museumsandtheweb.com - games

Levelling Up: Towards Best Practice in Evaluating Museum Games

dannybirchall — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 21:41:49 +0000

MW2012

Danny Birchall and Martha Henson Wellcome Trust; Alexandra Burch and Daniel Evans, Science Museum, UK; Kate Haley Goldman, National Center for Interactive Learning at the Space Science Center, USA

Abstract

Museums make games because games can provide compelling educational engagement with museum themes and content, and the market for games is enormous. Truly understanding whether games are achieving your goals requires evaluation. In this paper, we identify the kind of games that museums make and use case studies of our own casual games to look at the benefits and means of evaluation. Beginning by identifying different kinds of evaluation within the broad framework of formative and summative practices, we suggest ways to plan an evaluation strategy and set objectives for your game. We then look in detail at evaluation methods: paper and wireframe testing, play-testing, soft launching, Google Analytics, surveys, and analysing responses “in the wild.” While we draw on our own experience for examples of best practice, we recognize that this is an area in which everyone has a lot to learn, and we conclude by suggesting some tactics for sharing knowledge across the museums’ sector.

Program Item Reference:

Levelling up: Towards best practice in evaluating museum games

SFMOMA’s Art Game Laboratory: Real-Life Mad Science Experiments in Visitor Engagement

Rich Cherry — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 05:36:06 +0000

MW2012

Erica Gangsei, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, USA

www.sfmoma.org/artgamelab

Program Item Reference:

SFMOMA’s Art Game Laboratory: Real-Life Mad Science Experiments in Visitor Engagement

Agile Games for Productive Teams

NancyProctor — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 21:08:59 +0000

MW2012

Dana Mitroff Silvers, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, USA and David Hendee, Carbon Five, USA

http://www.sfmoma.org

Program Item Reference:

Agile Games for Productive Teams

Squeezicks - A Museum of Science & MIT Collaboration on STEM-based games

mcheck — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 21:41:48 +0000

MW2012

Keywords:

interactive

Keywords:

games

Keywords:

exhibits

Keywords:

stem

Keywords:

MIT

Keywords:

MOS

Abstract:

The Museum of Science, Boston and GAMBIT lab at MIT worked over the summer of 2011 to develop a STEM-based soft-bodied physics game named "Squeezicks", available for online play but also being developed as an exhibit-floor interactive experience. The purpose of the game is to educate and inspire visitors about the video game industry, and mainly to show the vast amount of STEM-based skills needed in this rapidly growing sector. The demonstration includes a setup of the game itself as it sits ont he exhibit floor, as a one-to-four player game in a virtual environment, accompanied by a video of interpretive material about the game itself, the 8-week development sprint, and focusing on the STEM-based content and considerations around the game itself.

Type:

Demonstration - show your project

MW2012 Demonstrations II

Site:

http://gambit.mit.edu/loadgame/squeezicks.php

Authors:

Marc Check

Marleigh Norton

A Study of Digital Media, Tools, and Technology Use

sbeasley — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 22:58:04 +0000

MW2012

Published Paper:

Digital Media In Everyday Life: A Snapshot of Devices, Behaviors, and Attitudes Part 1: Mobile Device Ownership

Keywords:

audience research

Keywords:

digital

Keywords:

iPhone, iTouch, mobile phones

Keywords:

games

Keywords:

social engagement

Abstract:

If we build a mobile app, how many visitors will be able to access it on a smartphone? What platforms should we build it on? How does our audience behave in online and social networks, and how can we use that to engage specific user groups? What other digital media do youth and adults spend time with, and how should that inform the design of our digital initiatives?

In this discussion, the Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago will present the results of its Digital Media In Everyday Life research initiative, a national study of youth and adults that MSI conducted to better understand its audience's relationship with digital media and technology. The results will cover current and projected trends in mobile device ownership, consumption of and behaviors with digital media in different demographic groups, how youth and adults are using social media differently, and how users feel about digital experiences in the lived environment.

Type:

Paper - in formal session

Tools for tapping into visitor behavior

Authors:

Steven Beasley

Annie Conway

Rules of Play: Design Elements of Addictive Online Learning Games

davidschaller — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 14:16:45 +0000

MW2012

Keywords:

games

Keywords:

learning

Keywords:

design

Keywords:

interactivity

Keywords:

interpretation

Abstract:

Over the past decade, games have grown as both a commercial industry, as a field for scholarly research, and as a practical medium for teaching and learning. Inspired by a broad array of research emphasizing the effectiveness of problem-based, anchored instruction, developers have been creating games about subjects ranging from childhood obesity to electoral politics to personal finance. Even former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor has embraced games as a way to teach civics to schoolchildren. Games have definitely come of age as tools for teaching and learning.

