritage and cultural sites, co-design means challenging dominant histories and making space for alternative memories, especially those that have been silenced, marginalised, or forgotten. It’s about shifting authorship. AR is still largely expert-driven due to its technical complexity, which makes collaboration even more important, because that’s how we begin to democratise a medium that’s often out of reach.

And when people see their histories reflected, they feel ownership. They feel pride. They keep those memories alive because now, the story belongs to them too. And really, isn’t that what the culture and heritage sector is about?

We saw this clearly in our work on Belfast Memory Machine, where co-design with local communities became the central goal of the project. Through this collaboration, Belfast City Council helped validate what we had long felt to be true: designing immersive technologies is not only about creating tools, but about creating opportunities to share authorship and build more inclusive ways of remembering together.

Written by Emese Stork, experience designer