Engaging museum visitors through escape rooms and immersive storytelling with Francine Boon

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Hello and welcome to the Art Engager podcast with me, Claire Bown.

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I'm here to share techniques and tools to help you engage with your audience

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and bring art, objects and ideas to life.

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So let's dive into this week's show.

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Hello and welcome to a new episode of the Art Engager.

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Today I'm chatting with Francine Boon, a self described sociologist turned

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mystery maker who's transforming how visitors engage with museums through

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immersive storytelling and game design.

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But before our chat, if you're enjoying my book, The Art Engager,

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Reimagining Guided Experiences in Museums, I'd love your support.

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Please consider leaving a rating or a review on Amazon or Goodreads or sharing

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a photo of your copy on social media.

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And don't forget to tag me in.

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I love to see the Art Engager out and about in the world.

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Now let me introduce today's guest.

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Francine Boon is the co director of Sherlocked, an award winning experience

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design studio based in Amsterdam.

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With her background in sociology and natural talent for storytelling

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and game design, she loves creating innovative experiences that bring museum

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collections to life in unexpected ways.

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Her work includes the hugely successful Escape Room at the

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Rijksmuseum that attracted 10, 000 participants in just nine weeks, and

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the recently launched Palace Mysteries at the Amsterdam Royal Palace.

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In today's episode, Francine shares how she tackles the practical challenges

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of creating games in museum spaces, from protecting valuable objects to

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managing visitor flow, and explains her creative solutions- things like

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giving players specific roles to encourage appropriate behavior.

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We'll explore how she selects artworks and objects, builds compelling narratives

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around them and ensures visitors engage meaningfully with collections,

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rather than just playing games.

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She also shares fantastic insights about designing for different age groups,

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particularly that 12 to 18 age range, and talks about what testing and visitor

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feedback have taught her about engagement.

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This conversation offers so many practical insights into creating engaging and

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immersive experiences in museum spaces.

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Enjoy.

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Hi, Francine, and welcome to the Art Engager podcast.

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Hi Claire, thank you for having me.

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You're very welcome.

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Could you tell our lovely listeners who you are and what you do?

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Yeah, I'm Francine Boon.

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I create experiences.

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I call myself a sociologist turned mystery maker, and there I combine my knowledge of

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human behavior and education with creating games and experiences and basically

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translating any story into something that you can explore and experience.

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So what got you into this work?

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Realized that I've been doing this my entire life.

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But I never knew that it was a profession.

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So as a kid, I would always create treasure hunts for friends, or I

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would create experiences to help people go through difficult emotions.

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I once created a whole quest for my mom, who was fired from her

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job, or she wasn't fired, she left, but not on really good terms.

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And she went through different stages of grief.

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And so I created a whole experience for her to basically move through

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these different phases of grief.

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But then I met Victor.

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And Victor is one of the founders of Sherlocked.

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Sherlocked is an award winning mystery experience design studio.

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We have escape rooms in the city center in Amsterdam, but we also design for

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all kinds of parties, including museums.

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And we started dating.

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I wanted to impress him, created a treasure hunt for him from Amsterdam

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to Rotterdam, where I almost sent him to Moscow by accident but we survived.

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And in the end he realized that I also have a knack for experience design.

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And then at some point he wanted to continue with the company, but his three

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partners decided to do something else.

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And he wanted to continue, but not alone.

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So he invited me to join him.

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And ever since we've been co running the company.

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Fantastic.

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Now I can hear a lot of passion and enthusiasm for what you do in your voice.

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So are there particular values that guide and inform your work?

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What kind of makes you get up and out of bed in the morning?

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That's a lovely question.

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So for me, I really believe that play and doing things through experience

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helps us to learn and grow as humans.

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And I think in our society, we all agree that play is the best way to develop

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empathy, to learn new skills like negotiating, making friends, et cetera,

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up until approximately the age of 12.

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And then suddenly we say, now you have to sit down and listen to

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someone speaking in front of you in a classroom and we can no longer play.

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Well, every sociological research basically tells us that play

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is, even in older ages, a really potent way of processing

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information and learning new skills.

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What makes me very passionate about what I do is that I can get adults to play again.

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And I can get adults to develop and explore their different identities

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and ways of being by creating a make believe environment in which

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they can fail, in which they can try out different personalities.

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And what we see time and time again is that people come out of that thinking

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like, whoa, I didn't know that I was such a leader, or I didn't know that I could,

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Figure out this puzzle because I thought I was not smart enough or something.

