As the lead UX Designer and Researcher on the team, I led all the research & design activities, conducted 11 in-person user research sessions in SFMOMA, with a focus on understanding the target user, created wireframes, high-fidelity designs, and interactive prototypes for user feedback & testing. After the group project finished, I refined the design and iterated on the design for learning purposes.
🚀 Led design from 0 -1
🔍 Conduct on-site research to understand users
December 2021 - February 2022
Xijia Zhang
Ziyue Li
Children are becoming an increasingly important audience for SFMOMA, but many adult visitors are unsure about how to engage their children in the museum experience and concerned that their children will ask questions that they cannot answer.
Modern art is often seen as abstract and incomprehensible, and this is even more of a challenge for kids.
Moreover, children have a shorter attention span, making it harder for them to stay engaged throughout their museum visits and to meet their learning requirements.
ARTLAB is a course project focusing on providing children between the ages of 5 to 10 with an engaging and interactive experience while visiting the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA). Working with another product designer, we designed a mobile app that would help kids explore the museum and learn about the art on display.
To better understand the current visiting experience for kids and families, we visited SFMOMA and conducted 11 user interviews and observed their behaviors. Before visiting, we listed our goals, activities, and questions:
Goals
1.Understand the current process of how kids and their families visit modern art museums and their biggest challenges.
2.Verify assumptions we had about problems with the current visiting experience.
Activities
1.Observation of behaviors: Observing the behaviors of families and kids during their visits to the museum.
2.User interviews: Conducting in-depth interviews with parents or guardians who have brought their children to SFMOMA.
Main Questions
1.Why did you choose to bring your kids to visit SFMOMA?
2.How much time do you spend in the museum per visit？
3.Did you have any unpleasant experiences or frustrating moments? Did you need any support during your visit?
4.Do your kids enjoy the museum? What most attracts him/her to the museum?
5.Do you feel that your kids will somehow disturb or affect your visiting experience？
User Interview Summary
As we have limited interview samples, we collected more user feedback through 40 Google Reviews related to the experience of kids and families visiting, to better understand their pain points.
Google Review Summary
Major Insights
After conducting interviews and analyzing Google reviews, we identified 2 main themes reflecting users' pain points and needs:
After analyzing a few competitive products, we understood how gamifying the experience could make a difference for kids. We started thinking about how we can apply the same principles to our product by using a game, a reward system, and a virtual assistant to motivate kids and help them learn and enjoy as they explore SFMOMA.
Technology can make art more accessible for kids.
As per The Smithsonian Institute Council Report on the Impact of Technology in Art Museums:
“Advancements in technology have become increasingly essential to visitor experiences and museum operations around the world. From providing immersive digital engagements, curating the visitor journey, improving way-finding, and streamlining operations, technology has diverse and growing applications in the museum ecosystem.”
The key use case developments for upcoming years will include:
With all the research findings in mind, we created two personas for this project to drive our design decisions. The primary persona targets 5-10-year-old kids, and the secondary persona targets parents. The primary persona represents the intended audience of our application, while the secondary persona relates to the audience who is entrusting our application with their
The Journey map is based on the interview results and the personas we created. The goal of the map was to better understand the steps Natalie and her mom would take to plan their trip to the museum without the help of our app. Therefore, we could focus on their emotions and thoughts at each step of their journey to create design opportunities from their low emotional points.
1.How can we make modern art more approachable for kids during their visit in SFMOMA?
2.How can we make the visitor experience more fun for kids?
3.How can we provide an engaging and self-guided way for kids to enjoy the museum without burdening their parents?
1.Provide self-guided tours for kids aged from 5-10 years old
2.Reduce the burden on parents
3.Create an interactive and engaging experience for kids in SFMOMA
4.Encourage kids through a game to learn about art
One of the challenges of this project was the kid-centric design. We understood that designing for kids is different than designing for adults, so we read articles in Nielsen Norman Group and checked out other kid-centric apps. We studied them and summarized key design principles, such as:
By understanding these design principles, we knew what was important to our target audience and how to authentically and respectfully create a kid-centric design.
