Digital interaction design promotes cultural identification and heritage-related participation intention: Evidence from the Wangchuan ceremony

The sustainable protection of intangible cultural heritage faces unprecedented challenges due to the process of urbanization and the decline in the participation of the younger generation. Digital reconstruction offers a transformative way for heritage transmission, but its long-term contribution to cultural sustainability remains under-explored. This study examines the relationships among users’ perceptions of digital heritage experiences, cultural identification, and heritage-related behavioural intention. On the basis of the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), the study introduces emotional design and cultural identification into the model and analyzes data from 220 valid questionnaires using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). The results show significant positive associations between emotional design and perceived enjoyment, between perceived enjoyment and cultural identification, and between cultural identification and heritage-related behavioural intention. Cultural identification shows the strongest association with behavioural intention, suggesting its important role in linking users experiential responses with subsequent heritage-related behavioural intentions.These findings suggest that, if intangible cultural heritage wants to genuinely serve the sustainable development of culture, it should not remain at the level of static documentation, but should strive to create an interactive experience that can trigger emotional resonance, so as to drive the public’s cultural identification. The evaluation framework provided by this study may provide reference for the design and evaluation of similar digital heritage projects.