TSG Quest

USER EXPERIENCE DESIGN

The Tin Shed Gallery Quest

The Tin Sheds Gallery, originally a vibrant center for community engagement and political activism, has evolved since its inception in 1969, becoming part of the Sydney School of Architecture, Design, and Planning. Despite its historical significance, the gallery's community engagement has waned over time. To revitalize its relevance, a new housing-themed system has been developed using the gallery's archives.

My Role

User Flow Design
User testing
Storyboard Creation
Evaluating Concepts (Lenses of Play and Model of Engagement)
Concept Developement

The Goal

How can we use the past exhibitions about the evolution of housing and potential for design interventions showcased in the gallery to create a dialogue among the youth, invite their participation and collaborate with the architecture and design communities?

Design Process

Identifying the problem

We began by identifying the main problems in terms of engagement and the Tin Shed Gallery as a whole. The problems we identified were:

People are not aware of the TSG: A large number of people we interviewed and sent out questionnaires to did not know about the Tin Shed Gallery and often mistook it to be the other more "recognisable" gallery.
gallery does not have diverse interests: After merging with the University of Sydney's architecture, design, and planning department (ADP), the TSG leant into architectural exhibits. This led to a reduction in local engagement and, slowly, the lack of community engagement it used to receive.
The history of TSG is not given importance: The archives of the gallery are mismanaged, and a large portion has not been recorded. This oversight washes away the gallery's identity, diminishing its historical and cultural importance and limiting opportunities for meaningful engagement.

We decided to focus on the housing archives of the TSG and how we could improve our interaction with them.

OUR CREATIVE PROCESS

Our Initial Concept

THE ROOFS

The Roofs at Tin Sheds Gallery offers a space for visitors to delve into housing archives. It's a platform to discover the past, present, and future of housing and share opinions through experiences like THE TIMESCAPE, TSG QUEST, and WORKSHOP.

Tin Sheds Gallery's TIMESCAPE showcases pivotal moments in housing history through physical paintings on its walls. Visitors engage with the TIMESCAPE by sharing their thoughts, memories, and housing-related experiences, contributing to its ongoing narrative. Through the Portal, a recording booth, they can document their insights via voice, paper, or video, updating the TIMESCAPE and projecting their contributions onto gallery walls. The TIMESCAPE is accessible physically at Tin Sheds Gallery and online via the Roofs website, showcasing key moments and archives.

TSG QUEST portion invites teams to explore housing-related TSG archives using synchronized tablets. Proximity sensors prompt teams to answer historical context questions and earn badges for correct answers, which can be traded for a printed poster.

Participants enter the Tin Sheds Gallery and are directed to the podium with tablets. The TIMESCAPE is displayed on the walls of TSG.

Participants log into the TSG Quest by providing their personal details.

The quest requires participants to be in groups, and each participant has a colour flashed onto their screen to allow them to find their partner. Proximity sensors vibrate when they are near their pair.

The tablet directs the group to a year on the timescape and gives them questions based on the archives of that year as part of the quest.

The questions are different per participant and are used as a method of interaction between the participant and the archive, as well as a learning tool.

Participants have 2 attempts to provide correct answer for the question. After providing the correct answers, participants are given a badge for clearing that level.

Participants are then led to another year and provided with more questions

If one participant does not provide the correct answer in the two attempts provided, the team will not receive the badge for that year.

After completing the quest, the tablet prompts the participant to leave an insight to add to its records, in the form of a paragraph, sketch, voice.

The WORKSHOP at TSG teaches students art and archival curation using housing-themed historical materials. Participants organize user-generated content from the Roofs website, enhancing the TIMESCAPE and reducing staff workload.

Digitizing the TSG archives through the WORKSHOP and Roofs website improves accessibility for remote audiences and enriches the history of Tin Sheds Gallery and the University of Sydney.

User testing

We created a small scale timeline as well as a version of the TSG quest using foam boards and sticky notes. The results of the testing were :

Participants where unable to CONNECT to the archives as well as their partner.
Participants found that the questions were often perceived as “BORING” or like “WORK.”
Players did not RETAIN any information or the experience as a whole.

The TSG Quest Card Game

FINAL CONCEPT

TSG QUEST is a multiplayer card game for a minimum of 6 players, fostering collaboration on housing issues through engagement with the TSG archive. It features Action Cards, Archive Collector Cards, and Archive Information Cards.

