Jonas stumbled upon Actionbound in Hungary at a Training Course organised by Salto Youth. The app was used to teach young participants about the the opportunities for applying to Erasmus + programs. Since that day, his mind was flowing with thoughts on how to use Actionbound as a research tool. It took some time before he found the way to put it into action… Half a year later, we organized an open house event in Medellín, Colombia. We were brainstorming about how to organize the event and Ping! Jonas’ lightbulb light up.
We utilized Actionbound to organize a treasure hunt to learn from our 30+ guest about their relationship to social innovation. We set up the treasure hunt on the Actionbound app, sent our guests up and down our house-office scanning QR codes. At each station they were asked to do a different research-related challenge to advance with the treasure hunt. At the end of the night we could enjoy and laugh at all the pictures and videos automatically stored in the Actionbound platform.
Since then, we are using Action Bound as a research tool for our projects such as Bathroom Research and Plata, Cultura y Cambio. We also utilized the app to evaluate the participants’ experience during Magnify 2016.
The main benefit is that all the data created by the participants such as photos and videos are automatically stored for you to access anytime, when the treasure hunt has been completed.
It is also a great way to combine technology with research allowing the participants to explore “the world” by themselves or in groups in a very dynamic way. In the same way, you can make the participants explore environments or communities related to the area of research. For example exploring a permaculture farm if your research is related to agriculture or at the office of an organization if you are researching organizational culture. Finally, it can also be a good way of having community members design their own workshops.
What are the challenges of using this technique?
- Technology can be a challenge if you don’t have enough smartphones and a stable internet connection. If you are in an area with limited internet, it’s a good idea to test out the app in advance. Remember you can also download the hunt before arriving to the destination.
- You can get so into the Actionbound app, that you may be tempted to add far too many stations. As a rule of thumb, try to keep it simple, especially if you are limited on time. You can always add extra layers, when you have tested the hunt.
- People can get very engaged and also competitive. Depending on your purpose and who you work with, make sure to have a conversation before and/or after the hunt.
Actionbound is very adaptable, as you can choose the length, the topic, and the mediums used with the hunt according to your needs.
Here is an overview of the different features Actionbound offers:
- Information: This is where you include guiding text for the participants in terms of uploading: text, photos, videos and audios.
- Quiz: Here you can ask questions, and allow people to answer through multiple choice, solution input (participants have to put in certain words to get it right), estimate number (participants have to answer a number within a certain range) or sort list (participants need to prioritize items).
- Mission: Assign the participants a creative, solvable task for which there is no right or wrong answer. The answers can be submitted through writing, video (max. 30 seconds), pictures or audio.
- Scan code: With the built-in scanner you can guide the participants around specific areas by setting up QR codes, which they need to find to move forward with the hunt. Participants can be made to start at different stations.
- Survey: You can create multiple choice questions for the participants. This can be used if you have discussed certain issues and you want to know what they prefer.
- Tournament: This allows members of the team to play against each other. You can use this to make the hunt more dynamic and related to a specific topic of interest for the group you work with. For instance, if you work with a group of young football players, you can ask them to juggle with a ball.
- Find spot: Participants must go to a specific GPS coordinate in order to earn points and/or move on to the next step. For this feature, you need to have phones with good GPS and be in an area with good coverage. At Recrear, we have not used it so far. As soon as we do, we’ll let you know!
- Stage: You can use this to divide the hunt into different stages using QR codes (if you choose the setting flexible stages).
Here is a blog we wrote on our experience using Actionbound:
https://gioelgio.wordpress.com/2016/08/05/actionbound/
