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Museum Chatbot Game

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CLIENT 

House Museums • Milano

YEAR 

2017-2018

WHAT WE DID IN SHORT

  • Benchmarking

  • Game concept

  • Information Architecture and Experience

  • Design

  • Non-linear storytelling

  • Game development

  • UX testing

MORE ABOUT THE PROJECT

BRIEF 

The House Museums of Milan are a circuit of four magnificent house museums: Poldi Pezzoli Museum, Bagatti Valsecchi Museum, Necchi-Campiglio Villa and Boschi Di Stefano House Museum. In 2016-2017 Fondazione Cariplo funded a big project called “Di Casa In Casa (“from House To House”) aimed at attracting new audiences to the House-Museums. Within this project, InvisibleStudio has been commissioned to imagine an innovative digital project to engage younger audiences.

OUR SOLUTION 

Chatbots are automated virtual characters that can interact with users, sending and receiving messages using popular chatting software like Facebook Messenger or Telegram. We decided to adopt this innovative technology in a way that was never used before. We developed an interactive game creating itineraries through the four museums. In our game a virtual character guides users through the exploration of unusual details hidden in the house-museums’ rich collections. Although many museums have developed smartphone-based games, they usually require users to download additional software and learn how to use it. Our chatbot game is totally different: users can chat with the virtual character in the same way they are used to interact with real people on software they use every day.

SUCCESS

The project was launched on March 15th 2017 in the Conference Room of the Royal Palace of Milan and had a wide media coverage on all Italian major newspapers, with long features on La Stampa and Il Sole 24 Ore. A series of tests conducted by InvisibleStudio with the target audience (more than 80 students from various high schools in Milan) gave optimal results, with more than 90% of the students praising the experience as “educational” and “fun”.  The project has also attracted international interest, with invitations to present it at MuseumNext Tech in Berlin, ICOM Conference in London and Museums and the Web in Vancouver.

An innovative digital project which brings us straight into the future
 

Stefania Rossi, House Museums Project Coordinator

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