PRODUCT DESIGN · UX RESEARCH · STRATEGY LEAD
Reaching Gen Z at the National Gallery of Art
A multiplayer art game designed for the National Gallery of Art.
THE PROBLEM
The National Gallery of Art was underdelivering on fun
The NGA wanted to better engage Gen Z audiences and younger. Their research had pointed to that group as an opportunity, and it showed they were not delivering enough fun to keep them invested.
That's where my team and I came in.
AN OPPORTUNITY FOR FUN
Make learning feel like the thing they already do for fun.
Our research found that Gen Z uses museum sites to look something up, not to spend time, and what actually holds them is competition, creativity, and challenges worth sharing. The opening was not to make the art more approachable, but to build something they would come back to on their own.
THE SOLUTION
Meet Art or Fart...(Khe?)
Yes, you read that right.
- In 3 minute rounds you get a theme pulled from the NGA collection.
- Draw with your finger (or mouse on desktop).
- Vote on what everyone else made.
- Watch the results of the winner on the Hall of Fame.
MY ROLE WITHIN THE TEAM
Where I was hands on.
On research, I helped write the interview scripts and survey questions, then ran the competitive analysis on museums building playful online experiences. On the game, I turned those findings into a strategy, contributed a concept during ideation, and designed the user flow and the voting and results screens.
DECISIONS THAT DIDN'T WORK OUT ¯\(ツ)/¯
We had a lot of ideas that had something, but none of them had that fun factor we wanted.
The ideas died for different reasons: too complicated for the NGA to build or a new player to pick up, or fine anywhere except inside the NGA's games ecosystem.
WHAT I LEARNED FROM THIS EXPERIENCE
What I would do differently.
Defining what fun means for a specific audience is harder than it sounds and takes more iteration than we had room for. Our timeline got cut short, so the round experience never got in front of real players, and that is where I would pick it back up. I would also revisit the name, since Art or Fart landed in the room but might not travel much further.
¡Gracias!
Thank you for stopping by!
If you want to explore any part of this further, let me know.
IN ORBIT