I began my design process with sketches on paper. After that, I brainstormed and tested various directions and identified key features and potential layout options. When transitioning to higher fidelity, I organized them into four main features: Map, Achievement, Collection, and Game.
Sketching Initial Ideas
Wireframe
Initial Idea
the map navigation feature takes center stage, serving as the primary guide for children throughout their museum journey. It's crucial to ensure that this feature not only offers clear guidance but also provides valuable information tailored to the needs of young users. In the initial design iteration, we adopted the conventional 2D map design pattern, aiming to present a comprehensive view that included the current route, location, highlighted exhibitions, floor details, and utility information all on a single page.
Iteration
During our heuristic evaluation, we received feedback that the information presented was overwhelming and lacked a discernible hierarchy. Additionally, considering our users are children aged 6 to 12, we acknowledged that our visual style appeared somewhat simplistic and formal.In response to this feedback, we explored alternative approaches to map navigation. Building upon insights from previous research, we recognized that engaging children through AR and gamification was a promising strategy. As a result, we transitioned from a 2D map view to a dynamic 3D representation to provide a more intuitive understanding of the museum's interior space. Additionally, we introduced an exciting "adventure mode" that transformed navigation into an enjoyable and challenging game. This gamified experience, coupled with the use of AR and a virtual assistant, aimed to enhance children's engagement and interaction with the museum's exhibits.
2D Navigation Map
3D & VR Mode
Initial Idea: Using QR codes to access
We noticed that although the museum had already put some QR codes on the wall to explain the details of the artwork, it is not approachable for kids due to their limited accessibility in height. Therefore, following this original design pattern, we spent a few days playing with QR codes and proposed a lower version that is associated with our audio description feature to offer better accessibility for kids.
Iteration: Using virtual assistants and IPS to provide guidance
However, in the user testing, the low task success rate makes us realize that QR codes are not recognizable for our target users aged 6-12 due to their low reading comprehension. Additionally, incorporating this technology would disrupt the original user flow. To address this issue, we made changes to our solution. Instead of QR codes, we implemented a "VR Adventure Mode" with a virtual assistant and Indoor Positioning System (IPS) to provide guidance and pop-up notifications when kids arrive at specific locations.
Exploration
The Achievement page serves as a platform to showcase children's accomplishments and motivate their ongoing learning and development. In the initial design phase, I delved into various layout possibilities and tested different approaches to present information such as route progress completion percentage, a timeline, point accumulation, and badge collection. However, this exploration revealed that the abundance of information led to redundancy and overlapping data.
Iteration1 - My Achievement
In subsequent iterations, I opted to streamline the layout. Specifically, I separated the timeline information and relocated it to a secondary page nested under the route progress section. This allowed for a more organized presentation of the records of each step completed by children. By doing so, we achieved a clear and concise display of all pertinent information, eliminating redundancy and enhancing the user experience.
Iteration2 - Ranking
The ranking system serves as a platform for viewing others' achievements and inspiring children to engage in healthy competition while promoting learning.
V1: Initially, we considered integrating Instagram content. However, we feel it’s more like a community feature so decided against this approach and opted not to include it within the ranking feature.
V2: In the second iteration, we retained the ranking feature but limited it to displaying the top 10 performers.
Final Version: Our primary focus was on visual adjustments to create a more child-friendly interface.
Reflection
1.Throughout this design, I developed my preliminary understanding of user experience design thinking. During the process from research to high-fidelity prototype, I have consistently challenged myself to come up with creative ideas and iterate on them by collecting feedback from my mentor and users. It was a special learning experience because our target user is children. It gave me more freedom to test fun ideas while also setting more challenges to let us truly think about what kids need and how they are going to use our product.
2.If there was one thing I could have done to improve, it would have been to come up with more ideas for the QR codes. After conducting the user testing, I discovered that our new QR code design is not attractive to our target audience, who found it hard to understand. If I had more time, I would definitely have put more energy into making this feature easier to understand and more attractive to our target users.
