Design and Evaluation of a Web-Based Game for Children to Visit the National Museum of Iran

Abstract

Museums play an important role in community's education. They bring people to the world of history and culture with their contents. There are several museums in Iran, but most of them don't have any specific program for kids and teenagers. This paper aims to present a study on the website of National Museum of Iran, more specifically; the focus is given on the use of a web-based game to invite young visitors during exhibition navigation and exploration of museum's cultural and educational content. The Iranian high school's curriculum in the field of the history of Islamic era is also studied in this paper to empower the educational influence of this game. Major analysis criteria and review findings include game goals, purpose of use, scope, user acceptance/interest and educational effectiveness. After reviewing the literature publications, it was found that most solutions were game-based and that had educational benefits on offer. The present study follows the Fogg's behavior framework and different design thinking tools as the qualitative tools for creation. This phase is done with the cooperation of forty students. In this paper, a web-based game is presented, which has been developed for enhancing the learning experience of teenagers. Its goal is to serve as a complement material for classes; also it can be used independently. It provides the students with many ways for acquiring information about their creations. Through the use of the game, the students gain easily new knowledge, since they have to search for it, understand different ancient manufacturing techniques and motifs from the Persian pottery making and use it to produce virtually different wares. The game can be played by many users simultaneously. These original works sent to the museum's website exhibition, create some kind of enthusiasm to visit this website. It also gives the opportunity to the other visitors to watch these creations as spectators. A usability test about an overall usefulness and educational effectiveness of this game is done with nine participants who mostly appreciate it and manifested some interests to play with it as a motivational tool for visiting the museum's website.