Author(s): Katherine Rackliffe
Mentor(s): Ben Schooley
Institution BYU
This study aims to determine the differences between a NFC custom scanner and a smartphone NFC scanner experience within an escape room environment. Escape rooms are growing in popularity for both team building and educational experiences. Many immersive experiences and escape rooms incorporate technology into the experience, and will often use smartphones to interact with the environment. Often, these experiences will have people scan a QR code or interact with NFC cards using their personal smartphone. In this workshop, we will test between two types of experiences to determine if using a smartphone or different device in an escape room environment is better for the user experience. First, the participants will use a website to scan for NFC cards on their personal smartphone device. These NFC cards are linked to a puzzle that the participants will solve by scanning the cards. We will have a short interview after this experience. Afterwards, we will give the participants the prototype for a custom NFC scanner device. This scanner will be given to the participants at the start of the escape room experience, and the participants will complete a short puzzle with the custom scanner. We will give the same interview to the participants to see what the main differences between the two experiences are. Finally, the participants get a short survey to determine which of the two experiences they enjoyed the most. We expect that the custom scanner will be more immersive, fun, and frustration free when compared to the phone scanner. Our study has a sample size of around 20 participants. This workshop type setting is useful for gathering open feedback about prototypes. This study will show if custom NFC scanners are a viable option for immersive interaction, and will also show if phone based experiences provide the same level of enjoyment. With this study, escape rooms can be improved with technology.