Thuy Nguyen

2024-09-20

Digital innovation to preserve and reimagine folk games through an interactive and culturally meaningful platform.

Context

Vietnam’s traditional culture faces the risk of fading due to globalization, modern entertainment, and declining youth interest. At the same time, folk games still hold strong nostalgic and social value, attracting young people when presented in engaging ways. This creates both an urgent need and opportunity to preserve and reimagine folk games through digital innovation.

Problem

Problem Statement

Young people today are drawn to digital-first, interactive, and social experiences. Traditional folk games, while culturally valuable, risk being forgotten if they remain offline-only and disconnected from modern life.

Design Challenge: Build a solution that both preserves and revitalizes folk games, making them accessible, engaging, and meaningful in today’s digital ecosystem.

Research

We conducted desk research and user surveys to validate needs:

Social Value: 97.4% of respondents agreed folk games create strong community bonds.

Digital Willingness: 97.4% were open to learning folk games online.

High Interest: 67.1% were highly enthusiastic about folk games.

Strong Preservation Motivation: 98.7% wanted to pass folk games to future generations.

Platform Demand: 65.8% expressed interest in a dedicated website/platform for folk games.

Persona

User Persona & Journey

Persona:

Primary: Gen Z (18–28), mainly students and young professionals, often experience folk games at school events, orientation weeks, or company team-building, where the games provide fun, bonding, and a link to tradition.

Secondary: Educators & parents, who seek educational resources and cultural preservation tools.

Journey:
Discovery → Learn rules/history → Try out via digital/interactive tools → Share & play socially → Build connection to cultural identity.

Ideation

We generated ideas using “How Might We” questions and prioritized via an Impact/Effort Matrix. Key design directions:

Platform as a living archive of folk games.

Interactive, playful, and visual-first to attract youth.

Community-oriented, encouraging sharing and participation.

Scalable features for gamification, AR/VR, and education.