The game sessions host five groups of six, representing Housing Archetypes: Budget-Conscious Minimalist, Adaptive Innovator, and Environmentally Friendly Nomad, determined via the TSG website quiz.

Our action cards, inspired by 'We're Not Really Strangers' (We're Not Really Strangers, n.d.), are categorised into three levels: Perception, Connection, and Reflection, each with varying depths of questions.

These cards prompt players to share personal experiences and discuss housing issues while engaging with the archives. At the start of the game players receive Archive Information Cards and take turns drawing an Action and Collector Card, like creating a haiku about 'Piercing the Clouds.' Winners earn Archive Collector Cards.

ACTION CARDS

Each turn, a player reads an Action Card and an Archive Collector Card, selects the best response, and earns that Archive Collector Card. Multiple copies are available, and the player with the most cards wins.

Flip the cards ➔

The archival information card provides context of the specific archive in discussion.

Reflection cards encourage critical thinking about the archives, sharing personal reactions, and integrating interactions into the online TIMESCAPE living archive [20 minutes].

The Archive card is given to the person that wins the specific round. The player with the most archive cards wins the TSG Quest.

Connection cards help players draw parallels with housing issues, uncover unspoken narratives, and deepen their understanding of the archive [15 minutes].

Perception cards foster creative thinking to interpret and perceive the archive [5 minutes].

The TSG Website prototype

To structure our audience effectively, we developed the housing archetype quiz with the aim of categorizing users into three distinct archetypes. These archetypes were determined through an online quiz available on our website. The quiz also serves as the primary gateway for users to sign up for the TSG QUEST.

FlowChart

The flowchart illustrates the step-by-step journey of a participant engaging with the TSG QUEST card game at the Tin Sheds Gallery. It tracks their experience from discovering the game online to actively participating in a game session and contributing to the TIMESCAPE.

StoryBoard

The storyboard depicts the journey of an individual participating in the TSG QUEST card game at the Tin Sheds Gallery. It begins with their discovery of the game on the TSG website and their decision to join a game session. The storyboard highlights their interactions, challenges, and the connections they make with others.

Two students walk into the Wilkinson building. Our protagonist, Ethan, is worried about being evicted. They spot a TSG Quest poster on the wall and scan the QR code to get to the website.

Back at home, Ethan visits the TSG website as he recollects seeing the word “housing” on the poster and decides to check it out. Out of curiosity, he takes a housing archetype quiz.

Ethan discovers that his housing archetype is Adaptive Innovator. He then decides to sign up for the TSG Quest game night.

He calls up his friends and invites them to the TSG Quest.

He attends the TSG Quest game night to socialise with other like-minded individuals.

He is sorted into a group of 6 and is given a deck of cards. This deck contains 3 types of cards. All members of the group get a white information card for each housing archive. The orange, red, and blue action cards dictate the task for each round. Yellow archive cards are awarded to the round winner.

The members of the group visit the Timescape and read through the community interaction on the page.

Ethan realises that many students feel similarly insecure about their housing situation.

Conceptual Video

The video we created was an attempt to advertise our intervention to the TSG audience to entice them to take part in the event.

Reflection

Through this project, I have discovered the rich history of Tin Sheds Gallery, which once served as a vital platform for artists to express their opinions. It is crucial for the gallery to maintain this role, despite changes in its audience. Neglecting this heritage would be a significant loss for both the gallery and the community it once supported.

After analyzing the card game through the model of engagement and various play frameworks, the questions that remain are:

Interaction: How does your concept account for staging of interaction with archives? In what way does your concept encourage interaction with past, present and future exhibitions?

Experience:How well does your concept engender creative, and aesthetic human experiences? Is your experience engaging or has it achieved your outcome?

Reﬂection: What are the next steps? What did we achieve? What did we not achieve? Critically reﬂect on the process.

Site: How well does your concept physically ﬁt into, augment or transform the existing site? How much does it take account of the historical, cultural aspects of the site?

Connection: How well does your design concept respond to the question? How can interacting with archives allow audiences to engage with the histories and possible futures of the Tin Sheds Gallery?"

My takeaway from this project are the multiple skills and techniques I learned, including the double variable method, STEEPLE analysis, and backcasting. These tools have equipped me with valuable analytical and strategic abilities. Moreover, I gained an understanding of Sydney's artistic history, particularly the significant role of Tin Sheds Gallery as a platform for artistic expression. This project has not only enhanced my practical skills but also deepened my understanding of the cultural and historical context of Sydney's art scene.

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