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And then we create an environment in which they can feel like

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the hero in their own story.

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And I hope that they take that with them to every single thing they do after.

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I love that idea of bringing play back to adults who've forgotten how to play.

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You also work with museums in your work can you tell us a little bit

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about how you got started working with museums and what it is about

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museums that really fascinates you?

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I think that museums have a lot of cool things in them, right?

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So what really fascinates me about museums is that they have a lot of objects in

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them and often they put them on display with small placards of this is a clock,

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it was made in 1927 and this is made by this person and that's about it.

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But what museums actually are these vaults of stories.

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And I think they need to move into storytelling instead of showing objects.

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And I think experience design can really support museums into moving into this

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storytelling perspective, and also into engaging their audience in a way where

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it comes from their own curiosity.

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And they start to really be intrigued by whatever story there is, and

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therefore these objects come to life.

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And this is one of the realms that fascinates me most about

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museums, and that is also why I really love working with museums.

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And how we got into that was that in, I think, 2018, the Rijksmuseum pioneered

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with creating an quest, escape game, they called it, and we played it and

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we really liked it, but we also saw a lot of opportunities where we thought,

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oh, we would do this slightly different or we would create it in this way.

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We basically asked them, said, Hey, would you like to have a conversation about

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next year, if you want to do this again?

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And we pitched to them and they chose us.

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And then we created their next iteration of the escape game in 2019.

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And there we created this whole quest around the painter, Torrentius,

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who has one last painting.

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He was named in the same breath as Rembrandt in his time, but we don't

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have anything of him left, except for this one painting that was found as

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the lid of a barrel in 1900 something.

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And it's a completely mysterious painting, and it hangs there in the museum above

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another painting, and everybody that comes there just looks at the bottom painting,

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but nobody pays attention to the top one.

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And we were like, that is so weird, because this is so intriguing.

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There's like a lot of things that are really weird with this painting.

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And we decided to create a quest around it.

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And that turned into the 2019 Escape Game of the Rijksmuseum, which was also

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my very first project with Sherlock.

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And I was very happy about it because it was a very cool project to do.

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Now, I was lucky enough to hear about the escape room that you did with the

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Rijksmuseum because my daughters did it back in 2019 and they loved it, so they

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came home talking about it and explaining what they did and they did it with their

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friends at the time, but can you tell us a little bit about that process?

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Obviously, Creating an experience in a normal building is one thing, but

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creating something like this in a museum.

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There must be lots of challenges that you faced, all sorts of things

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that you have to think about that you wouldn't have to think about when you're

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creating something like this elsewhere.

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Definitely.

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So first of all, everything in this building is worth a fortune, right?

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When we design our own escape rooms, then we have full control over what

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is in the room, how we design it.

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We can replace it.

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If someone drops something that is still valuable, but they drop it

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and it breaks, then it's not like crime against humanity, right?

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If you accidentally drop The Night Watch, then it's an issue.

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That's one.

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It's very valuable.

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The second thing is that you have to design around the actual

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normal visitors of the museum.

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We don't want to interfere with any experience that a normal visitor has that

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just wants to walk around and look at art.

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So that's the second one.

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And the third one is that players get super enthusiastic once they play.

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So they want to yell, run, scream, touch things, right?

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It's just the nature of humans.

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As soon as they start playing, they get super curious and

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they really want to explore the boundaries of what is possible.

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So we also need to figure out a way to get them to behave, basically.

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And I really love doing that.

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I think it is such a nice design challenge when you have these

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restraints and you figure it out.

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And with the Rijksmuseum, they were very open and willing

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to figure this out with us.

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They were also very kind, like there was a moment where someone touched a

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very old piano, right, for example, and then they would correct it and

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they would come back to us and say, can we design this differently?

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But one of the things that we did to make sure that this wouldn't

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happen too often is that we gave the players a role to play.

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So what we really like to do is we like to blur the line between reality and fiction.

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We like to give you the feeling that you seamlessly get into this fictional world,

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and you also seamlessly get out of it.

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And then by the end of it, you look at yourself and you're like, was that real?

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Was parts of this real?

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And then we activated your curiosity fully, so you go home and you

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research it and you realize, 'oh wow, a lot of this was actually true'.

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So I actually learned a lot about art accidentally.

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And in this case, we needed a reason for these players to

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come here and to play this game.

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And what we did was we created a story about Bert, who was

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an employee of the museum.

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And Bert started finding out the start of a breadcrumb trail that might lead

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to something very secret, but the powers at play didn't want him to find out

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because they didn't trust Bert at all.

