Task: Create a virtual tours app for an art museum.
Solution: The Staten Island Museum app is a native version of the organization's web browser with exclusive virtual access to past and current exhibitions.
The virtual tours allow the user to navigate and interact with each exhibit in a personalized VR game-like experience, including generative AI technology tools for the user to curate their own art in the exhibition.
Tailored to the user's needs, the tours include touch and eye-based interaction tools to enable an engaging and fulfilling experience.
My Role
Researcher
- Conducting general surveys and preliminary interviews of key audience(s), competitive audit, defining the field's / users' major pain points
- Proposing and running usability studies on prototypes, highlighting findings
Programs used: Google Survey, Sheets, Qualtrics, Powerpoint
iOS Developer
- Reflecting design intent in live prototypes
- Finding and resolving existing / new bugs, ensuring code meets Apple's developer guidelines
- Designing most efficient code for desired app layouts and features
Programs and languages used: Xcode, Swift, SwiftUI / UIKit
Designer
- Ideating and designing lo & hi-fi prototypes
- Researching current layout / interaction trends on mobile and XR-equipped platforms
Programs used: Figma
3D Developer and Modeler
- 3D scan and photograph existing exhibit(s), individual sculptures, artwork, and descriptions
- Remodel 3D scan in Rhino and Unity with clean geometry, textures, and proper lighting
- Design gameplay / live animations, high quality textures, and background processes with device capabiltiies to ensure smooth movement
- Design UI elements with standard gestures and graphic similarity to organization's brand
Being tasked to design a virtual tour application, I needed to take a step back to empathize with and assess the audience and major use cases.
As such, I designed and performed a series of interviews and surveys. After initial interviews to develop a satisfactory survey,
I understood that potential respondents and interviewees were most likely a small population, so I aimed the survey to a larger
subset of the population: Art museum lovers. If someone loves art museums, they may also have used a virtual reality application
to experience them.
Initial Interviews with Art Museum Lovers
- Used to better craft the best possible questions for art museum VR users
- Learned that these are people who CAN visit art museums- what about those who can't / choose other means of experiencing them?
Survey
- Received hundreds of respondents
- Creating an auto-updated analytics page for users as a "gift" for completing the survey (no funding here!)
Post-Survey Interviews with VR Users
- Used to better craft the best possible questions for art museum VR users
- Learned that these are people who CAN visit art museums- what about those who can't / choose other means of experiencing them?
Marketing the Survey
#Short Survey Design
#Five Minute Duration
#Social Media Sharing
#Response Incentives
#168 Respondents
#VR User Focus
Foregrounded with a lack of funds for attaining a satisfactory amount of respondents, I was tasked to design
the shortest survey as possible with a good marketing strategy.
I redesigned the survey a handful of times- with each iteration removing superfluous information or 'leading' questions.
In addition, I modified the survey to have conditional parts- only adding questions when necessary or when a user has used VR.
If a user had used VR for virtual tours, I also asked whether they'd be available for a potential interview as they were my key audience!
With a survey that took most test subjects around five minutes, it was perfect to release to a wider audience of respondents.
After only sharing on social media, I learned that having others share the survey, and their friends share the survey, it became a domino effect that rapidly increased
the amount of activity and responses on the survey.
Connecting psychology, I wanted to provide a gift for potential respondents to incentivize that their time was being spent well. Thus, I created a spreadsheet of all responses with charts and graphs to show where each users' responses landed amongst others.
After one week, I collectively received 168 respondents- enough to begin data analysis.
Key Survey Insights
#VR User Pain + Pleasure Points
#Non-VR User Pain + Pleasure Points
Non-VR User Findings (87% of respondents):
If users were to virtually tour an art museum, the most desired features would be the ability to:
83% Read more on the artist and artwork
72% Click to move around the space
68% Special access to visualize old or closed exhibitions
As such, these would be highlighted features to be included in the application to attract new VR users.
VR User Findings (13% of respondents):
Primary motivations for using VR to tour art museums were:
Pandemic lockdowns Far distances Class assignments and remote instruction Checking out exhibits before visiting in person
Enjoyable features for users were:
Game-like navigation Good UI (Clear direction, easy clickable options) High quality images of artwork Options for more information and audio
Major pain points consisted of:
Potential dizziness Lack of quality images of artwork / sculptures Poor navigation (no option to jump to certain exhibits) Lack of additional information
Synthesizing this knowledge, it's imperative to define these findings in the user persona profiles.
