On November 6th, I visited CoSA as part of the Project Work 3 gamification lectures. We explored “FLiP”, an exhibition about financial literacy. A topic that doesn’t naturally interest me, but still, I thought that seeing it through an interactive format might make it easier to understand and maybe even enjoyable. But even though the exhibition was interactive, I found it hard to stay engaged.
The exhibition used a lot of quizzes, screens, and points to keep visitors engaged. In theory, that sounds fun, but for me, it didn’t really work. Every time I answered a quiz, I earned points, but that didn’t make me feel more curious or motivated. There was just too much information on each screen. Sometimes I clicked random answers just to move on, not because I wanted to, but because I was overwhelmed. The same thing happened with the exhibit featuring a rotating screen, where you had to answer yes-or-no questions. This alternative screen made me feel dizzy after a while, so I couldn’t stay until the end. The interaction was simple, but the information behind it was again too much and hard to follow.
This experience made me think more about accessibility in interactive exhibitions. What happens when someone gets dizzy or tired, or just feels overloaded by too much information? What about kids or people with dyslexia or ADHD who might find all the text and flashing visuals too much? And what about visitors with visual impairments? I didn’t notice any tactile elements that could help them experience the exhibition in a different way.
Even though the exhibition didn’t fully capture me, there were still parts I really liked. I enjoyed the overall layout and the color coding of the different finance topics. One exhibit asked you to manage the expenses of an average Austrian family. That one was quite fun and easy to understand. I liked how you could see the results of your decisions immediately, visualized in a balance scale that showed expenses and savings in real time. It made the topic feel more concrete and relatable. Another moment I remember was the bicycle exhibit. I don’t remember exactly what it was about, but you had to use a bicycle pedal with your arms for the experience to continue. It was tiring but also fun and one of the few moments that felt truly interactive in a physical way, and that helped me connect more to what I was doing.
Looking back, I realized how important it is for exhibitions to make learning feel light and approachable. Just adding interactivity isn’t enough if the experience still feels heavy or confusing. Interaction should make you feel part of something, not just like you’re completing tasks. Clear visuals and thinking about different kinds of visitors can make all the difference.
AI was used for corrections, better wording, and enhancements.
Growing up as a shy kid, I often wished that people, whether peers, teachers, or other adults, would just let me process things in my own way and on my own time, but that rarely happened. Because of this, I’ve become interested in exploring topics for my thesis, like anxiety and social anxiety, which feel closely connected to who I am and how I move through the world. It also makes me wonder: how might playful interactive experiences help ease feelings of anxiety or make social situations feel safer?
For this blog post, I wanted to expand on the previous impulse about inclusivity. So I listened to three episodes of the podcast Speaking of Psychology, which broadly explore the topic of anxiety.
Here are my thoughts:
Episode: “Why are some kids shy? with Dr. Koraly Pérez-Edgar” In the episode, Koraly Pérez‑Edgar explains that shyness is a natural temperament that shows up early in life and affects how kids interact with the world. Shyness isn’t something that needs to be fixed; it’s just a different way of engaging with people and activities.
Episode: “Anxiety and Teen Girls with Dr. Lisa Damour” In the episode, the conversation questions the way society frames anxiety: as something abnormal or in need of fixing. Dr. Damour emphasizes that anxiety is a natural part of being human, yet the growing expectations placed on girls today can turn it into something harmful. Many feel pressured to excel academically, maintain a perfect appearance, and stay kind and composed, while social media intensifies those expectations.
Episode: “How to help with math anxiety, with Dr. Molly Jameson” In this episode, Dr. Molly Jameson talks about math anxiety, a common fear that affects how people feel and perform when doing math. It often begins with negative school experiences or strict teaching methods that make students associate math with embarrassment or failure. Over time, this fear can block people from accessing knowledge they already have, and it’s sometimes reinforced by cultural stereotypes like “boys are better at math.
My Reflection Listening to these episodes made me think about how deeply anxiety connects to the environments we grow up and learn in. It isn’t always about the person themselves, but often about how expectations, pressure, or fear of judgment shape how we act and feel. That makes me wonder: if anxiety is such a natural part of being human, what would it mean to design for it rather than against it? Could design create spaces that accept anxiety instead of trying to remove it?
