Hi:Stories – next door

Three questions to the project team

What was the particular challenge of the project from a UX point of view?
The hardest part was making one of the heaviest topics in history accessible to 14- to 19-year-olds without trivializing it. We had to balance emotional depth with the fast-paced, playful media habits of a generation raised on Stories and Reels. Every interaction, from the serendipity-driven map to the gamified Memory Box mementos, had to spark curiosity while honoring the dignity of NS victims. Achieving the right tonal balance and translating fragmented archival sources into coherent, emotionally resonant journeys was a constant tightrope walk between engagement and respect.

What was your personal highlight in the development process? Was there an aha!-moment, was there a low point?
Our aha moment came when we stopped designing a history app and started designing connections between people. We realized that NS victims were connected across cities and that these connections could be linked to current issues that matter to young people. This reframed the whole concept. The low point was our youth survey. Many of the over 300 respondents felt the topic was distant and overdone. This sample size gave the findings real significance. Rather than discouraging us, this feedback became our brief. When we later heard testers say, I never thought about it like this, we knew we had found a genuinely new access point.

Where do you see yourself and the project in the next five years?
As the last contemporary witnesses pass away, digital remembrance becomes essential. That is where we want Hi:Stories to grow. One of our primary goals is to transform our conceptual collaboration with the Arolsen Archives into a formal partnership, which would lend credibility and reach to the project. Most importantly, we want to raise awareness of Hi:Stories and transform it from an idea into a functioning tool that maintains the relevance, participation, and resilience of remembrance culture.