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Lost In Time
Embellishing a valuable museum experience through an unrushed serendipitous approach
Overview
The Chau Chak Wing Museum (the client of focus for our project) has collections of artefacts that delve into interesting aspects of rich cultural, physical and societal history.
However there is a lack of physical/digital guidance in allowing visitors to navigate through the physical space of CCWM, in a way that invites serendipity - the phenomenon of finding valuable things (or experiences) in unexpected ways.
My Contribution
I was involved in the entire process - from initial research to final prototype alongside another partner of mine. Initially it started off with 4 team members, however we later split up after choosing a particular section we wanted to work on - based on our User Journey Map
NOTE: The UI of our design was not the main focus of our design but rather the user experience and intention behind the idea (as we were only given 3 months from start to finish to complete this)
How might CCWM use serendipity to future-proof the museum and create a stronger connection between visitors and objects?
My contribution
UX Researcher UX Content Creation Video Editing
The team
4x UX Designers
Year
2021
Defining the Problem
To develop an overarching target audience to work with - we ensured that our main problem objective was re-framed in a way that was appropriate. In the end we came up with:
“To employ serendipity purposefully to facilitate connections between undergraduates and exhibits*, whilst encouraging an amorphous experience."
In addition research questions were developed to give a sense of direction and purpose in what we wanted out of our research workshops from our participants. As such the 3 main research questions were developed:
- How can we use unexpected connections formed by the users to facilitate sustained engagement?
- What are the preconceptions that younger demographics have about the Chau Chak Wing museum
- What constitutes an immersive digital experience that includes spatial/and or physical elements?
Primary Research
Museum Walk-through
On the day - we got our interview participants to walk through the museum to immerse themselves in it’s environment. These experiences would help them whilst they do our context mapping sessions, which would have only been as effective as they were, due to giving the participants the ability to explore the museum on their own accord on the day. Following this, we prepared them for our workshop activities
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Cognitive Mapping
The cognitive mapping activities helped in showcasing the user's journey within the Chau Chak Museum from beginning to end, through the use of icons and the freedom and ability in allowing them to additional draw and write additional aspects in what they meant in each step.
This allowed us to gain a better perspective and understanding towards their a rich and insightful psyche of their thought processes and emotions throughout this experiment and free journey in exploring the museum at their own pace and choice.
Collage Framework
The collage framework helped in gaining the users perspectives on museums from the past and their beliefs and values in their recent Chau Chak Wing museum visit in showcasing the new learnings and perspectives to which occurred in doing so. In being given an additional "like" and "dislike" vertical axis, they are able to express themselves through abstract and conceptual images alongside a wide range of selections of word text images that drew out to them.
In allowing this fun, relaxing and creative collage framework activity - it allowed us to gain a more in-depth and nuanced understanding of the user needs from undergraduate students when it came to museums - crucial aspects which were extended and looked into further during our analysis & synthesis stages as well.
User Insights
Following the research, we first did statement cards to categorize and make sense of what were working with. Afterwards we created a research visualization, to present our findings in a more visual and digestible manner.
We also split up into two teams of two people - whereby I worked with another teammate and focused on creating a solution to our “memorability” and “sustained engagement” themes which drove our ideation process to follow.
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In researching more on these two themes - our design vision was clear in what we were designing for and why. The motto being: “Time = value”, as we discovered that whilst people can have the false pretence of impression of learning something by aimlessly walking around in a museum - they will not genuinely be able to appreciate and slow down to understand what makes an artefact valuable or insightful to them in a museum full of history and nuance.
Ideation
Main Concepts
The main concepts involved 2 main ideas which whilst were not chosen (for reasons discussed later) - were completely necessary in the development of our final concept
Further Research
Before we finalised our design idea we did further research, and these findings incorporated game elements from serious games that enforced our time = value incentive. These elements included:
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Final Concept - Lost In Time
This concept involved a combination of NFC wristband technology (to detect physical presence) and a personal museum app. Both of these combined are used to encourage users to be initially “attracted” by fragments that comes when they spend time with artefacts and “sustained” through a virtual gallery where they can learn even more about the artifacts they are interested in
“In short a personalised museum experience utilising hybrid technology to achieve such a result”
User Journey Map
The user journey map below demonstrates how a typical user of the final idea prototype (described above) would interact with it in a museum context - from start, middle and end (throughout the entire process).
Three personas were also used to demonstrate the distinctive emotions and experiences of them, all of which were extracted from the details and intricacies of the interviewees from our research as well.
Final Prototype Video
The video prototype shows in a more visual manner, the process and steps the particular persona - Bored Jason, experiences throughout the museum.
This video prototype acts as an extension of the user journey map above in essence and really captivates what our design vision truly was.
Project Learnings
1) Taking responsibilities for tasks
One of the key learnings in this project was to truly take responsibility for the tasks I was given, as there was a point where I potentially risked me and my group submitting our project progress report late - due to poor time management. Due to this, it taught me not only as a UX designer but as a person to truly take responsibility for my tasks and make sure I complete them on time.
2) Time Management
Doing this project with my group also taught me the true value of using time management or task tools such as Gantt Charts - which helped us distribute tasks as a group evenly, alongside keeping up to track to ensure we submitted project progressions on time.
3) The Value of Group Discussions
Having different perspectives whilst reaching difficult or group discussion worthy times, was very useful in allowing us to discuss aspects from various standpoints. As a result of having multiple group discussions, it allowed us to mutually agree on things in a refreshing and creative manner.