For my thesis, I’m curious about how play might offer a way to do that. What if playful experiences could make social or learning situations feel safer: less about performing and more about exploring? How could interaction design give people permission to engage at their own pace, to choose how visible they want to be, or to participate quietly without pressure? Maybe play can become a tool for inclusion, helping people connect and express themselves in ways that feel natural to them.
AI was used for corrections, better wording, and enhancements.
This year, on 15th October, I attended the World Usability Congress in Graz and listened to a talk titled “How to accessible usability for neurodivergent people?” by Alide von Bornhaupt. Her presentation focused on how neurodivergent individuals are often overlooked or excluded when designing digital experiences. She shared 3 practical tips for creating more inclusive systems, but it wasn’t the tips that stayed with me. What stuck with me was the underlying idea: how important it is to include people the system was never designed for in the first place. That thought made me pause and reflect on who I could design for in my thesis.
At the beginning of her talk, Alide showed a slide called “Dimensions of Inclusion”, which grouped people based on different traits and abilities. Seeing it made me realize how easily design can fall into the trap of serving only an “average” user, even though such a person doesn’t really exist. It also made me consider neurodivergent individuals, or people who think, learn, and process the world differently, as a meaningful focus for my work. Although I’m not diagnosed as neurodivergent, I recognized parts of myself in what she described. That realization led me to look back on my own experiences and how they shaped my sense of comfort, participation, and expression.
Growing up, I often felt uneasy in social situations. Being surrounded by strangers, answering a question in class when I was the only one who hadn’t raised my hand, or even saying a simple hello to a cashier, all of it felt much bigger than it probably was. I remember watching others interact so easily and wondering why it didn’t come naturally to me. Over time, I noticed that I often withdrew before anyone could exclude me, almost as if I wanted to protect myself from doing something wrong. I wasn’t the loudest or most talkative person, but deep down I knew that this quiet version of me wasn’t all that I was. When I felt safe and comfortable, I could open up, be playful, and connect freely.
Thinking back on this made me more aware of how much our surroundings, whether physical, social, or digital, shape the way we take part in things. Sometimes all it takes is a small detail: the tone of a message, the layout of a space, or a word choice to make someone feel either welcome or invisible. Listening to Alide helped me see that by designing with neurodivergent people in mind, I could also create something that speaks to people like me, those who sometimes feel out of place or unsure how to belong. I want to design experiences where those feelings don’t become obstacles, where participation feels gentle, natural, and safe.
AI was used for corrections, better wording, and enhancements.
Reflection on the last two semesters This semester, my focus in Design & Research will be on the pre-research phase of my master’s thesis. During the first semester, I identified the broader research area as the combination of analog and digital technologies. In the second semester, I explored microcontrollers and hands-on prototyping more deeply.
For this semester, I am still interested in the fusion of analog and digital elements, as well as prototyping with microcontrollers. However, there is still one key factor that is missing: a purpose. For this reason, I will roughly use the framework “5Ws and 1H” (What, Who, Why, Where, When, How) as a loose structure to help me define the direction of my thesis more precisely.
Some of the topics I want to explore include:
Play & Playfulness, sense of adventure,
Gamification, serious games, video games, board games, toys or toy-like
Education, learning, inclusivity
Memory, nostalgia, archiving, pop culture
Tangibility, systems, collections,
Microcontrollers, Building, Prototyping
For each impulse, I will use the 5Ws and 1H framework to organize my thoughts and clarify what kind of design direction or insight it offers.
So, for my first impulse, I watched 3 talks about Play, and here are my thoughts about them:
Talk #1: The Role of Play in the Development of Social and Emotional Competence by Peter Gray In his talk, Peter Gray argues that free, self-directed play is essential for children’s emotional and social development. Drawing from research on hunter-gatherer societies, he shows how children in these communities were trusted and allowed to explore freely, learning vital skills such as empathy, cooperation, and self-regulation through play. In contrast, modern societies often limit children’s autonomy through structured activities and constant supervision, reducing opportunities for natural learning and independence.
