Treasure Hunt in the museum

Abstract

This project shows a new way to explore Dutch art and culture in the Mauritshuis museum and in Den Haag. Dutch museum sector has a strong connection to the Dutch tourism sector. Museum is an important attraction in the Netherlands that many travel websites recommend as a must-see place to the tourists who visit the Netherlands. The museum sector in the Netherlands will meet three challenges in the near future: the cut of the government budget, the increase of the international tourists and the rise of the digital generation. These challenges, which are also the opportunities, motivate the Mauritshuis (the MH) to look for the new potential visitors, the young adult traveller. The MH as an important attraction, which displays the abundant Dutch history and culture, can build a bridge to connect the tradition to current local culture. It can tell the stories of Dutch history and hot it developed to current local culture to the young adults travellers through the paintings, in such a way that the young adult travellers can explore Den Haag with the better understanding. According to the result of two target group researches in this project, and they have two different types of museum journey while they visit the museum. The value of the young adults’ travel influences their behaviors and focuses in the museum. Among four personas, popular attraction seekers and hipsters are selected as the most potential target group of the MH. Popular attraction seekers are the young adult travellers who want to experience famous attractions to make their trip worthy, and the hipsters are the young adult travellers who travel to find some inspirations for their self-growth. In aaition, popular attraction seekers are interested in the details of the paintings and unique museum interaction; however, the hipsters are interested in the inspiring stories behind the paintings. In order to engage young adult travellers in the museum and motivate them to explore the local culture, positive emotions, anticipation, interest, joy, fun and proud as well as the social interaction are involved in designing a new museum experiences. The museum should not only provide a pleasure environment to the visitors but also evoke the visitors’ interest and motivate them to explore the artworks. The final design is a Treasure Hunting App that provides an interesting game to the young adult travellers that motivates them to explore the details of the paintings. With the app, the young adult travellers can learn the knowledge about the art as well as about the local culture. When the young adult travellers leave the MH, the app will provides useful travel tips to encourage them to keep exploring the local culture in Den Haag. The final design has been evaluated in the user test session, and recommendations to improve the design has been provided at the end of the project.