Mind the G’App is a mobile, location-based quiz developed for the Space Invaders exhibition at the Nikolaj Art Center in 2010. It builds on John Falk’s four types of museum visitors and includes four different quizzes, one for each type of museum guest.
The players must find and examine the right installation to answer the question. The questions are based on the avatars they chose at the beginning, and the characteristics of the avatars are based on John Falk’s four museum visitor types.
My roles:
- Interaction design, location-based and mobile-specific interactions
- Programming, testing and publishing the app
Design space:
Create a guide for the Space Invaders art exhibition at Nikolaj Art Hall that features the unique space of the art hall (it is in the attic of an old church). Make the guide engaging and fun for children and adolescent guests.
Challenges
- Location-aware technologies are ineffective indoors.
- How can we create engaging exhibition content for children and adolescents?
Solution
Inspired by Falk’s four types of museum guests, we developed four distinct quizzes. Each quiz featured questions specifically designed to ignite the curiosity of each guest type regarding the art pieces.
Instead of using location-aware technologies, we implemented a map of the exhibition hall, marking the positions of the art pieces. The questions were specific to each piece, so to answer them, the players had to look at it. This mechanic forced the players to walk around the exhibition hall and interact with the art pieces.
Evaluation
The guide worked well, the guests enjoyed themselves, and the content was engaging. However, the quiz represented a very small part of the overall exhibition, and therefore, it lacked sufficient content to meet the needs of a comprehensive guide. Nevertheless, it was a fairly affordable way to engage children and adolescents in critically appraising art installations. Of course, the Space Invaders theme of the game content also drew children and adolescents to engage curiously with the installations.
The game was developed for iOS and Android and published in their respective app stores. A demo is no longer available.
© 2012 Kristine Haffgaard & Louise P. Matjeka