My Reflection: This makes me think about how I could use ideas from hunter-gatherer play, like freedom, choice, cooperation, and learning through challenge, in design. For example, when creating games, interactive experiences, or educational tools, one could consider how users can make their own choices, how activities can encourage working together instead of competing, and how challenges can help people learn and grow in a safe way. Rather than dictating a single path or outcome, the design could invite open-ended exploration where discovery happens naturally through action. That sense of self-direction becomes a key principle for how I want to design, shaping interactions that give users autonomy, space to experiment, and the freedom to define their own experiences, much like the unstructured play of hunter-gatherer communities.
Talk #2: Creating Inclusive Environments with Play by Gary Ware In this talk, Gary Ware explores how play can build safe, authentic, and inclusive environments in workplaces and collaborative groups. He began his talk with a playful exercise, showing how shared experiences can quickly create connection and trust. Ware emphasized that people often divide their “home self” and “work self,” which prevents genuine belonging: trying to fit in is not the same as belonging. He highlighted how play encourages vulnerability, creativity, and collaboration, ultimately fostering psychological safety and empathy.
My Reflection: This made me think about how play could inspire designs that foster inclusion and trust. Could an interactive system help people feel accepted and comfortable being themselves? Activities like improv, drawing, or dancing already create natural connections, and I wonder how technology might extend that same sense of shared joy and safety into everyday interactions.Thinking this way helps me see where playful design could have real impact: in shared spaces like classrooms, workplaces, or public areas. These could become places of playful connection, where design cultivates belonging through interaction.
Talk #3: The Power of Play to Heal and Connect by Amy Work Amy Work explains that play is a child’s natural language, a way to express feelings before words are available. While adults communicate through conversation, children process their inner world through play. Quoting Gary Landreth, “Play is the language of children, and toys are their words,” she highlights how play helps children express emotions, face fears, and make sense of their experiences in a safe, symbolic way. Parents who join in that play build stronger emotional bonds and open lines of communication. Work encourages adults to observe and name emotions during play, helping children develop emotional literacy, while letting them lead and set the pace.
My Reflection: This talk reminded me that play isn’t just about learning, but also a form of emotional communication. It made me wonder how interaction design might support non-verbal expression, how people could externalize feelings or memories through playful, tangible engagement. Seen this way, play becomes a bridge between inner and outer worlds. That perspective also hints at who my designs might serve: people who communicate or process emotions differently like children, neurodivergent users, or anyone drawn to expression beyond words.
AI was used for corrections, better wording, and enhancements.
The thesis that I am analysing is titled “Exploring games to foster empathy” by Alice Blot (2017), which investigates empathy in games and explores how to create a game that fosters empathy.
Production of the Artifact The thesis presents two interactive artifacts. The first is a mystery-style escape room for two players, where the goal is not to escape but to uncover and understand the personal stories of the characters. The second is a single-player interactive narrative that combines elements of LARP and escape rooms, allowing the player to take on a character role and progress through a story that unfolds both within and beyond the physical space. These artifacts are well documented in a dedicated chapter through written descriptions and photographs that explain the development and playtesting process. Although the prototypes themselves can only be partially accessed in the appendix, the documentation provides enough clarity for readers to grasp the concepts without needing additional context. The theoretical framework is clearly connected to the practical work, showing a consistent progression from concept to implementation. User scenarios and testing outcomes are presented in a direct and understandable way. While the artifacts effectively reflect the thesis’s main goal of exploring empathy through interactive design, the overall theoretical discussion remains somewhat limited. The concept of empathy, being complex and abstract, is not examined in great depth, which slightly weakens the level of academic criticality expected at the master’s level.
Overall Presentation Quality The thesis is cohesive in structure and includes visuals that support understanding. However, minor inconsistencies, such as the informal tone in certain parts of the practical chapters, slightly reduce the level of professionalism expected at the master’s level.
Degree of Innovation The topics explored in the thesis have been examined previously, but the combination of LARP elements with an escape room format to investigate empathy is original and engaging.
Independence The author demonstrates autonomy in the design process. This is particularly evident in the iterative development of the prototypes, where changes were made based on feedback from playtesting participants.
Organization and Structure The chapters are logically ordered and easy to follow. However, placing the design process and analysis earlier in the thesis might have created a clearer connection between the theoretical foundation and the artifact development.
