Queensland Holocaust Museum - Digital Experience
““… a rich experience of Jewish culture and celebrates those heroes who stood up against the Nazi regime to their great peril and honours those who were victimised alongside Jews. With more than 200 pieces of factual material included in this innovative platform, the content is evocative and designed to deeply engage with an audience seeking to explore and learn about the Holocaust” ”
List of services
Strategy
Creative
Design
3D Digital Development
User Interface Design
User Experience Design
3d Modelling
Challenge - the problem to solve.
Designed to decentralise the typical linear museum experience and created to attract new audiences as well as those familiar with the subject, the Holocaust is identified as a significant moment in history and of significance to those survivors who called Queensland home. As part of an integrated live, digital, and touring program to engage and educate a broad range of audiences, the digital museum experience brings the worlds’ first digital immersive holocaust museum to life. An ambitious, challenging, and pioneering program designed to unlock and reimagine hundreds of pieces of content [both still and moving imagery]. The opportunity was to create an immersive experience that was sensory, emotive, and engaging [i.e., more than 200 pieces of factual material, historical footage, and interviews with six survivors whose stories are compelling eye-witness accounts never seen]. In collaboration with the project and curation team, we have created an immersive experience that is more than a catalogue of content but is also sensory and emotive.
Designteam led the strategy, creative, UI design and 3D development in collaboration with Alive Events Agency and the Queensland Holocaust Museum & Education Centre. It was vital that the pioneering solution be a seamless and self-navigated journey of discovery, connection and understanding. The digital environment had to be accessible to audiences local, national, and global while also complimenting the new physical museum space now open in Brisbane, Queensland.
Solution
To decentralise and reimagine the museum experience we used an established design methodology to drive curiosity, understanding and to build connection. With a guiding working theme of ‘curious and unexpected’ our teams used the latest in immersive digital technologies and worked with stakeholders to shape the messaging and content formats which directly informed the final framework of the digital environment.
“From the outset our teams worked to reimagine the decentralised museum experience – to create empathy and understanding we have used the elements of dimension and curiosity in powerful new ways. Designed to balance engagement with discovery and to achieve resonance, we drew inspiration from a wide range of inputs; architecture, culture, literature, music, and art and matched these elements to the latest immersive digital technologies. The Australian’ has recognised the solution as one of the 50 inventions changing the world and we’re very proud of what the team has achieved…” says Designteam project strategy and creative lead Adam Mortimer.
An extensive phase of experience design, development and curation delivered a framework to the four scenes and dedicated environments that define the solution.
Pre-Holocaust: A typical German town square in the 1920s illustrating what life was like.
The Holocaust (1933 - 1939): The town square and buildings are the same, but we see it is night and life has changed.
The Holocaust during WW2 (1939 to 1945): Ghettos, rubble, cattle cars, and concentration camps are featured.
After the Holocaust: Open space, clearing skies and new beginnings.
Available 24/7 – anywhere and anytime, the immersive digital museum is designed for visitors to self-guide and traverse streetscapes and environments. The online museum is created in a way that drives curiosity and brings the visitor on a journey across each phase – traversable, interactive, visually engaging and crafted to bring the story of the Holocaust to life in a way never created.
Outcome - impact, results & data emphasis.
The Queensland Online Holocaust Museum is a world-first. A visually engaging, interactive, digitally intelligent, and immersive experience that brings the story and stories of the Holocaust to life. Self-guided and easily accessible from laptop or PC, the online resource is designed for diverse audiences to access anywhere. Anytime.
Developed with the understanding that different audiences will explore aspects of the museum at different times and in different ways, visitor dwell time within the museum environment is typically more than 38 minutes.
The Australian [August 2023] recognised the Digital Museum as one of the 50 Inventions changing the world – we’re passionate about how decentralised physical and digital immersive experiences can connect people to sometimes difficult and complex themes and concepts – but also allowing content to be reimagined in new ways for new – digital first - audiences.
