Our team (Mariam Abdalgadir, Molly Hodson, and I) interviewed seniors, parents and children about their museum visitation experiences and preferences. We also asked them about what apps and websites they used regularly and why.
We captured the responses from our interviews in a Trello board and categorized both the positive and negative feedback from all three user groups regarding the existing app, other apps and sites, and their various museum experiences. We then formulated two personas: a grade schooler and a senior.
We did a quick Design Studio and then went off and started creating lo-fi wireframes. Molly focused on the main navigation and sign-up screens, Mariam created the new children’s interactive content, while I worked on integrating the existing AMNH adult-oriented content into the existing Google Arts & Culture AMNH walk-through that we were recommending being incorporated into the app.
When we regrouped to review what we each had created, Molly and Mariam expressed concern about the icons I had developed for the “Info” and “Quiz” buttons. ‘Concern’ is putting it mildly; actually, they freaked out. I was only able to finally placate them by suggesting that we see what our users thought of them during usability testing.
It was virtually unanimous: my “Info” and “Quiz” button designs sucked. Everything else tested well. Mariam captured priceless video of kids interacting with her screens. I defaulted to just using words in circles for the problematic buttons, which is exactly what one of my users suggested.
We all made changes to our respective screens based on the feedback we received during user testing and created high-fidelity wireframes. Molly took charge of compiling all of them into a prototype. Click on the image below to see the adult task flow:
Molly created the proposed app map and I did the current one, both personas’ journey flows as well as the presentation deck, which each of us added content to.
Next steps? Since this was a conceptual project, actual client feedback wasn’t possible but I believe that we concepted and executed a viable solution based solidly on user research and testing. Museums all over the world will one day open their doors to visitors again but apps like this would make it possible for those in other countries or otherwise unable to visit them in person to experience that magic virtually.