Communication The writing is understandable, but some sections would benefit from a more professional tone. Certain parts of the practical documentation contain redundancy or missing punctuation, which affects overall clarity.
Scope The thesis maintains a balance between theoretical discussion and practical exploration. While the scope of both components is appropriate for a master’s project, certain theoretical sections would benefit from greater analytical depth, especially given the abstract nature of empathy as a research topic.
Accuracy and Attention to Detail Attention to formal writing conventions, such as grammar, punctuation, and formatting, could be improved. There are sections with redundant phrasing and missing punctuation. These minor inaccuracies do not hinder understanding but affect the academic precision expected in a final thesis document.
Literature The literature review includes relevant and somewhat recent sources for the time of publication. Although not comprehensive, it provides a useful foundation. The author also introduces her own set of parameters for empathy-driven game design, which shows initiative and original thinking.
Overall Assessment
Strengths
Innovative combination of narrative and spatial interaction to foster empathy.
Clear documentation of prototypes and design decisions.
Strong independence shown in the iterative design process.
Weaknesses
The theoretical depth is limited, especially considering the abstract nature of empathy.
Some sections lack academic tone and precision.
The accessibility of the artifact is partial and relies heavily on interpretation.
Conclusion Overall, this thesis offers an interesting and original contribution to the intersection of game design and emotional engagement. While it could benefit from deeper theoretical analysis and more critical discussion of empathy as a concept, the work is valuable for its creative approach and its emphasis on player experience as a medium for emotional understanding. It opens up important questions about how intangible concepts like empathy can be embedded into gameplay, not through winning conditions, but through storytelling, embodiment, and reflection.
After extensive experimentation with the Touch Board, I’m excited to share a short video showcasing the final prototype in action. This interactive map invites people to discover Graz through touch and sound. Each spot on the map hides a small surprise: a sound, a memory, a piece of the city waiting to be heard. Everything you see here was designed to feel handmade and screen-free, turning simple tech into something a little more magical.
Watch the video to see how it all comes together.
And here’s the video with all the sound stories. Hope you enjoy 🙂
After testing the Touch Board’s basic functionality, I began developing a full working prototype that links place, sound, and interaction into a tactile map of hidden Graz stories. The idea? Visitors touch different points on a map to reveal short audio snippets, each one tied to a local legend or curious landmark. Below, I’ll walk you through the full process of bringing this lo-fi phygital experience to life.
Creation of the Map
From Idea to Interaction I knew I wanted each touchpoint to reveal a different layer of the city. Something you wouldn’t notice in a regular guided tour. The early concept centered around a physical map enhanced with conductive elements that trigger audio clips. The experience needed to be screen-free, intuitive, and portable.
Core goals:
Highlight unusual or forgotten spots in Graz
Keep the setup simple and playful
Combine touch, sound, and visual storytelling
Deciding on the Content I wanted the experience to feel like a walk through Graz’s secret personality, curious, playful, sometimes surreal. I avoided the most obvious tourist sites and instead chose places that are either tucked away, easily missed, or rich with local legend. Each spot adds a different tone or texture to the map:
Der Kleine Elefant
Glockenspiel
Double Spiral Staircase
Kunsthaus Graz
Der Türke
Together, these five spots form a kind of “hidden Graz sampler”, part folklore, part urban oddity, part emotional landscape.
Designing the Map To keep the locations roughly geographically accurate, I used Snazzy Maps to pin my selected places. There are many styles to choose from, so I picked a minimal line-drawing style. I took a screenshot, imported it into Illustrator, and used Image Trace to vectorize the lines for a cleaner look.
I also added custom name tags for each spot, arranged everything into an A3 layout, and sent it to print.
Each location was represented by a small circle symbol on the printed map. I used copper tape and stick them directly on paper, then connected them to the Touch Board’s electrodes using crocodile clips and jumper wires.
Crafting the Audio I wanted the audio to feel charming and a bit mysterious, so I wrote short descriptions for each location and turned them into narrated clips using an online text-to-speech AI tool. Each clip is around 20 seconds long. To make them more immersive, I layered in soft background sounds using Premiere Pro.
