Cultural Heritage Digitization in Indonesia: A New Perspective on Preserving Depok Colonial Heritage

New technologies, such as digital photography, 3D scanner, and augmented reality, provide an alternative to preserve heritage sites. The focal point for this article is to continue the discourse on the advantages of digital preservation based on our work in Depok, called Depok Lama Project. Depok is a city located in West Java Province that has many colonial buildings, such as residential settlements, churches, and bridges. However, a recent study shows almost 75% of colonial buildings have been demolished over the last decade due to city development and rapid modernization. We created a project to digitize the cultural heritage in Depok to prevent further destruction and encourage the importance of the buildings to the public through digital media. This project is a multidisciplinary project that involved archaeologists, historians, IT experts, and the local community in creating an interactive system database regarding heritage buildings in Depok. Four studies were carried out to develop the Depok Lama Project, namely content information study, end-user perspective study, website design framework construction, and evaluation study. The first study was used to collect information regarding the historical buildings at the Old Depok. The second study was conducted to investigate the information presentation preferred by the end-users. The third study concerned the development of a website prototype based on data from previous studies. The final study was to evaluate and enhance the website prototype. The results show that the cultural heritage digitization is not only useful for preservation but also for public engagement and facilitate cultural learning.