Practical Implementation of a QR-Code Web-based Application

The idea of enriching a cultural heritage visitor’s experience by employing mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets is an active research domain. This is mainly due to the worldwide user penetration of such devices along with their continuous hardware performance enhancement. This tutorial presents to the reader the experience and feedback gained by the annual operation of an experimental information system that aims in enhancing the experience of a visitor on his/her demand. The evaluated system is based on the use case-scenario where a mobile device is used to capture and decode the passive markers that are located on facades of listed buildings in the old town of Xanthi (Greece) in order to enrich the visitor’s experience through a broad context of historical and architectural information delivered over the Web. Furthermore, the tutorial continues on the description and implementation of a simple Web-based information system. It presents the various simplified PHP scripts required in order to implement such a bilingual system along with a minimal visitor statistics visualisation script. This tutorial has been adapted for the needs of the Digital Technologies in Cultural Heritage and Tourism 2015 summer school and it is offered as supplemental material to all participants. 1