Example Question: If you were to use a mobile device (laptop, tablet, phone) to virtually tour an art museum, what features would you want it to have? Check as many that apply or add in the 'Other' option.
Want to see more of the survey results? Click
here for more.
Interviews to Persona Development
#Two Interview Sets
#Three User Groups
#Educators, Students, Art Enthusiasts
I held two sets of around 7-8 interview sessions: One initial set of interviews to inform the survey design,
and a final set to clarify or provide additional information on the survey responses.
These interviews were crucial for creating the below user groups and personas
because they provide direct insights into the needs, preferences,
behaviors, and motivations of our respective target audiences.
More specifically, they provided a more nuanced perspective on my interviewees' lives, and how virtual reality,
both in use for art museums and other contexts, has improved and frustrated them for varying reasons. For instance,
one interviewee, a teacher, clarified that they've tried to bring VR applications to support their curriculum, but
some of their disabled students could not handle common VR graphics.
Three general user groups and personas emerged from the interviews: Educators (1), Active students (2), and Art enthusiasts (3).
For the sake of brevity, I've outlined a key persona, Tyler, and Tyler's user journey from the first user group:
Typical Questions for Interviewees
• Tell me a little bit about yourself. What do you do?
• What do you like to do? What’s your background?
• Which art museum were you thinking of when taking the survey?
• What was the primary reason for using virtual reality to see that art museum? Were there any other motivations?
• What was the primary goal for using VR?
• What did you like about it?
• Were there certain features that you particularly enjoyed?
• On the other hand, what were some things you didn’t enjoy?
• Do you remember specific things that bothered you?
• Was there something you wished was there that was not?
User Group 1
Educators who like bringing their students on virtual trips for more accessible enrichment and educational opportunities. These users:
• Require a very user-friendly platform for young K-12 students
• Vary in age and technology knowledge
• Appreciate instructional tours or activities from museum experts or scholars
• Would use an app that simulates the physical art museum experience and engages students with educational activities
User Group 2
Active students who need to see specific art pieces for assignments or projects but don't have a lot of free time. These users:
• Have additional obligations, interests, or challenges that make it difficult for them to attend the art museum in person
• Tend to be younger in age and well-accustomed with new technology
• Have limited disposable income for transportation costs and/or museum fees
• Would use an app that helps them save time and retrieve high quality information and visuals on specific art pieces or exhibits
User Group 3
Art enthusiasts who enjoy looking at virtual art museums and exploring new exhibitions and artists in their free time. These users:
• Vary in age, occupation, physical/mental abilities, and technology knowledge
• Have disposable time for entertainment
• Enjoy browsing and planning destinations in museum for potential physical trips
• Would use an app that simulates the physical art museum experience and provides similar amenities albeit on a virtual platform
Tyler Mcellan
Persona 1
Tyler is an educator with a liking for providing their students a curriculum that engages a diverse range of topics.
Key Characteristics:
• Because their school location is in fairly rural Poughkeepsie, there aren’t many nearby destinations equipped for educational class trips.
• Virtual trips offer a great option to connect students with locations they otherwise wouldn’t be able to see and pose great learning alternatives to typical in-classroom instruction.
• As being tech-savvy is not Tyler’s strongsuit, using new technology can quickly become challenging.
• Tyler would love an easy-to-use platform that simulates the art museum experience.
Jasmine Figueroa
Persona 2
Jasmine is a current full-time undergraduate student with a range of art and history courses.
Key Characteristics:
• Because the professors often reference pieces of art and artists in class, Jasmine frequents the internet trying to read more on artwork and find other relevant pieces for assignments and projects.
• As Jasmine doesn’t have a job, her income is limited and doesn’t have enough funds to check nearby museums or travel to farther ones for class.
• Jasmine would benefit from a virtual tour app that helps her not only skip museum fees but also save time in research.
Riley Ale
Persona 3
Riley is a professional by weekday and an art and culture enthusiast by weekend.