Der Kleine Elefant Tucked high above a quiet Graz street, a tiny stone elephant watches the world go by. It’s a gentle echo of 1629, when a real circus elephant marched through the city, astonishing everyone. This little statue keeps that memory alive.
Glockenspiel In the heart of Graz, when the clock strikes 11, 3, or 6, wooden shutters creak open high above Glockenspielplatz. A boy and a girl twirl to the chime of 24 bells, and at the end, a golden rooster flaps its wings and crows. It’s like a music box tucked into the rooftops.
Double Spiral Staircase Inside an old building, two stone staircases spiral like vines, crossing paths again and again. They separate, meet, part, and rejoin, like two people forever drawn to each other. Built in 1499, they’re called the “stairs of reconciliation”, a quiet dance carved in stone.
Kunsthaus Across the Mur, among red-tile rooftops, lives a blue, blob-shaped creature. It looks like it came from space. Locals call it the “Friendly Alien”, a living sculpture, glowing with energy. Inside, the art is always changing.
Der Türke Look up at Sporgasse 2. There’s a wooden man in a turban watching the street. Legend says that during the 1532 siege, a cannonball crashed through a window and struck a Pascha’s roast. Shocked by the blast, the Turks fled Graz. The figure still stands there, watching… and remembering.
Wiring & Materials
1x Touch Board
1x microSD card
1x microSD card reader
1x Speaker
1x USB power bank (for portability)
1x USB cable (for power and code upload)
5x LED (for basic feedback)
5x 220 Ohm resistor
1x Breadboard
21x Jumping Wires
5x Crocodile Clips
Bare Conductive’s “Touch MP3 with LEDs” example code
To enhance the presentation, I created a cardboard box to hide the microcontroller, battery, and all the wires. The result features a map on top, with circle-shaped copper tape marking the interactive areas. By hiding the components inside the cardboard box, this setup made the experience feel more like an artifact than a technology demonstration.
User Test
I brought the prototype to a few friends and watched how they used it. Here’s what I noticed:
What worked:
Most people figured it out without explanation
They were surprised by the sounds and intrigued by the stories
The LED made the experience feel “alive”
What could improve:
Some conductive areas needed more pressure to respond
People held their finger down the whole time instead of tapping once
Audio volume was a bit low in noisy environments
Reflections
Building this prototype showed me how simple tech, when well-combined, can lead to memorable interactions. The most exciting part wasn’t the circuitry; it was watching someone touch a spot on a map and hear something they didn’t expect. That brief surprise, that moment of discovery, is what I want to design more of.
In this post, I’m documenting my first hands-on test with the Touch Board by Bare Conductive. After choosing it for its built-in capacitive touch sensors and MP3 playback, I wanted to validate whether this microcontroller could support the kind of screen-free, tactile storytelling I’m imagining, where visitors trigger audio simply by touching a point on a surface.
The Touch Board is basically an Arduino-compatible microcontroller designed for sound-based interactions.
It comes with:
12 capacitive touch electrodes (E0-E11)
Built-in microSD card slot for MP3s
Audio jack and speaker terminal
Micro-USB for power and programming
What I Used
1x Touch Board
1x microSD card
1x microSD card reader
1x Speaker
1x USB cable (for power and code upload)
1x LED (for basic feedback)
1x 220 Ohm resistor
1x Breadboard
3x Jumping Wires
Bare Conductive’s “Touch MP3 with LEDs” example code
Basic Wiring
The Touch Board’s default “Touch MP3” code links each of the 12 electrodes (E0-E11) to a corresponding MP3 file on the microSD card. When you touch an electrode, it plays the matching audio clip.
To make the interaction more multisensory and responsive, I added a simple LED feedback: when a sound plays, the LED lights up.
Here’s how I wired it:
Connected Touch Board’s GND to the breadboard’s ground rail using a jumper wire.
Placed a red LED on the breadboard.
Connected the long leg (anode) of the LED to a 220Ω resistor.
Connected the short leg (cathode) to the breadboard’s ground rail using a jumper wire.
Connected the other end of the resistor to one of the Touch Board’s pins using a jumper wire.
