An online narration of a territory’s WWII and Resistance historical heritage, to engage teen students in historical episodes and characters of their territory, and stimulating the visit of physical locations of the historical events.
Design opportunity
The project’s aim is to reach younger citizens, in particular teenagers, to whom convey the memory of local historical heritage related to Resistance to fascism, and to engage in the elaboration of subject heritageducators and students to contribute contents. We were asked to provide a tool to enhance this engagement towards the target group. Project client was an history Museum and a network of public institutions in the specific geographical area.
Implementation
Together with the client, we focused on the kind of experience we imagined, instead of on the technology: we chose an original fictional narrative as a means to connect with the users, and we built an online tool to enable a long reading experience. Intertwined to the narrative are informational and geolocating features, and playful experiences that stimulate further visits on site.
The original narrative fiction elaborates on the themes and subjects defined with the client and creates a language able to ease the access barriers for younger people to whom local historical heritage can be scarcely relatable. This ‘slow engagement’ approach, is balanced by a take on the subject that blends magic realism and coming-of-age narrative. The primary tool of engagement of this project is narrative reading.
Moreover, the online content, accessible via the story, enhances the physical network of themed institutions that funded the project, Museums and municipalities gathered in a dedicated network.
FICTIONAL SHORT STORY We curated an original fictional narration that follows the path of the geographical territory. Title: “Ghosts of the river”.
CONTENT COORDINATION A particular effort has been spent into the coordination of the content supply from the stakeholder, and the digital archiving of it for best serve the purposes of the project. Both the text of the story and the map are treated as the interface by which it is possible to access additional contents about the subject: in this example information about specific characters of the historical events.
ONLINE READING The online reading is enriched by contextual information provided by the map and hyperlinks. Disseminated along the narration are quiz-like events that, starting from the fiction, stimulate visiting the actual locations of the events.
Click to go to “La via della libertà website”
My role:
Lead creative direction
Brainstorming, workshop, Client presentations
Content coordination
User research, User Experience, Wireframing
Visual team and dev coordination
Team coordination: 1 game design consultant, 1 graphic designer, 1 writer, 1 copy, 2 developers
Client:
Museum Alcide Cervi, Reggio Emilia (IT)
Project with Studio too