Key Characteristics:
• In the pandemic, Riley and his partner couldn’t visit art museums or local exhibits in person so they’d simulate the experience by using virtual tour engines from the comfort of their own home.
• Although they are now open to visitors, Riley enjoys planning trips to art museums with the virtual tool in addition to seeing exhibitions from across the world!
• Engaging with art on a digital platform and sharing to social media for discussion has become a great source of entertainment for Riley.
Tyler Mcellan
Age: 43 Education: Master's (30+) Hometown: Poughkeepsie, NY Family: Partner and 2 cats Occupation: 4th Grade Teacher
“I love finding new ways to engage my students with new subject material but easily become overwhelmed trying to learn how to use the necessary technology.”
Goals
- Create and execute engaging lessons that don't require classroom relocation
- Minimize the amount of time spent on learning new software
- Provide extracurricular knowledge to help develop well-rounded students
Frustrations
- Disruptions to navigation such as in-app advertisements
- Unclear route of contacting museum for experts or other additional information
- Platforms that are difficult to use and time-consuming to learn
Tyler is an educator with a liking for providing their students a curriculum that engages a diverse range of topics.
Because their school location is in fairly rural Poughkeepsie, there aren't many nearby destinations equipped for educational class trips.
Virtual trips offer a great option to connect students with locations they otherwise wouldn't be able to see and pose great learning alternatives to typical in-classroom instruction.
As being tech-savvy is not Tyler's strongsuit, using new technology can quickly become challenging.
Tyler would love an easy-to-use platform that simulates the art museum experience with the option for real-time expert commentary.
Action
1. Initiate app and project to board
2. Navigate to specific exhibit
3. Simulate exhibit
4. Interact with specific art piece
5. Document and repeat
Task List
A. Ready classroom
B. Navigate to app on tablet
C. Cast tablet screen to laptop
D. Project laptop screen to smartboard
A. Browse exhibits
B. Read through exhibit options
C. Collect what students want to see and numerically order them
A. Initiate chosen simulation
B. Pan around to different areas
A. Hover over art
B. Interact (click, etc.)
C. Read description
A. Document seen piece for future student assignments
B. Go back to exhibit or other exhibits
C. Repeat actions 2-4 until finished with lesson
Feelings
• Excited to engage students with new material
• Anxious about using new tech
Stressed about:
• Organizing order of desired exhibits
• Finishing before end of class period(s)
• Excited to discuss various themes with students
• Stressed about time taken in exhibit
• Anxious about time
• Stressed about multitasking with classroom management and operating app
• Relieved that technology worked
Improvement Opportunities
• Simple start sequence, easy login
• If buffering on slow internet, use engaging loading screen
• Ability to organize list of desired exhibits and allow option to automate tour with estimated finish time
• Added immersion with museum sound options, audiobook for accessibility
• Alternative option to quickly see where art pieces are located
• Option for video or brain teaser game included with art description
• Ability to see favorited pieces or art or list of all viewed locations
Synthesizing and Defining
#Tyler: Accessibility
#Jasmine: Searchability
#Riley: Social Integration
How do I create a product that aids in my personas' journeys? Defining the main problems:
Tyler is an enthusiastic K-12 teacher who needs easy access to art museums
because it will help connect their students with a more diverse curriculum.
Jasmine is a busy art history student who needs an easy and fast way to access an art museum's inventory and offerings
because it will save her time finishing school assignments.
Riley is a working professional and art enthusiast who needs an engaging way to access international art museums
because they enjoy viewing exhibits before visiting them, and discussing art pieces on social media.
With Tyler in mind, it is clear a user-friendly platform with easy-to-use navigation and special considerations for accessibility are necessary.
In addition, the experience of such product will need to provide similar educational content to the museum, with audio, high quality content, and expert commentary.
With Jasmine in mind, search functionality is essential to allow a succinct journey to find applicable artwork and their respective place in the VR exhibit.
With Riley in mind, social media integration for browsing is key. In addition, the ability to view exhibits in VR before traveling allows them to confirm their desire to visit, producing anticipation and excitement!
How might we combine solutions to these pain points into one product? It's time to ideate.
