Make Things Happen Design Studio is a multidisciplinary design agency with a difference that brings heritage and cultural environments to life through innovation and creativity. Make Things Happen Design Studio is passionate about creating engaging experiences for museums, visitor attractions, outdoor trails and exhibitions. Inclusivity, accessibility and social responsibility are at their core. They bring stories to life through creating inclusive experiences that make heritage learning fun, sparking joy for diverse audiences across the country.

Make Things Happen Design Studio was the successful Challenge Respondent for the challenge set by Edinburgh Science which was to create a fun, interactive experience that encourages audiences to make a small donation when attending events, creating a new revenue stream for their festival which would allow them to continue and expand their charitable work. A stipulation was that the approach be data-driven so Edinburgh Science can analyse user engagement to establish how best to engage with their audiences in the future.

Following a period of research and user testing, they developed a web app called DNAtion (a play on the word Donation) which took the form of a science-based quiz. Users would input data such as their age, location and email address to unlock a character called Dizzy who would take them on a journey along a DNA strand, answering questions as they went. They strategically integrated personality-based questions, with no right or wrong answer to gain insight into the areas of science the users were most interested in.

This data was then used to customise Dizzy into a character that represented the area of science personalised to the user and displayed facts about Edinburgh Science’s charitable work. The end result is a fun interactive experience that can collect user data in a less intrusive way.  It has the capability to be developed much further and, with collaboration from Edinburgh Science, encourage and increase donation behaviour from users.