TEHIC-Handbook_of_best_practices

3. Outlook for heritage interpretation in Europe and future prospects. TEHIC Towards a European Heritage Interpretation Curriculum 40 Heritage interpretation always involves a specific narrative in a specific space. The distinctive feature of heritage interpretation, understood as a means of communication, is its spatial dimension. In other words, what makes heritage interpretation unique among media is that it needs to be traversed by the receiver in order for the act of communica - tion to take place. Within this logic, the interpretive space must be considered as something very signif - icant when designing heritage interpretation, to the point of being, together with the narrative and the exhibition resources, the core of any interpretive project. The narrative is developed explicitly in what the museum or site tells, but it is also implicitly manifested by the setting, the colours, the choice of a male or female voice for an audio guide, or by the layout of a specific itinerary. Very often, site interpretation is only approached from the perspective of content storytelling. Singularity is sought after and accompanied by a more or less ingenious nar - rative, but as David Uzzell says: “The affective and behavioural dimensions, however, have received comparatively little attention in interpretative planning and design.”  4 Reflection on this evidence leads to the conclusion that, in addition to establishing a content framework, interpretive planning must include a behavioural framework, i.e., the design of an interpretive experience must consider various types of emotional relation - ship with the people who will experience it. On the basis of studies carried out on the behaviour of visitors to exhibitions by Frans Schouten  5 , the study by C. Carrier and J. Davallon on the presentation of heritage “on site”  6 and the analysis of effective interpretive experiences such as those developed for the Jorvik Viking Centre or the Mary Rose Museum, a standard scheme for planning and designing interpretive experiences is proposed, consisting of three stages: immersion, exploration, and synthesis. The immersion stage is so called because its main purpose is to capture the vis- itor's attention and serve as a gateway to the heritage site in order to submerge the visitor in the new cognitive universe proposed by the interpretive experience. Immersion, in addition to creating a state of mind conducive to an interpretive speech, helps to set 4 Uzzell, DL (1998) ‘Interpreting Our Heritage: A Theoretical Interpretation’ in DL Uzzell and R. Ballantyne (eds.) Contemporary Issues in Heritage and Environmental Interpretation: Problems and Prospects, Lon - don: The Stationery Office. 5 Frans Schouten (2015): Managing visitors: helping the frail to prevail . 6 Christian Carrier and Jean Davallon: La Présentation du patrimoine in situ: communiquer, exposer, exploiter. Paris, Expo-Média, 1989.