Designing With not For

For museum educators who work with youth, the common framework is that adults are the facilitators, and youth are the learners. Over the past few years, the small game development firm Greendoor Labs has been shifting this paradigm by working with museum educators and youth from middle school to high school to develop interactive scavenger hunts and storytelling experiences for museum visitors through their platform The Edventure Builder. Green Door Labs most recently partnered with the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art’s Teen Ambassador Program, where ten teens designed games for children, teens and family. In this session, we will approach human-centered design by thinking about what our results can be when instead of designing for a youth target audience, we design with an audience and empower youth to design for their peers. The first section of the presentation will be led by Kellian Adams of Green Door Labs, who will introduce the Edventure Builder and highlight some youth-led game projects at museums, including the Joslyn Museum of Art and the Harvard Museum of Natural History. The second section will be led by Alli Hartley, who will discuss her implementation of teen-designed games at the Smithsonian, her process and curriculum for the game design program, and her process of developing institutional buy-in for a participatory educational project in a museum with a very traditional curatorial process. Speakers Co-Presenter : Alli Hartley Co-Presenter : Kellian Adams, Mastermind, Greendoor Labs MCN 2016 Presenting Sponsor: Piction New Orleans, LA