The Westwood Experience: Connecting story to locations via Mixed Reality

The Westwood Experience is a location-based narrative using Mixed Reality effects to connect participants to unique and evocative real locations, bridging the gap between the real and story worlds. This paper describes the experience and a detailed evaluation of it. The experience itself centers around a narrative told by the “mayor” of Westwood. He tells a love story from his youth when he first came to Westwood, and intermixes the story with historical information. Most of this story is told on a mobile computer, using Mixed Reality and video for illustration. We evaluate the experience both quantitatively and qualitatively to find lessons learned about the experience itself and general guidelines for this type of experience. The analysis and guidelines from our evaluation are grouped into three categories: narration in mobile environments, social dynamics, and Mixed Reality effects.