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So what they did was they sent him home.

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They put him on leave.

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And as a last act, Bert registered you.

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as a team of players, as his interns.

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So you would come as an intern to the Rijksmuseum, and if you would say, hey,

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I'm here to play a game, the people would say, don't know what you're talking about.

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While if you would say, hey, I'm here, the new intern for BERT, then it would

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say, ah, welcome on your first work day.

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Here's your starting package.

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And here's this and here's that.

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And what this does is that it would give us an alibi to then

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tell these players, 'hey, you are employees of the Rijksmuseum now'.

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So you need to behave representatively.

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No running, no screaming, no touching things.

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Actually, if you see anybody else do this, it is your responsibility to correct them.

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And then also gave us an opportunity to give them a badge that says intern.

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So everybody of the Rijksmuseum that works there, from the guards

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to the guides, they would recognize them as players of the game.

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And at the same time, they could interact with them as if they were interns.

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So if they would come to check their tickets, they wouldn't have to

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have their tickets checked anymore because they had this badge on.

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But also guards could look at them and say, 'Ah, you're the new interns, nice.

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I drink my coffee black and I have my break at 12.' And then they would give

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them the feeling like, Oh, everybody is talking to us as if we're really interns.

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Are they in on this?

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Are they not?

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We're not completely sure.

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And that worked wonderfully.

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So that would be also one of my tips to give is give people a role that makes

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sense and that gives them responsibility because then they will act responsibly.

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And subtly you're giving them cues of how to behave as well.

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So this very playful way of introducing guidelines.

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So as museum educators when we are working with groups in the museum we spend time

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at the beginning of a program and we may introduce certain guidelines in a positive

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way of how we might be expected to behave.

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But by doing that through adopting a role, playing a character is,

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yeah, it's absolutely ingenious.

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So I love it.

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Thank you.

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One of the other things we have to do as museum educators is select objects,

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select artworks And it's equally one of the most fun parts of our jobs and one

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of the most challenging because we may completely fall in love with a painting,

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but as you say when you talk about the Torrentius painting, it might be above

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something else or not in a great location.

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We may also, be given the selection of artworks that perhaps we find it

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difficult to work with within the flow of the gallery or the visitors.

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So yeah, how did you select artworks and objects for this?

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Good question.

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Where we started was with the objectives of the museum.

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Normally the Rijksmuseum is pretty busy and I think any museum has its top

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pieces, right, where everybody goes to.

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We looked at how do people move through the museum and where will it get too busy.

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And where is nobody ever coming to visit, even though the material is really cool.

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It's a really cool way to say, ah, this is normally a very quiet spot of the museum.

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Let's introduce this into the quest so people actually pay attention to it.

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So that was one of the objectives of the museum, spread out visitors a little bit

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more and also show parts of the collection that are normally skipped by people.

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And the second objective they had was to find a new audience, to

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introduce younger people to going to a museum and then especially the age

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category that nobody ever reaches, which is between 12 and 18, right?

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These are the youngsters that don't really want to do this, they just want to hang

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around with friends and do other things.

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And they are very activated by games, by escape games, by other things.

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So with these two objectives in mind, we first looked at where is it busy?

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Where is it not?

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And then we started talking to curators, people that love their work.

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I love curators.

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They have such a passion for everything that they have and that they play with.

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And we just had conversations with them.

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Like, are there any objects in your collection where it's heartbreaking

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to you that nobody ever watches them?

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Right.

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Is there anything really cool?

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And we got different objects back from them which we then looked into.

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But we never really found the one until the very last

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talk with the curator we had.

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And he was like talking to us for about an hour and then by the end of that hour he

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suddenly said, We have this one painting.

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But it's really mysterious because the painter was part of a secret society

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and it was found, again, like I said, beginning on a, as a lid of a barrel.

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And we actually don't really know how it's created.

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There's a lot of mystery around it.

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Maybe look into that one.

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There's a documentary on it.

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And for us, that sparked so much joy because we thought we have

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a secret society that is real.

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We have mystery that's real.

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And we started from there.

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And then another thing that the museum really wanted, and that

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I also think is really smart to do, is use the building itself.

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Because often museums are placed in very beautiful buildings, or

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at least building with a story.

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And you can make this building an integral part of anything you

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create, because it makes everything more immersive and more real.

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And in this case, they also had a bunch of objects from the architect, Cuypers.

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So we also looked at those objects.

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So it was a piano from the architect that was in there that we made it to a puzzle.

