Offline Mobile Augmented Reality for Natural Heritage Interpretation in Protected Areas: System Development and Visitor-Centered Evaluation in Cotopaxi National Park

Mobile augmented reality (AR) enables visitors to access contextual digital information associated with physical locations and natural heritage resources. In protected natural areas, applications that can operate without continuous Internet access offer an alternative for delivering digital content independently of network availability. This study describes the development and evaluation of an offline mobile AR application for the Museum and Limpiopungo Lagoon circuits of Cotopaxi National Park, Ecuador. The application was built with Unity and Vuforia, stores its three-dimensional models on the device, and links predefined visual references to information about the surrounding environment. It was assessed through nine functional verification cases and a single-group pre–post study with 50 adult participants. All nine cases met their acceptance criteria. Scores on the AR and digital interpretation knowledge questionnaire rose from 53.3% to 88.5%, a mean paired difference of 35.2 percentage points (Wilcoxon signed-rank test, p<0.001). The mean System Usability Scale (SUS) score was 73.35. Positive responses to the nine visitor-experience items ranged from 64% to 82%, with the items analyzed individually because their thematic groups showed low internal consistency. The exploratory association between knowledge change and SUS was weak and not statistically significant (Spearman’s ρ=0.106, p=0.466). The findings document the implementation and evaluation of contextual mobile AR resources that can be accessed without continuous Internet connectivity in the selected visitor circuits. The increase in questionnaire scores should be interpreted cautiously because the study lacked a control group and the instrument did not directly assess biodiversity learning.