Playful design as a dissemination strategy for heritage places
Authors: Nađa Beretić and Nicolò Ceccarelli
In today’s globalized society and tourism industry, the focus is increasingly on the traveller’s experience. This creates opportunities for engagement and interaction in both physical and virtual spaces. It involves maintaining contact with travellers throughout their journey – before, during, and after the trip – using various communication methods.
Recognizing that engagement gives a significant contribution to the experience as it influences the intensity of attraction or repulsion (Higgins, 2006), engagement becomes essential to capture interests of people and transfer the knowledge about touristic (heritage) places.
Direct engagement is essential for effectively communicating heritage values. Tilden (1957) stressed that visits, as direct experiences, establishing the link between the deep value of heritage and the visitor’s personality, experiences, and ideals. Given heritage’s often abstract nature, Tilden advocated for storytelling as a powerful tool, provided it respects the visitor’s identity and uses simple, yet not simplistic, language. This approach enhances comprehension, fosters a sense of pride, encourages active learning, and stimulates further curiosity.
In this context, our goal was to explore how design culture and ‘gamification’ can promote the creation of engaging informational experiences at heritage sites. Within the broad and emerging realms of ‘gamification’ our effort is to gain knowledge and skills in understanding how design and gamification can be put to work to enhance the public’s understanding and appreciation of cultural heritage.
Building on the outcomes of our recent projects at Laboratorio Animazionedesign (DADU, Università degli Studi di Sassari ) focused on collaboration, interaction, and gamification, we explored how design can contribute to creating meaningful and memorable experiences for informing, communicating, and engaging the public with complex cultural heritage topics in Sardinia. Additionally, we conducted a scoping review of similar projects worldwide that rely on the same or related concepts.
Gamification refers to the application of game-design elements, principles and mechanisms in non-game contexts (Deterding et al. 2011; Burke, 2014). The gamification technique enhances user entertainment and engagement with a product or service, motivating users to enjoy experience more. Gamification is more than adding game elements in non-gaming contexts because it stimulates personal divers like meaning, accomplishment, empowerment, ownership, scarcity, avoidance, unpredictability and/or social influence (Chou, 2014/2019).
Today, gamification is applied across various fields, including health services, education, museum, and cultural heritage studies, offering significant benefits for promoting behavioural change and enhancing learning (Deliyannis and Kaimara, 2019).
Unlike in the past, when museums primarily displayed exhibits, they now serve as dynamic research and educational centres, enhancing social learning experiences. In the museum context, gamification has been utilized to boost engagement through various strategies.
Implementing gamification through structured systems, as demonstrated by institutions like the National Hangeul Museum, employs augmented reality technology to create interactive experiences for visitors. Additionally, features such as graphical museum maps help visitors navigate and locate exhibits within the museum space more easily (Jeon, Moon and Ryu, 2022).
Another example of gamification in heritage industry is the Petrosains Museum in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. With over 150 interactive exhibits, Petrosains focuses on disseminating knowledge about science and technology. The museum employs various engagement methods, including role-playing, to provide visitors with immersive and memorable on-site experiences (Du, 2021).
Role-playing in museum contexts does not solely depend on technology, as demonstrated by Jamtli in Östersund, Sweden, where historical events are used to engage visitors.
Other gamification examples integrate narratives and adventures to enhance the museum experience. For instance, “Mysteries at the Tuileries,” an outdoor adventure introduced at the Louvre in Paris in 2019, offers visitors an interactive journey through immersive storytelling.
Beyond engaging personal experiences, gamification can also serve as a strategy for local and territorial promotion. As part of the Play Alghero initiative funded by the EU’s MedGaims program, the playful itinerary we designed for Alghero explores how design can act as a catalyst in representing local identities. It explores gamification to promote heritage and enhance the attractiveness of the territory, encouraging people to engage with both the tangible and intangible aspects of the city. Designed to create interactions between people and places, the playful itinerary helps to interpret and celebrate local identity.
Take home messages:
- Gamification and engagement design can significantly influence tourist experiences but can be a double-edged sword. If uncontrolled, gamification may become a tool for mass consumerism. Conversely, when strategically applied, it can boost the appeal of lesser-known sites, increase off-season tourism, and support local economies and territorial equity.
- As a motivational force, engagement enhances understanding, learning, and curiosity, which are essential for communicating complex heritage values. Thus, engagement design and gamification play a crucial role in promoting heritage experiences.
- Gamification, as a local development strategy, addresses interactions between people and places, helping to promote and preserve local identity as a lived value.
Bibliography/Links:
Higgins, E. T. (2006). Value from hedonic experience and engagement. Psychological Review, Vol 113(3), pp. 439-460.
Tilden, F. (2007). Interpreting our heritage. US: The University of North Carolina Press Chapel Hill, (first edition 1957).
Deterding, S., Dixon, D., Khaled, R., Nacke, L. (2011). From game design elements to gamefulness: Defining “gamification”, in Proceedings of the 15th International Academic MindTrek Conference: Envisioning Future Media Environments (September 28 – 30, 2011, New York, NY, USA: ACM), pp. 9–15.
Burke, B. (2014). Gamify. How Gamification Motivates People to Do Extraordinary Things. Gartner, Inc. ISBN 978-1-937134-86-0 (ebook).
Chou, Y. (2014/2019). Actionable Gamification. Beyond Points, Badges, and Leaderboards. Leanpub book (ebook).
Deliyannis, I., and Kaimara, P. (2019). “Developing smart learning environments using gamification techniques and video game technologies” pp. 285-307, in Daniela Linda (a cura di), Didactics of Smart Pedagogy, Switzerland AG: Springer Cham, Springer Nature.
Jeon, S-w, Moon, S-J, and Ryu, G-h. (2022). Designing the Museum Gamification System, International Journal of Internet, Broadcasting and Communication, Vol.14, No.2, pp. 219-224.
Du, Y. (2021). Implementing Gamification for Museum Engagement. Available at:
https://amt-lab.org/blog/2021/5/gamification-in-museums
https://www.jamtli.com/en/
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https://amps-research.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Amps-Proceedings-Series-35.2_2024.pdf