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And there were like nooks and crannies and statues that were part of the

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building that we could then use.

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And a very beautiful mosaic floor.

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If you are ever in the Rijksmuseum, He designed.

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most gorgeous mosaic floor I've ever seen in my life.

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And we use that too in the quest.

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Yeah, I think the building is as much a work of art as the

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objects within it as well.

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Absolutely beautiful.

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Do recommend a visit to the Rijksmuseum.

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You mentioned earlier about people feeling that they were accidentally learning about

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art and history through this experience.

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So what strategies did you use to keep people engaged with the

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art, with the objects rather than just the game elements?

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How did you get them really looking at and thinking about what they were looking at?

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I think people get very activated when there's a story to follow.

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So there was a story, you had contact with Bert through a phone that you

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borrowed from the museum and he would constantly tell you little nuggets, but

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also we gave him a lot of personality.

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So you could ask him anything.

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You could say, 'Hey, Bert, how is your love life?' And then it would

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say, 'Oh, I have this wonderful wife and we like to do mosaicing.

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And we like to do this and that'.

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We have a dog named, he was also named Bert, which was, really weird, but I

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don't know our game masters went a little rogue on that one, but it was very funny.

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And we also instructed them, like give him a lot of personality.

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It's really cool.

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And people engage with a person or with something that speaks to them,

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then they already stay immersed.

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The second thing is that we really.

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made them look at the art as part of the quest.

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So it wasn't just wayfinding as in you go to hall 1.

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12, but it was look at the gaze of this statue, find this

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painting and look at this element.

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There were different things that they had to find and then really look

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at it and follow the gaze or follow something else so that they could

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find their way through the museum.

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And this is also something that people really enjoy because

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it's a quick feedback loop.

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It's like, I think I found this, ah, it's like a breadcrumb.

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Ah, nice.

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Okay, I understand this.

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Okay, where's the next breadcrumb?

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So that constantly keeps them engaged in following through with the quest.

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What we did see though was that In the busy times of the museum,

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the quest could take three hours, instead of an hour and a half.

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And it was just because people are so overstimulated and they can't

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move quickly enough through other people, or they can't really look at

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the artworks because it's too busy.

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So that is something to keep in mind, is that quests can take super

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long when it's super busy, and they can take very short when it's not.

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Yeah.

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And I was going to move on to ask you about that because you must have

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learned a great deal from planning this, designing this, talking to

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people after the experience here.

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What kind of response did you get and what did you learn from the feedback?

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So what I'm really proud of is that it was crowned with a 9.

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4 out of 10.

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Which was a really high mark.

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And that was also really gold star for me as an experienced designer.

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I thought, okay, this is my profession.

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Let's continue in this path.

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Which I really loved.

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And what they said was, this is something that I can really do with this age group.

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Like if I tell my 12, 13, 14 year old, let's go do a game in a

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museum, that's actually an escape game, then they want it to come.

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So that was really cool.

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So in my profession, you have to do a lot of testing, right?

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So we learned a lot also already before we launched, which was that

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for example, the quest took very short in the morning, but very long in the

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afternoon because of the busyness.

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And we realized that the people's bandwidth changed over the day.

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So the amount of information you can process, how quickly you can

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process that is very different in the morning compared to the afternoon.

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So we had to adjust a little for that.

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We also learned that the quest was very good for 12 years and up,

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but for younger, it was a little too long and too complicated.

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So we created an alternative, shorter version for younger ages that took about

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an hour instead of an hour and a half.

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And that was less complicated story wise.

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And we learned from them that they could retell us the different elements of the

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objects that we put in front of them.

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And we thought that was really interesting.

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Like, instead of just saying, Hey, I saw a painting that showed a sea battle.

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They could really tell us like, Hey, I saw a painting that this is the story.

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This is depicted on it.

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This is what happened and why it's important.

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And they could really relate it back.

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to them, which was also very interesting.

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And I think in this day and age, it's really important that people feel an

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agency and being a part of something as a way of processing information.

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And with doing this experience, they could do it.

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They could really retell us the story of the art.

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That's amazing that they were connecting with it personally, but also remembering

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key details about the experience and that's when you know that something has

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affected people, has made some kind of imprint on their memory, or maybe even

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transformed them in some way because they're able to talk about it and

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remember key details and even perhaps how they felt when they were doing it.

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So that's fantastic.

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Wasn't it something like 10, 000?

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people experienced the game?

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. Yeah, true.

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10, 000 people in nine weeks went Through the experience.

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Yeah, there was a lot.

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It was also very cool.

