In this Master’s graduation thesis, the goal was to develop three distinct design concepts that address the problems that small museums are facing in attracting young visitors and relaying their relevance to this hard-to-reach target group. The design challenge was approached with the concept of relevance as an initial framing. To this end, several stages of analysis were performed. First, a study was done of the definitions and inherent challenges of small museums, and the implications of these challenges towards designing solutions for teenagers. Several themes and insights were discovered in this phase, such as the use of museum communities, and to explore and harness the stories that belong the contents of a museum. The second analysis phase consisted of a theoretical study of the target in order to specify the specific age group and further characteristics, and a design workshop that was done with high school students, to gain insights into the sentiments of the target group towards museums. Among other things, it was discovered that such elements as adventure and identity are very effective in speaking to teenagers. From these two phases, a set of overarching themes was compiled, which acted as a inspiration and soft criteria for the idea synthesis.
Eventually, three concepts were developed. The first, History Defense, is a mobile game that aims to make teenagers familiar with small museums and their value to society. It tells a compelling and immersive story that underlines the importance of local heritage in a classic battle between good and evil. The game is primarily played on a mobile device, from anywhere, but incorporate real-time (and real-world) events that encourage players to visit a museum and learn about its contents and stories. The game’s main goal is to make the players familiar with the cultural and historical value of local heritage institutions.
The second concept is called Haunted Museums. This is a narrative framework that helps museums to attract young visitors by making the museum ‘haunted’. Museums create a personalized story based on their collection, and host thematic events to support the narrative. Through overarching themes that change annually, museums can tell exciting stories and create immersive experiences for visitors. The culmination of the yearly theme is an event week, where museums can decorate the museum to match the theme, invite performers, and create other immersive experiences for their visitors. Because the themes and promotion of the events are centrally coordinated, the platform becomes a quality label for immersive museum experiences.
The third and final concept, Treasures, is a social platform that allows its users to explore artworks online and gather suggested artwork and museum pieces into personal collections. Based on the collections they have built and the interests those collections imply, users get continually improving personalized suggestions other artworks they might like, and add to their collections. Collections may take one of several forms, such as personal favorites, wishlists or checklists for seeing objects in real life, or collections that depict a specific theme or story.
Finally, the three concepts were evaluated with both museums and teenagers, and the findings of these evaluations sessions were compiled as final recommendations for the further development of the concepts. After that, a personal theoretical analysis was done as a way to demonstrate how the concepts differ from each other, and give suggestions for which concept to choose for further development.