For more detailed instructions, check out this helpful tutorial: https://www.instructables.com/Touch-Board-and-LEDs/
First Test
Touching one of the electrodes triggered a short sound from the speaker. At the same time, the LED lit up, confirming that the interaction was happening.
Here’s a short video testing this simple interaction.
Observations
Responsiveness: Very fast, almost too sensitive. Occasionally triggered by nearby touches or objects.
Satisfaction: The sound + light combo made the interaction feel clear and complete.
Compactness: Everything fit neatly on one board. No need for additional modules at this stage.
Next Steps
For wrapping up this lo-fi prototype, I will:
Add more electrodes and connect multiple LEDs
Try using conductive ink or custom-designed graphics as touchpoints
Test a portable setup powered by a USB power bank
Design audio content that reflects unusual or hidden stories from Graz
Reflections
This first test confirmed that the Touch Board is a great fit for early-stage, lo-fi prototyping. It’s easy to set up, intuitive to work with, and lets me focus on designing interactions, not just solving hardware problems. More importantly, it opened up space for experimenting with storytelling, mapping emotion, sound, and place onto physical interaction. I’m excited to continue developing this idea and exploring how each touchpoint might reveal a different layer of the city.
In my previous post, I explored phygital experiences that connect visitors to cultural content through tactile and digital storytelling. Now, I’m moving into the prototyping phase, and to bring these kinds of interactions to life, I’m turning to microcontrollers.
At the same time, I’ve been thinking more about the story I want my prototype to tell. Since my focus is on history and cultural heritage, and because I’m still fairly new to Graz, I saw this project as a unique opportunity to explore the city through this design challenge. My initial idea was to highlight the city’s well-known landmarks, but that felt too predictable. Instead, I want to uncover the hidden, quirky, and lesser-known places that give Graz its unique character. My goal is to create a lo-fi prototype that invites people to touch and listen, triggering short sounds or spoken fragments linked to unusual locations and landmarks in Graz.
Why Microcontrollers?
Microcontrollers offer a way to bridge physical input (like touch or proximity) with digital output (like sound, light, or video). They’re lightweight, flexible, and ideal for low-fidelity prototypes, the kind that let me quickly explore how interaction feels without fully building the final experience.
For a museum-like experience or an interactive city artifact, microcontrollers allow subtle, intuitive interactions, like triggering a sound when you place your hand on a surface, or activating a voice from an object when you stand near it. They’re perfect for phygital storytelling rooted in emotion, mystery, and place.
What My Prototype Needs to Do
To support this narrative direction, I want to create an experience that allows people to uncover hidden details about Graz through sound. Each interaction will trigger a short audio response that reveals something unexpected or overlooked.
Technically, it needs to:
Input: Detect touch or proximity
Output: Play short audio clips
Interaction: Simple, screen-free feedback
Portability: USB- or battery-powered
Expandability: Easy to add more spots and sounds
Why Sound?
For this project, sound will serve as the main storytelling layer.
Each interaction might trigger:
A whispered story or urban myth
A short audio poem or phrase
Field recordings from that specific location
A strange or surreal audio cue (like an echo, animal noise, or machine hum)
Unlike visuals or text, sound allows for immediacy and interpretation. People don’t just hear, they imagine. And that makes it ideal for revealing the hidden soul of a place like Graz.
Microcontroller Options
Arduino UNO + Compatible with sensors and DFPlayer Mini, well supported. – Requires extra components for audio, more setup.
Touch Board (Bare Conductive) + 12 built-in capacitive touch sensors, MP3 playback from microSD, perfect for touch-based sound triggers. – Slightly bulkier and more expensive, fewer I/O pins.
Makey Makey + Very fast and beginner-friendly. – Needs a computer, limited interaction types, not standalone.
Raspberry Pi + Great for future audio-visual expansion. – Too complex for lo-fi prototyping, more fragile.
What’s Next
After this research, I’ve decided to use the Touch Board for my first prototype. It’s specifically designed for sound-triggered, touch-based interactions, making it ideal for what I want to create: a playful and poetic interface that reveals hidden stories through sound. Its built-in MP3 playback and capacitive touch support mean I can keep my setup compact and focus on designing the experience, not just wiring the tech.