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Yeah.

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And they're still emailing us to ask when we're going to do it again.

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The sad thing is that we had plans to do it again, but then the pandemic hit.

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So then everything closed down and we're still talking to the

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Rijksmuseum, but right now we're designing their new family game.

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We're still working with them, but on a different project because

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that is where the budgets are now.

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Yeah.

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And where has this taken you since?

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You're still working with them in various guises.

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I know you've just developed something for the Royal Palace in Amsterdam,

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which is another amazing venue.

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As you say, and as I often say, I've done some work with them as

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well, is that it's a hidden gem.

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A lot of people don't know that you can actually visit this wonderful,

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beautiful palace with amazing grandeur, the size of the rooms,

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the marble, the scale of everything.

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I mean, it really is super impressive.

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So do you want to tell us a little bit about Palace Mysteries?

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Yeah, of course.

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It's a, like you say, it's an amazing building.

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And I also find it pretty cool that I can now say that I worked on assignment

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of the king, which is always a nice one.

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Yeah, this is a really cool one.

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They were looking for a way to engage 10 to 12 year old school classes with the

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history of the building in a different way than normal because they are already

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very good at creating audio tours and other cool ways of going through

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the museum, but they were looking for this age group for something new.

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And I really liked the building because when I was 10.

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I lived, I grew up in Amsterdam.

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When I was 10 my parents organized my birthday party at the palace and never

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knew that it was possible but suddenly we were standing there with, I don't

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know, six, seven kids in the palace and when I entered like someone shook my

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hand and told me Happy birthday, also on behalf of her majesty, the queen.

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And I was like, wow, the queen knows about me as she celebrates me, this is such a

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powerful element for me as a 10 year old.

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And we had a wonderful experience, but I realized still no, not a lot of people

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understand, especially not locals that you can go into the palace also because

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it is still used for royal visits.

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So it is open a lot of the year, but not all of the year.

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And then it also really gets closed down for multiple weeks in a row.

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So that was interesting.

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And for this one, we created a game that tells the history of the building,

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basically in the three phases that it has.

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First, it was City Hall.

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Rembrandt actually asked for his bankruptcy there, but they

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also took care of orphans.

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the court was there.

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So it had bankruptcy, it had orphanage, it had the court was there.

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But also you could ask to get married there, for example.

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So there was a lot of Busyness there with just citizens coming in and out.

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And then it got taken over by Louis Napoleon, who reigned in it for

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four years and turned it into a living palace, even though everybody

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advised him against it because it was a very large, cold building.

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There was a canal next to it that smelled horrible.

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So it was a lot of things to say against that.

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And then it was becoming the Oranges Royal Palace.

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They tried to give it back to the city.

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The city said, no, you can keep it as a palace.

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They thought this was a really weird building.

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So they kept it and now it's still a visiting palace.

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So it's still in use.

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And it's so fascinating to see these different times and

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how it was used as a building.

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So we created a game around it where we said there's these three chests that

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have been found in an attic by a curator.

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The curator is a little eccentric but he's also like yeah the king is

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coming over very soon and I can't get these open because they're locked

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and I don't understand how to open them and it would be really good for

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my career and also really cool if we can open them before the king comes.

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Can you help?

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Because I don't dare to ask the adults to help because then

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they know that I can't, right?

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So there's, again, a reason why it's the kids.

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And then they come over and they find a way using the beautiful floors there.

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If you ever go to the palace, look at the floors in the big hall because

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there you have the maps of the world as they thought they were back then.

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So some really cool features there were, for example, the Americas are only half

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because they weren't discovered yet.

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So it's like history baked in a floor.

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They use them to open the first one, and then every chest has three files in there.

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And these files are made up to look like they come from these different ages.

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So the city hall period is very old looking, has a crest of the city on it.

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The Napoleon one uses his official pattern with bees.

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And the third one is more modern looking because it's

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from the orange period from now.

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And through different puzzles basically, we tell what happened in these rooms.

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So every time we take the three different periods, for example the

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hall that used to have the throne.

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That was also the hall where it used to be the court.

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And it's also the hall where right now other people are received for

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visiting, but it also has these very big portraits of the oranges on the walls.

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So with every room, we basically show them these three different periods.

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And we do that very tangibly.

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For example, Louis Napoleon is responsible for giving us our last names, which the

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Dutch did not take seriously, which is why we have so many really weird last names.

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But he is also responsible for giving us the metric system.

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And before that, we would use our thumb, our palm, and the space from your

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elbow to your hand to measure things.

