LONDON.- The V&A has launched mused, a new interactive website for Generation Alpha, with a particular focus on 10–14-year-olds, supported by Bloomberg Philanthropies' Digital Accelerator for Arts and Culture.

The content-rich website invites young people to explore the V&A’s world of art, design, performance and creativity, through over 100 quizzes, challenges and articles within core categories of art & design, fashion, music, film & TV, gaming, and the audience inspired ‘random’ category. Fun, constantly changing and socially relevant content brings together contemporary culture with 5,000 years of human creativity across the V&A collection.

As the V&A transforms into a family of museums, for audiences of all ages and backgrounds, online and in person, mused offers a stimulating, safe and welcoming place for younger audiences to spend time online, with content that is designed to both entertain and inspire curiosity. Highlights include:

Articles and listicles that take a humorous look at objects in the V&A collection, with content including Top 10 objects for surviving a zombie apocalypse and Top 10 cutest objects.

Personality quizzes that allow young people to explore their identity in playful and creative ways, with the quiz engine matching them to objects and themes such as Which fashion ‘core’ is your style? Which Harry Styles album are you? and Which British fashion house should you live in?

Trivia quizzes that allow users to test their knowledge on a range of subjects from objects and themes from the V&A collections to movies and contemporary fashion aesthetics, for example Can you match the colours to the Marvel movie? and V&A object or AI image? Interspersed between the questions are fascinating facts about the creative process, designed to inspire further exploration and curiosity around art, design and creativity. 

mused has been developed with, and for, young people with content informed by a Trendspotter panel – a group of diverse, plugged in and passionate young people who helped identify the design and creativity trends that mused celebrates. Regular user testing sessions through user labs also helped identify features and content for the website that most appeal to the target audience of 10–14-year-olds. 

The website, built by the enterprise WordPress agency, Big Bite, is free to use and has been designed to the highest accessibility and child safety standards. The V&A is committed to children’s online privacy and enabling a safe environment for them and mused has been carefully built according to the ICO children’s code and in accordance with GDPR and COPPA rules around safeguarding children online.

mused has been developed with the generous support of Bloomberg Philanthropies' Digital Accelerator for Arts and Culture enabling the V&A to reach new audiences online and further its mission to champion design and creativity in all its forms, for everyone. The funding has helped accelerate the V&A’s digital strategy to take a more ‘audience-first’ approach during this exciting and transformative phase for the V&A, as it becomes a family of museums dedicated to the power of creativity, helping to reach audiences of all ages and backgrounds, online as well as in person.

Kati Price, Head of Experience and Digital Media, V&A said: “We are thrilled to have launched mused and are grateful to Bloomberg for their support. This is a new global, culturally relevant, digital interpretation of the V&A for young people, which we hope will inspire them with the world of art, design and creativity. It’s a great example of how we’re approaching our digital activity in innovative ways, to engage new audiences that we’ve not reached online before.

Our audience research showed that young people’s creativity is thriving on digital platforms and social media, redefining what we have understood as creativity previously. Art is no longer elitist, owned by a talented few, held at a distance, siloed into genres and mediums…it’s everywhere, everything and everyone’s.”