CLIENT PROJECT | MIXED REALITY | UI/UX DESIGN
Designing Mixed Reality to Articulate Museum Exhibits Better & Cultivate Local Returning Visitors
MY ROLE
User Research
UX Design
Motion Design
TIME
Oct. 2021 - Dec. 2021
TEAM
Yue Fan
Tianyi Sheng
Dev Team
TOOLS
Figma, Vectary
Adobe Aero, Adobe After Effects
Unity 3D
OVERVIEW
INTRODUCING EUREKA!
Eureka! is a gamified, systematic MR-centric solution for local museums. Designed to better articulate museum exhibits & to attract locals, Eureka! aims to boost museum visiting experience and foster a returning traffic.
Eureka! mainly consists of 2 parts:
1. GAMIFIED MR MUSEUM TOURS,
featuring “Sprites” (elf-like characters, similar to Pokémon), powered by our client’s patented mixed reality headset ORI.
In this case, our team ideated, prototyped, iterated and co-developed an interactive tour taking place in the Bronze exhibition in Shanghai Museum. The MR tour was included in the deliverables for the client, and has been translated into a working demo.
2. AN ONLINE PLATFORM,
where users discover upcoming MR museum tours, make reservations and build a “Sprites” collection.
In this case, I independenty prototyped, evaluated and iterated the major task flows of a Wechat Mini Program. The Mini Program remains largely a design concept and was not included in the deliverables for the client.
🏛️
MR Tour of a
Bronze Exhibition
1. ONBOARDING
Make a fist,
catch a sprite,
and start the tour.
2. Task
Follow the sprite,
and accept a task.
3. Interaction
Learn about the exhibits
by interacting with them.
4. Finishing a task
Finish the task successfully
to win rewards.
5. Reward
Upgrade the sprite
to the next level.
📱
Eureka!
the Mini Program
1. ONBOARDING
tailormade feed,
based on personal interests.
2. BOOKING
browse ongoing events,
and book your favorite.
3. CHECK-IN
sync your progress
4. SPRITES
grow a Sprites collection,
view them in AR,
and share them with friends.
HOW WE GOT THERE
PROBLEM SPACE & DESIGN PROMPT
WHY DESIGN MR,
FOR MUSEUMS?
VISITORS' EXPERIENCE:
UNVARIED, UNINSPIRING, BUT PASSABLE
AT MUSEUM'S END:
STRUGGLING TO ATTRACT LOCALS
OUR CLIENT: W.Z DIGITAL
W.Z Digital is a company that focuses on the integration of VR, AR, MR, and cultural tourism industry, whose main application scenarios are scenic spots, museums, exhibition halls, shopping malls, etc.
ORI, THE HEADSET
Ori is the MR headset independently developed by W.Z Digital in 2019. Ori can achieve 6 Dof spatial positioning, gesture recognition and forward environment perception. Our design is mainly based on the spatial calculation of Ori.
DESIGN PROMPT
W.Z Digital is planning to participate in a exhibition where its products are to be displayed.
Design a proposal to help W.Z Digital demonstrate its products and expand potential market.
USER RESEARCH
The User Research
To better understand the problem space, we undertook the user research to get a bigger picture of people’s museum going patterns.
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Synthesized Findings &
Key Insights
From what we've gathered in the research process, we were able to summarize the results into the following key findings & insights, as well as what implications they may have for our project.
VICINITY vs AFFINITY
We did not spot a solid positive correlation between the nearness of a museum and residents' visiting/revisiting tendencies. People don't choose to go to a museum simply because it's a stone throw away from their homes.
THE PARADOX OF CHOICE
When provided with multiple museum choices, it’s common that visitors may feel overwhelmed, even disoriented. As a result, they would be more inclined to the museums that are familiar/publicized to them and ignore the rest.
"IT DOESN'T HURT TO NOT KNOW."
Faced with minor difficulties in understanding exhibits, museumgoers would often simply move on and do not attempt to clear up doubts by all means, especially when doing so would interrupt the whole itinerary and even cost money.
SOCIAL MEDIA MATTERS
Social media plays a more than vital role in museumgoers' decision making. Some specialized/nonstate museums rely largely on social media for visitors acquisition. What visitors see and leave on the social media both matter to the museums.
🎯
Defining
Design
Goals
Having gathered the findings & insights, we defined a set of design goals/criteria to help validate our solution.
UNIVERSALITY
FUN & INTUITIVENESS
TECHNICAL FEASIBILITY
SUSTAINABILITY
PROBLEM STATEMENT
how might we leverage mixed reality technology to communicate museum exhibits better and cultivate local returning visitors?
Museum of Art Pudong, Shanghai
archdaily.com
RESEARCH-DRIVEN IDEATION
SKETCH &
EVALUATE
We used affinity diagram and a sketching sesson to yield various design concepts, and downselected all sketches to 4 design concepts for further evaluation.
RELICS
RESTORATION
Through MR glasses, visitors can assist in the restoration of cultural relics in the form of games and then redeem a gift related to the museum aftsadaser they have restored several times.
PUZZLE
COLLECTION
Users find special exhibits through MR glasses, and then get puzzle pieces after correctly answering questions. After finishing the puzzle, they can unlock the next one.
ARTIFACTS
CUSTOMIZATION
By choosing from various colors & patterns and mapping them onto the original artifact, visitors can customize their own artifacts and save their own design through an interactive MR experience.
TOKENS
COLLECTION
Visitors go on an interactive MR tour guided by NPCs (e.g. cute fictional figures, museum mascots, etc.). After the tour visitors can unlock/collect the NPCs virtually in an APP.
To assess the four design ideas, we used Pugh chart to compare the concepts against the design criteria (see Defining Design Goals) correspondingly.
The results are as follow.
PROTOTYPE & ITERATION
STARTING WITH BRONZE
While aiming to build an across-the-board solution for museums, our team still needed to illustrate our design concept by contextualizing it in a specific exhibition. In alignment with our prior research, we proceeded with the bronze exhibition at Shanghai Museum.
🎯
HANDDRAWN WIREFRAMES &
MID-FI PROTOTYPES
FINAL DESIGN
FINAL DESIGN
🚶
STORYBOARD:
Alex's Journey Cycle
The storyboard below illustrates how Alex, our imaginary user, undergoes all 7 stages of the full Eureka! experience.
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USER FLOW
🎮
GAME MECHANISM
▶️
WORKING DEMO
VPN needed
3. TUTORIAL & INTERACTIONS