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And that worked reasonably well.

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But, of course, my thumb is a different size than your thumb.

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So it was never completely precise.

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So what we did for these kids to have a tangible idea of this is we

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created miniatures of the actual furniture that is still there.

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And that is also the true Napoleon furniture.

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And we gave them thumbs that were always the same size, but also tell

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them, try out with your own thumb, and then measure things out with your thumb

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and then realize that it's really hard to measure things with your thumb.

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And then the puzzle is to translate that to something else to the metric

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system, which gives you a word.

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And then in the end, they do all these different puzzles.

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They come back with nine different words.

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They puzzle them out.

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And then basically the sentence asks you like, Hey, now you understand

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why these file keeping and these archives are very important.

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And these stories need to be guarded basically and kept, but it's

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also interesting for the future.

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to capture your stories.

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So then they get a chance to file something in a cabinet in an official

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filing system, which is a story from them for the future, what

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they find important that is kept.

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And it's really funny to read these because we got a pancake recipe.

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For example, from a kid, but we also got a question about how

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is the climate in the future?

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It's like a very wide range of what is alive for these kids in that moment.

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And now the palace is collecting all of these.

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And they're going to have a really wide range of things that

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kids find important to tell the future, and I think that's amazing.

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Yeah, I love it.

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I'm marveling here at the creative ways, how your brain works for a start, how you

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creatively woven in all those different layers of history into this one program.

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For all the museum educators listening as well, we know that's It's a significant

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challenge to be able to think about a story on different levels and to be able

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to give young audiences different entry points so they can enter those stories.

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So on the one hand, congratulations for managing to do that.

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I think it sounds absolutely incredible.

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But what's the difference perhaps between Creating a project like this for the

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Royal Palace, which is for school groups, and the one you did for the Rijksmuseum.

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What are the differences in design, perhaps?

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There's a lot of overlap because as a museum, you don't want

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to invent the truth, right?

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You want to tell the truth.

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And that is for us always a very important line to follow.

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That the historical facts that we share, we want to be true.

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The fact that these chests are found in an attic is obviously not true.

Speaker: 00:30:19

So we try to get the fiction in the now.

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But the factual stuff in the content.

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And I think that's the same for both.

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So there's not a big difference there in how we approach, how we tell a

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story, or how we translate the story.

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Also in both instances, it's really important to kill your darlings.

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And this is one of the things that is really hard for museum people.

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And I understand it's also really hard for me.

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But When you do an experience, you just have a more limited amount of processing

Speaker: 00:30:47

power, because there's also materials to touch, there's rooms to look around in,

Speaker: 00:30:51

there's processing in solving a puzzle.

Speaker: 00:30:55

So we need to be very clear on what is part of the quest and what is not.

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So for example, we can tell about this measuring with the thumb, but

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we cannot tell about something else.

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you have to make these decisions.

Speaker: 00:31:08

We can't tell you that this furniture is actually made by this person in

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that age and it costs this much, right?

Speaker: 00:31:14

Information we leave out, even though it is also interesting.

Speaker: 00:31:17

So that is also in both instances the case.

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You need to be very clear in what is your goal, what are you going to tell?

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What is different is that a school class is very organized, right?

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Of course they are all over the place, but they listen, they are

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very free in how they do the puzzles.

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The kids, they are often way less restricted than adults because they

Speaker: 00:31:39

just see something and they try it out without any embarrassment.

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And you can shepherd them through.

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They have a a guide coming with them.

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So that is a very.

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different way of designing because I don't have to keep

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into account that they go rogue.

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Well, with adults or with the freer system of the Rijksmuseum, where you have groups

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loose in the museum, there we have to be very clear about their wayfinding.

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We have to be very clear about that they don't get lost or

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distracted by other things.

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And that is a Completely different approach where we need to be super clear,

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but also still keep the mystery alive.

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So I would find designing for the more free version, a little more challenging

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because they can get lost and go rogue, but on the other hand, for the kids.

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It's a very interesting age between 10 and 12, because they like

Speaker: 00:32:30

to suspend their disbelief, but they also really like to be cool.

Speaker: 00:32:34

So there's this way of, where are we going with this?

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And there was a moment in the beginning where we had too much

Speaker: 00:32:39

of a childish story, where we said that the walls would speak to them.

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And we noticed that the test groups, they were pretending to believe

Speaker: 00:32:48

for us, which was super kind.

Speaker: 00:32:50

They were like really trying to like yeah, this is true, huh?

Speaker: 00:32:54

It's not, but so they were really trying to help us.

