Sensitising Booklets

A series of playful and provocative tasks for acquiring richly textured and highly personal information from participants that prepares them for their generative sessions.

We observed a trend in the mood tracker task of our booklet that clearly depicted that our participants went inside with lot of enthusiasm which turned into a tedious boring experience towards the end.

Generative Sessions

A context mapping method using stimulative hands-on activities in order to learn the latent needs and desires of our users. Participants were given two 'make' and 'say' activities - collage making and cognitive mapping - in which they were asked to visually represent their experiences and feelings towards museums followed by a moderated group discussion to unpack and explain the ideas within the artefacts that they had created.

My role was of the moderator. I ran the session ensuring that the participants understood what they had to do and helped guide them back on topic when they went astray, as well as ensuring that each participant contributed equally and asking probing questions that prompted deeper revelations from participants.

Questionaires and Interviews

We had about 8 participants from our target group. 5 of them were young adults and we conducted pre-visit questionaires and post visit interviews with them to get first hand information about their expectations and experience.

The remaining 3 were museum visitors who we interviewed during the visit to the museum while interacting with exhibits. These interviews were mostly semi-structed leaving room for them to add a personal touch to their experience.

What are the user needs?

We used bottom up analysis method to assesses qualitative data by sorting trends and patterns into clusters.

Affinity Diagramming

These statements cards were grouped into clusters to highlight reoccurring themes or related areas of concern. From this initial grouping thirteen categories emerged before we then grouped them again to identify distinct components of the museum experience.

The Opportunity

The timeline of journey within the musuem suggest that visitors viewed an exhibit for a very less time. They tried to create an image in thier minds and stick to it if they like it else they rush to the next. This way some exhibits of significant importance tend to loose the viewers attention. We wanted to improve how the viewer perceives the message that the exhibit is trying to potray and direct them to relevant experiences.

We aim to improve interaction experiences within the PowerHouse Museum without losing its educational purpose.

Research Vsualisation

A visual representation that synthesises the most relevant data from our user research.

The research visualisation communicates the categories identified from affinity diagramming through the visual framework of the ocean. Each key area is divided by the different depths of the ocean and includes the sub-categories that relate to it. The use of the 3-30-300 second rule of effective communication ensures that viewers are provided with a clear understanding of the problem and empathy for the users. It's important to capture research insights in a way that is easy for everyone to understand and can be revisited to help inform the design solution when needed.

The Proposed Concepts

Concept 1: Smart Touch

This device is inspired by the thought of having a wearable device which will display interactive digital experiences when a visitor touches or points towards specific hotspots on the exhibit (made out of RFID’s). This allows the freedom of physical as well as digital interaction.

Our target group which is inspired by sci fiction would have a great futuristic experiences using this gadget. The device will be simple to use, all the visitors will be provided with the information and the gadget after entering the museum. They can zoom into objects, rotate revolve, listen to audio , watch related videos, using touch enabled display.

Concept 2: The Augmented Reality Morph

Augumented reality app is a very good solution for increasing the interactivity in the museum. It brings still exhibits to life. It can be used to create interactive 3d models and experiences for a large number of exhibits without influencing the structure of current museum.it will provide a futuristic environment for our target audience. It will boost their imagination and learning through creative visualisation and interaction with the features of app.

It will also cater to the problems of space complexity , cost effectivity and will provide quality experiences to the visitors. The visitor has to scan the QR code and download the app on their phone. At each exhibit they can scan the QR code and the app would display holograms and 3d imagery for further interaction.

Design dimensions

The final prototype is a result of intense user research, many design and technological iterations. It addresses various dimensions of design such as Usability, Accessibility, Affordances, Space Efficiency, Visual attractiveness, Consistency, Interactivity, Educational.

The Solution

We created an experience through a smart phone which augments digital experiences to the existing static exhibits inside the museum to create a new way of interactions to improve the musuem experience. The idea uses gamification and flow to weave the entire experience using dots lead the way to the magical hotspots.

It offers features like :-

1. Viewing a 3 dimensional holographic display.
2. Physical and digital interactivity with the exhibit through the app.
3. Access to further information , videos, audios, gamification elements for fun.
4. Accessibility features for the disabled people.
5. Multiple language support for the international people coming in for a visit.
6. Archive and record favourite experiences and share them over social media or with friends.