The Mystery Game

Abstract

This projectThe aim of this graduation project was to find out how to make the Mauritshuis, an art gallery museum in the city centre of The Hague, relevant to visiting families with children. Thereby the focus was on how to engage the families as soon as they enter the permanent exhibition of the museum and make the museum more relevant to them accordingly. The Relevance by Play Framework (Vermeeren & Calvi, 2019) was taken as reference. To understand the message and experience that the Mauritshuis wants to provide to its visitors (and mainly families with children) with the help of the permanent exhibition, the content of the permanent exhibition, the management mission / vision and museum employees are consulted. Additionally the strengths and weaknesses of the current family product in use are reviewed as reference. The scope is broadened by looking at how other museums approach families with children. Parallel to getting to know the core of the Mauritshuis, research has been conducted with families, both parents and children, with the aim to understand their motivations, roles and interests before –and during a visit to museums in general, or the Mauritshuis specifically. This was achieved through a literature review, observations, questionnaires, interviews and generative sessions. The project visionThe research outcomes resulted in an interaction vision:"I want that the Mauritshuis becomes like an exciting exploration of a goldmine. Corridor systems give confidence and guidance to curious families that decide to walk autonomously through the goldmine. When gold is discovered, it can be subtracted from the mine and taken home as a reminding reward to proudly share with others." The vision was used as base while generating product ideas. Through engaging employees of the Mauritshuis in the idea generation, a concept is developed that was assumed to be relevant to both the Mauritshuis and visiting families: the Mystery Game. The Mystery GameThe Mystery game is storytelling application on an iPad, which keeps the family together while travelling through the Mauritshuis. The family is helped to immerse in the stories behind the building: they can see a reconstruction of each room of the year 1704 when inside the rooms, with the use of animations, movies and augmented reality. The present is mixed with the past and the family is challenged to find the link between them through solving a mystery in each room. A prototype has been made of this concept as proof of concept and in order to test its relevance.