Speaker: 00:32:58

in giving us the feeling that they believed it, but we

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noticed that it wasn't true.

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So we completely simplified the story and said, no, this is true.

Speaker: 00:33:07

Just three chests that were found that need to be opened.

Speaker: 00:33:09

And we have a curator that is a bit whimsical.

Speaker: 00:33:11

And then the contents speak for themselves.

Speaker: 00:33:14

And that worked.

Speaker: 00:33:15

Then they could suspend their disbelief again.

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And we're like, ah, cool.

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This is real.

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Oh, we can really file something in a cabinet.

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Yeah.

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I love that they they pretended to go along with your pilot version as well.

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So kind, right?

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So kind, super interesting psychologically as well.

Speaker: 00:33:32

But yeah, such an interesting group to design for on the kind of cusp of

Speaker: 00:33:36

adolescence, thinking about what stories might be a good hook for them, what might

Speaker: 00:33:40

draw them in but also talking about, and I was smiling broadly there when you

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mentioned one of my favorite phrases, kill your darlings, which is something I

Speaker: 00:33:49

talk about a lot is that, we have all this information at our fingertips in museums

Speaker: 00:33:54

and as educators, we really want to use it all, but we have to be selective.

Speaker: 00:34:00

We have to think about what's the most important information

Speaker: 00:34:03

that we want to share.

Speaker: 00:34:04

So I think that was really useful to reiterate.

Speaker: 00:34:06

And also starting with the end in mind as well.

Speaker: 00:34:09

So who is this group that we're working with?

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What do we want to achieve?

Speaker: 00:34:13

And what are the kind of parameters around how they will work in the museum?

Speaker: 00:34:18

As you say, is it a free group that can wander on their own, that will have

Speaker: 00:34:22

its own constraints and challenges?

Speaker: 00:34:24

Or is it a school group that will be going with a guide?

Speaker: 00:34:26

So all of those things are wonderful design points to bear in mind.

Speaker: 00:34:31

And that brings us on quite nicely to talking about... you talked

Speaker: 00:34:34

about eight tools for creating successful museum experiences.

Speaker: 00:34:38

Yeah, are there any that we haven't mentioned?

Speaker: 00:34:40

We've mentioned quite a few different ways that you design.

Speaker: 00:34:44

Perhaps you could talk us through or take a moment to think about

Speaker: 00:34:48

some of the tools that you might use to create these experiences.

Speaker: 00:34:53

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:34:55

So I think one of the things that is interesting is that often museums hire

Speaker: 00:35:00

people and they do a marvelous job, but they don't have a clear brief in mind.

Speaker: 00:35:04

having a very clear brief about what you want to achieve is super

Speaker: 00:35:08

important because it gives us all these tie ins to work with.

Speaker: 00:35:12

And it also allows us to look at your existing infrastructure because we

Speaker: 00:35:17

don't need to reinvent the wheel.

Speaker: 00:35:19

Sometimes you have really cool infrastructure already in place.

Speaker: 00:35:22

Think about an audio tour that we can add an audio file to that will

Speaker: 00:35:25

save you money in developing things.

Speaker: 00:35:28

And it also creates an extra layer of immersion.

Speaker: 00:35:31

So it's always important to tell us what is your actual goal and what are

Speaker: 00:35:35

the existing things that you already have that we might be able to tap

Speaker: 00:35:38

into because we can work with them.

Speaker: 00:35:42

So that is one.

Speaker: 00:35:43

I think we talked about personnel in the building already.

Speaker: 00:35:47

The touch might also be an interesting one.

Speaker: 00:35:50

What is the one thing that everybody wants to do in museums, but is not allowed to?

Speaker: 00:35:55

Touch things, touch the art.

Speaker: 00:35:56

And of course, we can't go there that we can always skip that rule and let them

Speaker: 00:36:01

touch things because we don't want to.

Speaker: 00:36:03

But if you have the space to somewhere in an experience, create a separate room

Speaker: 00:36:08

in which you create maybe an artifact.

Speaker: 00:36:11

that looks and feels like it's old, but it actually isn't.

Speaker: 00:36:15

And here they can interact with and they can touch it.

Speaker: 00:36:18

That really helps with the immersion and also with the feeling of accomplishment.

Speaker: 00:36:22

I did something that I wasn't allowed to do and I did it anyway, right?

Speaker: 00:36:26

It's always fun.

Speaker: 00:36:27

People like to be cheeky.

Speaker: 00:36:29

For the Rijksmuseum, we created a very beautiful 19th century cabinet.

