TextFish: Interactive Virtual Ecosystem
Exploratorium, San Francisco
Funding: $2.35M NSF award
User research: summative
Text messages: 500K/year
I conceived this exhibit to help people experientially understand the Tragedy of the Commons and raise consciousness about how this relates to multiple global challenges including climate change and international conflict. Via a scalable multi-person game of fishing, visitors’ phones function as game controllers leveraging simple text messages (no app download required). Twilio graciously donated text messaging services. In the video, I walkthrough the experience design at Twiliocon/Signal.
Summative visitor research found:
“TextFish was effective at getting people to consider personal and societal behaviors in relation to the global problem of overfishing.”
Twilio's website contains additional details. New Media fellows collaborated on system development.