But we still need to understand how to make learning games fun. For that, we must learn about game design. Given the breadth and depth of this topic, this workshop focuses on a handful of game mechanics that help us move from the kinds of "game-like" interactives commonly found on museum Web sites into the realm of true games. With a firm understanding of these mechanics, we can design online games that incorporate our content and create compelling, even addicting learning experiences for our audiences.

This workshop focuses on a handful of game mechanics that help us move from the kinds of "game-like" interactives commonly found on museum Web sites into the realm of true games. With a firm understanding of these mechanics, we can design online games that incorporate our content and create compelling, even addicting learning experiences for our audiences.

Please note that this workshop will use paper prototyping methods to explore game elements and mechanics. Understanding these elements is essential to design an effective and engaging online games, so our focus will be on design principles, not on production aspects of online games.

Type:

Workshop - full or half day

Rules of Play: Design Elements of Addictive Online Learning Games

Site:

http://www.eduweb.com

Authors:

Dave Schaller

SFMOMA’s Art Game Laboratory: Real-Life Mad Science Experiments in Visitor Engagement

egangsei — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 01:41:13 +0000

MW2012

Published Paper:

SFMOMA’s Art Game Laboratory: Real-Life Mad Science Experiments in Visitor Engagement

Keywords:

games

Keywords:

community

Keywords:

crowdsourcing

Keywords:

analog/digital

Keywords:

audience interaction

Keywords:

prototyping

Abstract:

At Museums and the Web 2011, I proposed and led an unconference session called “Setting Ourselves Up to Fail: Low Cost, Low Stakes Strategies for Visitor Engagement.” About 40 MW attendees participated, and we had a lively discussion and brainstorm on the topic. My current project is an attempt to test out some of the ideas from this session in real space and real time at my museum. ArtGameLab is an interactive exhibition of crowd-sourced game prototypes, displayed and distributed in SFMOMA’s Koret Visitor Education Center. My aim in proposing this paper is to report back on this experiment, using the key principles from my unconference session as measures of the project: What does it mean to be “low cost?” And “low stakes?” How did this project succeed (and fail) in overcoming institutional barriers to experimentation? How can we use games to engage visitors, and how can we measure their engagement?

Several months ago, we sent an open call out to Bay Area game designers, experience designers and conceptual artists. We asked for inventive but low-cost ideas for games SFMOMA’s visitors can play in the galleries and other public spaces of the museum. I received about 50 proposals from community members from a multitude of disciplines and with wide-ranging levels of experience. The proposals varied from the highly-technological to the determinedly-analog, from the absolutely-feasible to the absurdly-farfetched. I am currently collaborating with the artists and designers who submitted the strongest and simplest game ideas to develop: prototypes, proposals for thought-provoking games that cannot be executed, and engaging public programs.

Starting in January 2012, the museum will display this selection of crowd-sourced games onsite, and provide a list of all SFMOMA-based game resources online at sfmoma.org/artgamelab (url not yet active). The exhibition will include hands-on activities, opportunities for discussion, and avenues for critical thought about gaming in museums. Programs around the exhibition will include a panel discussion on the topic, regular “SFMOMA’s Got Game” meet-ups for community members who want to play together, and opportunities for visitors to invent their own games.

The primary goal of this exhibition is to engage SFMOMA’s community in employing vocabularies of game play to test out strategies for visitor engagement. Like a game, I am setting up the parameters but have no idea at this point what the exact substance or outcome will be. This is wholly an experiment, and I wish to share my findings – both successes and failures – with my colleagues in the field at the upcoming Museums and the Web.

Type:

Mini-Workshop - teaches something or explores approaches

Mini-Workshop on SFMOMA’s Art Game Laboratory: Real-Life Mad Science Experiments in Visitor Engagement

Site:

http://www.sfmoma.org/artgamelab

Authors:

Erica Gangsei

Levelling up: Towards best practice in evaluating museum games

dannybirchall — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 15:22:48 +0000

MW2012

Published Paper:

Levelling Up: Towards Best Practice in Evaluating Museum Games

Keywords:

games

Keywords:

evaluation

Keywords:

best practice

Keywords:

interaction

Keywords:

audiences

Keywords:

gamification

Abstract:

Games, and game-like experiences, are becoming increasingly important to museums seeking to engage new audiences and to provide deeper engagement with existing audiences. Demonstrating the value of commissioning and producing games as a core activity of museums is imperative. At the same time, the sector is encountering a new, cold wave of realism in evaluating its online presences. Old canards about new audiences are being thrown out the window, and a more rigorous focus is being applied to the business of gaining and measuring audience attention.

