When: 2010
Who: a secret club
When designing the website of a secret club, we had a decision to make: To show and explain what a secret club does, or to simply do what a secret club does. We chose the latter and decided to make the website difficult to use, prompting exploration and expecting curiosity - if you do go exploring, you will find a series of downloads that link back to past events and activities: There's an Antlor Hunting trophy, a Monster for London finger puppet and several other downloads woven into the story, which is an updated version of the story tested earlier on Tweeting Fantasy.
The very basic use of coding (basic HTML) forced us to re-think navigation, making puzzles and challenges in a different way - this idea of "luddite web design" came about when we had made a typo in an URL of the very first incarnation of the website, writing "/downolads" instead of "/downloads" and thinking that that actually was a nice, simple way to present a riddle. For the story, we went for less experimental and challenging design. There is also the option of learning a little more about a secret club but in doing so, you are warned that you are leaving the fantasy.
The hidden activities you find on the site are all very analog and will probably require the help of an adult, which is at the core of a secret club - it's all about collaborative play and problem solving - and dividing your time up between being online and being at a table with scissors and glue and running around scaring people and telling stories.