Speaker: 00:36:36

That was not 19th century.

Speaker: 00:36:37

It was 2019, but it looked 19th century and it worked based on music

Speaker: 00:36:44

and you had to distract a guard there, like someone that worked in

Speaker: 00:36:47

the restoration lab that we recreated.

Speaker: 00:36:49

You had to convince them that you could take a look at it and then very

Speaker: 00:36:52

sneakily you would have to manipulate it so it would give you something

Speaker: 00:36:55

out of it and then you could move on and then you had touched art.

Speaker: 00:36:58

Which was really challenging was to get people from there back into the

Speaker: 00:37:01

mindset that they no longer can touch the art, so that was a bit of a challenge.

Speaker: 00:37:06

But it gave them this feeling of, Ooh, I did something that wasn't allowed.

Speaker: 00:37:11

And that helps a lot with immersion.

Speaker: 00:37:13

It's not necessary, but it's cool if you can do it.

Speaker: 00:37:16

Brilliant.

Speaker: 00:37:17

So any last advice that you would give to museums who want to create

Speaker: 00:37:21

more immersive, playful experiences?

Speaker: 00:37:25

I can say that I think it works almost every time and for almost every goal

Speaker: 00:37:31

and it can really be an add on layer so it doesn't have to interfere with

Speaker: 00:37:34

the people that are already there.

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It can really be something that is designed specifically for a

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specific goal you have in mind.

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And that can be anything, so for example now for the NaFilM Museum in

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Prague, they said we have this really cool museum but we ran out of space.

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and we do not run out of visitors.

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So what can we do?

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And for them, for example, we are designing a quest through Prague

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that still tells the story of film, but uses the outside world.

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So you can really creatively think of solutions that are not in the normal

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realm of possibilities in museums.

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And I think that is Really cool and also really for cool form of engaging people.

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So if you're interested if you're listening to this and you're interested

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and you say, I have a problem and I might be interested in using

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experience design to solve it, send me an email and I'm happy to think

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along if that would actually work.

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And I'm also very honest when I think it won't work.

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I think that's important.

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We're not doing this for the sake of it.

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We really have a mission here.

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You mentioned there that you're working with the NaFilM Museum in Prague.

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Yeah, my last question was going to be, what's next for you?

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Nice.

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So we're working with the NaFilM Museum.

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We're working with Next Nature and the Quantum Institute to make

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quantum more accessible, which is, for example, very complex matter

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that we try to make accessible and simple through experience design.

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And next to that, I also just run our company Sherlocked and

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we create our own experiences.

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So the escape rooms in the city center, we're currently designing a new one that

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we don't know when it will come out.

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We're very slowly picking that back up because we just

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launched a new one last year.

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But that's also what's happening in parallel.

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It's very busy, I would say.

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Where can people where can people find out more about you, learn more

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about your work in museums and beyond?

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So you can find me on LinkedIn, Francine Boon.

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I think you will put the link in the show notes.

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And we have a website, sherlock.

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nl.

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There you can also see what we do for companies and there are blogs

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on Museumnext, for example, where my talk is translated into a blog.

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That would also be a good starting point, I think.

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Brilliant.

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That just leaves me a little bit of time to say thank you,

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Francine, for sharing a little bit of the wonderful work that you do.

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Thank you so much for joining me today on the Art Engager.

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Thank you very much for having me.

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It was a blast.

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So a huge thank you to Francine for sharing her insights on the podcast today.

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You can find out more about her work in the show notes.

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If you've enjoyed this episode or if any of our previous episodes have

Speaker: 00:40:09

helped you in your work please consider supporting The Arts Engager on Patreon.

Speaker: 00:40:15

Your monthly subscription helps keep this content coming and I'm really

Speaker: 00:40:20

grateful to all our supporters.

Speaker: 00:40:23

Don't forget to visit my website to learn more about the Art Engager book,

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available now wherever books are sold.

Speaker: 00:40:32

That's all for today, thank you for joining us and see you next time.

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Thank you for listening to the Art Engager podcast with me Claire Bown.

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You can find more art engagement resources by visiting my website thinkingmuseum.

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com and you can also find me on Instagram.

Speaker: 00:40:50

at Thinking Museum where I regularly share tips and tools on how to bring

Speaker: 00:40:55

art to life and engage your audience.

Speaker: 00:40:59

If you've enjoyed this episode, please share with others and subscribe to the

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show on your podcast player of choice.

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Thank you so much for listening and I'll see you next time.