There is a risk, however, that these engagement metrics, oriented towards page-based content and measurable proxies for interaction in social media are poorly suited for the kind of immersive, deep engagement that good games can offer. This paper will identify and discuss best practice in the field of museum games evaluation in order that such evaluation might also move towards standardisation and wide acceptance, with the end result of improving games in our field.

Most museum games are web-based, and have an explicit educational intent. Examples from our own experience include High Tea, Memory (Wellcome Collection), Launchball, Rizk and Thingdom (Science Museum). These types of games will be the focus of this paper, though we expect the methodology to have applications across other gaming activities.

Drawing from our own institutional practices, across the cultural heritage and informal learning sectors, and looking at the area of ‘persuasive’ games in general, we will focus on initial objective setting and three areas of evaluation:

1. Quantitative evaluation: What are the best tools and methods to measure overall interactions, in-game interactions, and profile game achievement against audience segments?

2. Qualitative evaluation: How can we use interviews, surveys, and focus groups to gain a deeper understanding of player motivation and experience and are they sufficient? Can we find more useful and rich ‘in the wild’ where people freely discuss games? If we choose that route, what are the best approaches to gathering and analyzing that data?

3. Pre vs Post-release evaluation: How reliable or valid are expert reviews and user testing of games prior to release? How do these results compare with those from summative evaluations?

In each of these areas, we will also consider aligning evaluation approaches for different types of games: autonomous games, and gamified or gameful experiences. Technical appendices will describe both quantitative and qualitative methods.

Type:

Paper - in formal session

Pervasive Fun

Authors:

Danny Birchall

Kate Haley Goldman

Daniel Evans

Martha Henson

Gaming the museum

dannybirchall — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 21:55:53 +0000

MW2011

Martha Henson and Danny Birchall, Wellcome Collection, United Kingdom

http://www.wellcomecollection.org/

Abstract

What makes a good museum game? Credible learning outcomes, compelling gameplay, or sympathy between the two? During 2010 and 2011, Wellcome Collection have been developing a series of games. In this paper and the workshop, we present four games of very different types as examples of our work so far and attempt to outline some of the underlying principles that have guided it. In the workshop itself, we will brainstorm the ways in which a variety of game platforms and formats might, or might not, work with the themes and content of museums and archives.

Keywords: games, strategy, education, archives, history, syndication

Program Item Reference:

Gaming the museum

Playing with Difficult Objects – Game Designs to Improve Museum Collections

mia — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 17:38:54 +0000

MW2011

Mia Ridge, Science Museum, United Kingdom

http://museumgam.es/

Abstract

Crowdsourcing the creation, correction or enhancement of data about objects through games is an attractive proposition for museums looking to maximize use of their collections online without committing intensive curatorial resources to enhancing catalogue records. This paper investigates the optimum game designs to encourage participation and the generation of useful data through a case study of the project Museum Metadata Games that successfully designed games that created improved metadata for 'difficult' objects from two science and history museum collections.

Keywords: collections, games, crowdsourcing, objects, metadata, tagging

Program Item Reference:

Playing with museums - game designs to improve museum collections

Games

dbear — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 16:44:13 +0000

Type:

Session

Chair:

Kate Haley Goldman

Programs:

From Knowledge to Narrative – to Systems? At the junction of game design and museum education

Playing with museums - game designs to improve museum collections

Museum Games: Some Strategies for Achieving Project Goals

An ubiquitous mobile edutainment application for learning science through play

Date & Time:

April 9, 2011 - 1:30pm - 3:30pm

Location:

Commonwealth A/B

games

gaming

game design

learning through play

constructivist theory

Required fields are marked with a red asterisk (*).

A confirmation of your registration will be sent to your email address. Please print it out and bring it to the conference.

You will not receive registration confirmation by regular mail.

If you do not receive your confirmation today, please contact us.

Archives & Museum Informatics EIN: 77-0708617; GST / BN 887978914

Description

Engaging visitors, in person and online, through games is an increasingly alluring way to capture concerted attention. How can we design these experiences to be compelling, to leave a trace of what we hoped to convey and to scale or persist?

Mini-Workshop on Games: I

dbear — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 22:31:25 +0000

Type:

Session

Programs:

Gaming the museum

Date & Time:

April 8, 2011 - 11:00am - 12:00pm

Location:

Commonwealth C/D

games

Required fields are marked with a red asterisk (*).

A confirmation of your registration will be sent to your email address. Please print it out and bring it to the conference.

You will not receive registration confirmation by regular mail.

If you do not receive your confirmation today, please contact us.

