Detroit Institute of Arts x Goosechase: Amplifying Guest Engagement

The Detroit Institute of Arts welcomes hundreds of thousands of guests a year. In 2022, they used Goosechase to provide visitors with customizable and memorable experiences.

CHALLENGES     RESULTS     SOLUTIONS     TIPS

GOALS: The Education Programs department at DIA oversees developmental programming for students and educators. Part of their function is to implement programming that keeps guests interested, engaged, and educated in the collections, making visits memorable and meaningful.

Visiting a museum is a highly immersive experience - being within its walls is an experience in itself. DIA had mastered in-person visitor engagement, welcoming hundreds of thousands of guests a year and immersing them in the museum’s collections.

When the COVID-19 pandemic paused DIA’s in-person group programming (which included tours and special activities), this got their team thinking: How could they get creative with how they engaged guests in the museum?

• Manual effort: They had offered pen-and-paper scavenger hunts for individual groups in the past, which were time-consuming to set up and hard to track for engagement.
• Specialized experience: Visiting the museum is a fully immersive experience; recreating the educational component of a typical guided tour, and producing the same level of guest engagement, was tricky.

The solution DIA implemented during the pandemic meant visitors were able to enjoy the museum without guided, in-person programming. By the time in-person programming returned, visitors had more options for how they could engage with the collection. In addition to viewing the galleries and joining guided tours, they could immerse themselves in scavenger hunt-inspired experiences that prompted meaningful interaction with the art (still — no touching, please).

• An extension of DIA's programming included interactive, gamified experiences, accommodating and better engaging guests of all learning styles and inclinations.
• Streamlined training and communications.
• 100s of visitor submissions to every Mission, which prompted guests to hunt down particular pieces of art, observe them more keenly, and dig deeper to make their own personal connections. Guests experienced the collection in a much more personal and intimate way as a result.

“Goosechase gives visitors more options for engaging in the art…some Missions serious, some silly, whatever feels natural to them.”
- Jason Gillespie, DIA (2022)

DIA turned to Goosechase to create immersive experiences that guests could play without the need for direct staff interaction at the museum.

“Since the pandemic, we’ve had to rethink how to engage visitors, and this felt like a really natural fit. We had already been using Goosechase to create custom games for organizations like the Girl Scouts, so we took the pen-and-paper activities we already designed and translated them into Goosechases for the public.”
- Jason Gillespie, DIA (2022)

• Easy set-up and automation: Once DIA set up a Goosechase, it was always available for guests to join.
• Enhanced visitor experience: Guests could explore the collection at their own pace and to their own tastes, leaving them with a more fun and customizable experience.
• Spotlights on special exhibits: DIA offered Goosechase Experiences for different groups, seasonal exhibits, and themes, such as Religious Themes in Art, African American Art, and Art of the Suffragettes.
  

From one Goosechase creator to the next, here are tips for how you can create the most brilliant experiences for your communities.

“It started as a platform for a dedicated audience [of students] and a specific experience [in-museum tours], and it’s grown into something else that addresses totally different needs for us.”
- Jason Gillespie, DIA (2022)

Make it easy to join
DIA had signage onsite and a dedicated page on the website that made it easy to join each Goosechase. The adoption curve was low, and guests could play right away!

Make it fun for the creators
Volunteer members of the docent program, who typically conduct the tours, created the new Goosechases. This process made it as much of an experience for them as it was for guests, as they got to see the exhibits with fresh eyes.

Have fun with it
Blend the silly Missions with the educational - more often than not, it’s the open-ended prompts that coax the most creativity and joy out of participants, making your experience that much more memorable.

Thank you to the Detroit Institute of Arts for sharing this Goosechase Experience back in 2022. DIA's dynamic, iconic collection is a must-visit when in Motown, and very much worth the trip.

For the broader strategic frame on how museums and other public institutions design for participation, see our piece on how public institutions build community engagement that lasts. DIA's program from 2022 was an early example of the visitor experience extension pattern.