Methodological Framework for the Design and Development of Applications for Reactivation of Cultural Heritage

The need to preserve and live in cities with value and care for cultural heritage makes information technologies a tool to locate, document, describe, and visualize important urban contexts. With technology resources and the convergence of media such as text, data, maps, charts, pictures, and virtual models, among others, cultural heritage can be celebrated, contemplated, and admired more easily. However, creating an application for reactivation of cultural heritage by citizens remains a challenge because there is no clear methodology to be followed for its development. As far as we know, no one has proposed a methodological framework for applications in this field to determine which aspects should be considered and which tools should be used to successfully develop a cultural heritage application. This article proposes a methodological framework that allows a developer to categorize the type of cultural heritage application to develop and determine which types and quality of resources should be used in the application to provide good usability while fitting project requirements. The methodology is applied for the reactivation of Cisneros marketplace at Medellin, in Colombia, as a case study for testing the framework proposed. This article is part of a project called Reactivation of Cultural Heritage in Colombia using Information and Communication Technologies.