Archives & Museum Informatics EIN: 77-0708617; GST / BN 887978914

Description

Why, with the vast resources, and fundamental human subjects at our disposal, have museums failed to make more than a handful of really compelling games?

Opening Plenary

dbear — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 20:17:33 +0000

Type:

Session

Theme:

plenary

Chair:

jennifer trant

Programs:

Grounding Digital Information Trends

Date & Time:

April 7, 2011 - 9:00am - 10:30am

Location:

Commonwealth A/B/C/D

mobile

plenary

research

augmented reality

games

internet

technology

pew

uptake

Required fields are marked with a red asterisk (*).

A confirmation of your registration will be sent to your email address. Please print it out and bring it to the conference.

You will not receive registration confirmation by regular mail.

If you do not receive your confirmation today, please contact us.

Archives & Museum Informatics EIN: 77-0708617; GST / BN 887978914

Description

We'll kick off MW2011 together with a plenary speaker highlighting current questions.

We're delighted to welcome Kristin Purcell of the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project.

Designing Games

dbear — Sun, 28 Nov 2010 20:46:26 +0000

Type:

Workshop

Programs:

Rules of Play: Design Elements of Addictive Online Learning Games

Tech Level:

No specialized technical skills needed

Date & Time:

April 6, 2011 - 9:00am - 12:30pm

Location:

Washington B

workshop

morning

wednesday

games

design

morning workshop

Required fields are marked with a red asterisk (*).

A confirmation of your registration will be sent to your email address. Please print it out and bring it to the conference.

You will not receive registration confirmation by regular mail.

If you do not receive your confirmation today, please contact us.

Archives & Museum Informatics EIN: 77-0708617; GST / BN 887978914

Description

From Knowledge to Narrative – to Systems? At the junction of game design and museum education

davidschaller — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 17:43:57 +0000

MW2011

Published Paper:

From Knowledge to Narrative – to Systems? Games, Rules and Meaning-making

Keywords:

games

Keywords:

education

Keywords:

education

Keywords:

design

Keywords:

learning

Keywords:

constructivism

Keywords:

narrative

Abstract:

Laura Robert's landmark book "From Knowledge to Narrative" (Roberts, 1997) analyzed a paradigm shift in museum exhibition in the late 20th century as educators moved museums from traditional methods of knowledge transmission to constructivist interpretive methods such as narrative. Today, museum educators wishing to adopt game-based learning methods face a similar challenge: to move from now-familiar narrative methods to a systems-based approach. Games are, at heart, a set of rules that define player choices and subsequent consequences. Applying a strong narrative to a game usually results in neither a good story nor a good game. Instead, we must learn to think like game and system designers, finding the rules intrinsic to our content.

In some ways, this shift from narrative to systems is less formidable than was the shift from knowledge transmission, since both narrative and systems are rooted in constructivism, the notion that learning is, as Hein (1998) says, “is not a simple addition of items into some sort of mental data bank but a transformation of schemas in which the learner plays an active role and which involves making sense out of a range of phenomena.” Games, one could argue, are even more constructivist than narratives, since the player's role is by definition active, evaluating various phenomena to inform successful tactics to win the game.

Nevertheless, this shift from narrative to systems is often difficult for museum educators, particularly art and history educators schooled in the humanities rather than science. Exhibits and education materials generally explore the idiosyncrancies of a given topic, whether they be the expressive and interpretive aspects of an artwork or the narrative arc of an historical event. The meaning to be made from this approach is powerful, often pulling us back in even when we struggle toward a systems approach. For example, inspired by game designer Sid Meier's fabled definition of a good game as "a series of interesting choices," we might use a "choose your own adventure" branching story design. This approach appears to serve both the idiosyncratic arc of an historical narrative while providing the meaningful choices so central to a game. In practice, though, this approach serves both the history and the gameplay poorly, as it forces players into increasingly less-meaningful choices simply to keep the number of story branches manageable.

Instead, we must adopt a true rules-based design, digging into our content to find even a few rules inherent in the subject matter that can then define the gameplay. This paper will explore this challenge, drawing on both game design theory (core dynamics, rules, actions, skills, chance) and published commercial and non-profit games to show how the heterogeneous realworld content of museums can indeed be turned into exciting and meaningful learning games.

References:

Hein, G. (1998). Learning in the Museum. London: Routledge.
Roberts, L. (1997). From Knowledge to Narrative. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Books.