My first test setup will include:
Input: Touch sensor (built into the board)
Output: MP3 sound through speaker/headphones
Feedback: A single LED to show when a sound is playing
Goal: When someone touches a marked location on the map, a sound plays, revealing part of Graz that’s normally overlooked.
This early version will help me test the feeling of the interaction before I scale up to a full map or multi-point layout.
Reframing My Focus: Designing Phygital Interactions for Cultural Spaces
In my first post, I shared the process behind three pencil holder prototypes I designed. While that exercise helped me develop hands-on design skills, I’ve realized that the topic didn’t truly excite me. What does drive my curiosity is how phygital interactions, those that blend the physical and digital, can reshape the way we experience museums and cultural spaces.
Last semester, I began exploring this direction and outlined some guiding categories for my research:
Define the audience
Select an area of content interest
Explore physical + tangible interactions in depth
While these categories helped structure my thinking early on, I now find the idea of defining a target audience too limiting, especially for museum contexts, where visitors come from a wide range of backgrounds and ages. So, I’ve decided to narrow my focus to content, interaction methods, technology, and prototyping.
My New Direction
For this course, my goal is to develop a physical prototype that investigates how phygital approaches can make themes like history and cultural heritage more engaging, playful, and emotionally resonant. I’m especially interested in designing interactions that draw in people who might not typically connect with traditional exhibits.
To inform my design process, I’ve been researching successful case studies of museum installations focusing particularly on phygital projects. Each of these case studies provides valuable insights into how various interaction modes influence the visitor experience.
Phygital Experiences related to history and cultural heritage
“Longbow & Quarterstaff” (Tangible Interaction)
The Longbow & Quarterstaff [1],[2] experience is a phygital, motion-tracked exhibit that blends physical play with digital storytelling to bring Nottingham Castle’s Robin Hood legends to life. It’s a full-body interactive game where visitors use real medieval-style weapons, safely reimagined, to trigger digital reactions on-screen, learning skills and stories as they go.
Key Characteristics
Visitors physically draw a longbow or wield a quarterstaff, mimicking medieval training exercises.
Responds in real time. Sensors track movement and trigger animated, story-driven challenges like dueling Little John or mastering archery.
Teaches by doing. Combines fun with history. No reading panels, just action-based learning.
Inclusive and intuitive. Designed for all ages and abilities, no prior gaming experience needed.
Blends heritage and innovation. Reframes historical content through immersive, hands-on play.
Keeps visitors engaged longer, encouraging exploration and return visits.
Makes memories. Creates moments of laughter, achievement, and embodied storytelling.
Durable hardware and responsive tech withstand high traffic without compromising experience quality.
“Sen” (Virtural Reality)
Sen [3], [4] is an immersive virtual reality experience that reimagines the Japanese tea ceremony through the perspective of a tea spirit. Created by Japanese VR artist Keisuke Itoh and produced by Cinemaleap, the 15-minute experience invites participants to embody “Sen,” a tiny lifeform born from within a handcrafted Raku tea bowl. As the spirit, the viewer observes and drifts through a poetic world, experiencing cycles of life, death, and rebirth—symbolizing the transience of existence and the meditative essence of Chado (the Way of Tea).
Key characteristics:
Meditative tone inspired by the Japanese tea ceremony and Zen philosophy
Non-verbal storytelling that emphasizes emotion, atmosphere, and symbolism
Themes of reincarnation, impermanence, and spiritual connection to nature
Handcrafted visual style, blending traditional Japanese aesthetics with digital craftsmanship
Technology: High-resolution Virtual Reality using a VR headset and spatial audio for full sensory immersion
Viewers hold a physical replica of the tea bowl while in VR, which becomes the central object in the experience triggering Sen’s journey and deepening tactile connection without buttons or controllers
A Forest Where Gods Live (Projection Mapping)
teamLab’s A Forest Where Gods Live [5] is an immersive digital art exhibition set in Mifuneyama Rakuen, an ancient Japanese forest and garden with deep spiritual significance. The project blends interactive technology with cultural heritage and nature, creating a respectful dialogue between the past and the present.
Key Characteristics
Digital artworks are projected onto real trees, rocks, and ruins, transforming the natural environment without altering it. The forest becomes the canvas.
