Audience participation in museums: Game Design as

Learning Activity

N.Yiannoutsou, N.Avouris, C.SintorisUniversity of Patras, Greece

NordiCHI workshop: Design for Audience EngagementCopenhagen, Denmark, October 14th 2012

Meaning making in the museumAccording to the constructivist

perspective (Hein, 1998) the active role of the visitor is essential in the museum learning experience

The visitor constructs meaning through the interaction as opposed to the passive consumption of information.

Games may play an important role in this setting

Museum games: interaction with exhibits In many museum games artefacts are

treated as a set of disconnected and de-contextualized objects (Klopfer et al., 2005) e.g. cut out letters

Audience Participation in museumsThe proliferation of mobile technologies and

social media has supported the creation of user generated content, examples:

Tagging: unstructured text associated with objectsDebunking, criticizing: arguing against other peoples’

ideas, tags etc.Recording personal stories: personal memories

associated to a museum objectLinking objects or categorising: grouping of objects or

associating them (e.g. card sorting, museumscrabble)[M.Ridge, Everyone wins: Crowdsourcing games & Museums, MuseumNext, May 2011]

Engagement through connecting to personal stories

Engagement for serving the community: citizen curator

Engagement through building personal narratives

Franklin Remix projectA playful yet somewhat irreverent cartoon created by a middle school student early in the. The Philadelphia School, Philadelphia, PA, March, 2006

Fisher and Twiss-Garrity, Remixing exhibits: Constructing participatory narratives with on-line tools to augment museum experiences.

http://www.museumsandtheweb.com

Audience engagement

…through building their own games

SFzero: community created games

e,.g. “Install a door in a public place,” a group of SFZero players constructed Doorhengein Golden Gate Park.

http://www.participatorymuseum.org/chapter8/

Game content editor: a tool to build games by the players for a group of linking games

• MuseumScrabble• CityScrabble• BenakiMuseumScrabble

[ work in progress]

Game content editor (google+ app)

Rubén Muñoz and Christos Sintoris, 2012

CityScrabble

A B C

MuseumScrabble

BenakiMS

Final noteparticipatory activities such as game

design when scaffolded by technology and integrated in museum activities can offer rich learning experiences

They reserve for the visitor the role of collaborator and partner and entail the creation of an enduring relationship with the museum

thanks

hci.edu.gr