Type:

Paper - in formal session

Games

Authors:

Dave Schaller

Playing with museums - game designs to improve museum collections

mia — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 12:39:59 +0000

MW2011

Published Paper:

Playing with Difficult Objects – Game Designs to Improve Museum Collections

Keywords:

crowdsourcing

Keywords:

games

Keywords:

evaluation

Keywords:

research

Keywords:

collections

Abstract:

Crowdsourcing data through games is an attractive proposition for museums looking to maximise use of their collections online without the requirement to commit intensive curatorial resources to enhancing catalogue records. This paper investigates the optimum game designs to encourage participation and the generation of useful data.

Further detail

Projects such as Armchair Revolutionary [1], Carnegie Mellon University's 'Games with a purpose' [2] and InterroBang?! [3] are indicative of the trend for 'games for social good'. Crowdsourced projects such as the Guardian newspapers examination of MPs expense claims [4], the V&A Museum's image cropping [5], Brooklyn Museum's tagging game [6], the National Library of Australia's collaborative OCR corrections [7]; Chen's study of the application of Csikszentmihalyi's theory of 'flow' to game design; and McGonigal's ideas about multiplayer games as 'happiness engines' [8] all suggest that 'playful interactions' and crowd participation could be applied to help create specific content improvements on museum sites. Game mechanisms may help make tasks that would not traditionally be considered fun or relaxing into a compelling experience.

Games designed to crowdsource museum metadata are particularly interesting when limited resources within museums make it difficult to enhance and publish large bodies of collections data in ways that are accessible to non-specialist visitors. Further, museum metadata games are a form of collections access in their own right and have the potential to reach large, traditionally hard-to-reach audiences. Data generated may include terms to improve discoverability by adding alternate terms used by the general public (as in the steve.museum project); information about which objects are more interesting for different types of visitors; data that could be provided by curators and researchers if resources were unlimited but could also be solicited from specialists outside the museum; and experiential data for objects and events within living memory.

Based on a Masters Dissertation project ('Game mechanics for social good: a case study on interaction models for crowdsourcing museum collections enhancement', http://openobjects.blogspot.com/2010/06/game-mechanics-for-social-good-case.html, due January 2011) this paper will cover three topics:

research summary of emerging best practice about games designed to crowdsource metadata

analysis of the most effective elements of game mechanics for application to interfaces for crowdsourcing museum collections enhancement, based on the evaluation of games designed as part of the project and the evaluation of data produced as the games are played.

an emerging typology of game designs applicable for different models of collection data, based on categories such as breadth of collection data (from selected hero objects to the entire catalogue), the type of metadata desired, the level of specialist knowledge required to interpret objects, etc.

Games built with collections from museums of social history and history of science and technology will be available at http://museumgam.es/ from mid-October.

References

[1] https://www.armrev.org

[2] http://www.gwap.com/

[3] http://www.playinterrobang.com/

[4] http://mps-expenses.guardian.co.uk/

[5] http://collections.vam.ac.uk/crowdsourcing/

[6] http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/opencollection/tag_g...

[7] http://newspapers.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/home

[8] http://www.futureofmuseums.org/events/lecture/mcgo...

Type:

Paper - in formal session

Games

Authors:

Mia Ridge

Rules of Play: Design Elements of Addictive Online Learning Games

davidschaller — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 22:29:40 +0000

MW2011

Keywords:

games

Keywords:

learning

Keywords:

play

Keywords:

design

Keywords:

workshop

Abstract:

Please note that this workshop will use paper prototyping methods to explore game elements and mechanics. Understanding these elements is essential to design an effective and engaging online games, but our focus will be on design principles, not on production aspects of online games.

Syllabus

1. Introduction: Why all games are learning games

Discuss the cognitive theory behind games. Compare commercial and learning games, discuss the value of game genres.

2. What makes games fun?

Discuss the pleasures that games provide (fantasy, anticipation, possibility, challenge, discovery, surprise, etc.).

3. Game mechanics

Discuss six game mechanics: space, rules, objects, actions, skills, and chance.

Examine how rules create emergent gameplay. Compare real skills and virtual skills. Explore the ways that randomness makes players feel powerful instead of helpless. Compare these game mechanics with those in typical game-like museum interactives.

4. Design Exercise

Breaking into groups of 3-4, explore game mechanics by modifying a simple paper-based learning game. Regrouping, discuss the impact of simple changes and how they affect gameplay.

5. Meaningful choices

Explore techniques to provide meaningful choices and consequences without creating cumbersome branching storylines.

6. Design Exercise

Breaking into small groups, redesign a familiar game to make the choices more meaningful.

7. Beyond the game

Discuss ways to leverage gameplay experience to consolidate learning beyond the game (online forums, onsite connections, etc.)

Open forum for additional questions and discussion.

Type:

Workshop - full or half day

Designing Games

Authors:

Dave Schaller