The experience changes based on where you walk, how you move, and even the time of day. Flowers bloom, animals appear, and lights shift in real time.
The project honors Shinto beliefs that spirits inhabit nature. Instead of overwhelming the site, the art quietly coexists with its sacred atmosphere.
The visuals evolve with weather, seasons, and time, offering a different experience with every visit, echoing the Japanese idea of impermanence (wabi-sabi).
Carefully placed soundscapes and ambient lighting deepen the sense of wonder and connection with the natural surroundings.
The Experience Guide [6] is a fully integrated digital system designed to enhance both visitor engagement and museum operations. It’s a smart platform that uses indoor positioning technology to deliver personalized, real-time content to visitors’ smartphones as they move through a museum. It also helps museum staff manage and analyze visitor behavior and exhibit conditions from a single system.
Key Characteristics
Acts like a smart, invisible guide. Delivers personalized, location-based audio-visual content to visitors’ smartphones.
Automatically plays relevant audio and visual content based on where you are in the museum.
Replaces the need for QR codes, physical guides, or borrowed devices.
Includes features like ticketing, real-time updates, and accessibility support.
Continues the experience post-visit with summaries or reports.
Centralizes data on visitor flow, exhibit usage, and system performance.
Integrates with CRM, ticketing, and content management.
Supports staff in planning, maintaining, and improving the visitor journey.
“Botanical Atlas” (Digital)
The Botanic Atlas [7] is an interactive online platform developed by Google Arts & Culture in collaboration with institutions like the Botanical Research Institute of Texas, CRIA in Brazil, and the University Herbarium of Cambridge. It showcases over 30,000 plant species through a dynamic world map powered by Google AI, allowing users to explore botanical specimens from various regions.
Key Characteristics
Purely Digital Platform: Accessible online via Google Arts & Culture, with no physical component—fully immersive and interactive.
Uses Google AI to showcase over 30,000 plant species from around the world on a dynamic map.
Combines scientific research (botanical specimens, taxonomy) with cultural heritage (historical and artistic stories).
Users can select different perspectives like Woodland Explorer, Botanical Scientist, Forest Activist, or Tree Historian to customize their experience.
Highlights the cultural significance of plants, botanical art history, and regional forest stories.
Designed to educate a global audience through immersive storytelling, interactive exploration, and rich multimedia content.
Covers diverse ecosystems and plants from many countries, emphasizing the global importance of botanical knowledge.
Common Aspects of Interaction Methods and Technology
Emotion-driven storytelling: Focus on playful, memorable learning rather than info delivery.
Seamless physical-digital integration: Tangible actions directly trigger digital responses.
Real-time responsiveness: Sensors and tracking enable immediate, dynamic feedback.
Multisensory engagement: Combines touch, visuals, and sound for immersive experiences.
Context-aware design: Respects and enhances cultural and physical settings.
Inclusive and intuitive: Easy to use for all ages and abilities, minimizing barriers.
Personalized content: Adapts to visitor location, interests, or pace via smart tech.
Robust technology: Durable hardware/software for consistent, high-quality use.
What’s Next
This framework can help guide me in developing my prototype by emphasizing the following key areas:
Creating physical touchpoints that trigger rich digital responses.
Ensuring interactions feel natural and immediate.
Designing for diverse visitors with simple, engaging interfaces.
Embedding experiences meaningfully within a cultural context
The upcoming blog post will focus on selecting a topic related to history and cultural heritage, as well as researching technology and making choices for my prototype.
[5] teamLab, “teamLab: A Forest Where Gods Live,” teamLab Exhibitions. [Online]. Available: https://www.teamlab.art/e/mifuneyamarakuen/.
[6] Dotdotdot_it, “The first fully integrated digital system customised to visitor and museum needs,” Medium, Oct. 27, 2022. [Online]. Available: https://dotdotdot-it.medium.com/the-first-fully-integrated-digital-system-customised-to-visitor-and-museum-needs-a2661079dfce
[7] Google Arts & Culture, “Botanic Atlas,” 2025. [Online]. Available: https://artsandculture.google.com/experiment/botanic-atlas/xwFwFQ2goojMUw.