Ideating, Design Sprinting, and Sticky Noting
#Accessibility
#Education
#Entertainment
#Experience
With Tyler (and Jasmine and Riley, the personas for the other user groups) at the core of my brainstorming, I speculated, sticky-noted, and design sprinted as to how we might remedy some of the noted pain points or frustrations.
After inspecting my charetted ideas (you just scrolled through a few on the sticky notes!), I recognized that a lot of the potential value propositions fell into four categories:
• Accessibility
• Education
• Entertainment
• Experience
The app must take from these four factors to create a multi-faceted product that embodies solutions to our user groups' problems.
Accessibility
Education
Entertainment
Experience
Easy to use platform (low tech)
Ask an expert option
Rate the art
Interact with current visitors in the gallery
Translation of description to other languages
Integrated tour with an expert
Suggest art you'd like to see next
Simulate art museum exhibition
Digital map of 3D model of museum for navigation
Zoom into art for fine details
Virtual live conversation / chat box about art
Read more about specific art pieces
Audiobook option to read art descriptions / additional info
Organized list of what's been seen / looked at
Add audio (exhibit)
Ability to switch museums
Non-simulation option for viewing art inventory
View art based on certain criteria
Share to social media
Access to spaces no longer available
Automate tour based on chosen exhibitions and art
Use camera to see art in room (AR)
Storyboarding
#Persona Storyboards
#Bridging Gaps
#Tyler: Classroom Integration
#Jasmine: VR as Academic Citation
#Riley: Preview before Travel
I began materializing the persona user journeys with the app, frame by frame,
to get a clear picture that each of the app value propositions adequately appeals to the
personas' pain points.
For Tyler, the storyboard depicts them unable to reach the physical museum, so Tyler decides to open the virtual tour app to bring the museum to their class!
Through a simple cast via Bluetooth or wire, Tyler connects the app to the smartboard and illustrates the virtual model of the app to their students, thereby
diversifying their curriculum and appealing to the complex needs of their classroom.
For Jasmine, the storyboard prefaces with her inability to physically see a specific art piece at the museum. The app bridges the gap and allows her to look up the work, view it with VR, and cite the experience in her paper.
The app created access for Jasmine to successfully complete her assignment.
Scenario: Use the art museum virtual tours app to remotely access and visualize their collections (Featuring Tyler - Big Picture)
Scenario: Use the art museum virtual tours app to remotely access and visualize their collections (Wireframe view with Tyler)
Scenario: Use the art museum virtual tours app to search and visualize results in their respective exhibit (Featuring Jasmine - Big Picture)
Scenario: Use the art museum virtual tours app to search and visualize results in their respective exhibit (Wireframe view with Jasmine)
Competitive Audit Findings
#Persona Storyboards
#Bridging Gaps
#Tyler: Classroom Integration
#Jasmine: VR as Academic Citation
#Riley: Preview before Travel
I then performed a competitive audit of eight other competitors.
In order to understand the breadth of scope, I dwelled on a few questions: What does a "virtual tour app" include?
What are the competitors doing well, and what are they missing?
How can we utilize their gaps to our advantage?
The audit included typical competitor demographic info and analyses of their product offerings, including their target audience and
unique value proposition. More in depth analyses included first impressions (desktop and mobile app experience), app interaction (features,
accessibility, user flow, and navigation), visual design (brand identity), and their offered content (tone and descriptiveness).
Each of the eight below apps were assessed for:
First Impressions Desktop and Mobile Experience App Interaction Features, Accessibility, User Flow, and Navigation Visual Design Brand Identity Content Tone and Descriptiveness
I learned that most of the competitors did not include an immersive reality feature. The ones who did had limited navigation features and interaction components.
For interaction features, some did include excellent gamification to interact with their collections.
Salvador Dali Museum
Smithsonian National Museum of African History
Walt Disney Family Museum
National Gallery of Art
Google Art and Culture
British Museum
American Museum of Natural History
Yorescape
Salvador Dali Museum
Location: St. Petersburg, Florida
Marketed use: Use as an in-person guide or virtual exploration of the museum with AR and virtual tours
Type and Quality The Salvador Dali Museum’s app showcases its virtual tour abilities by simplifying navigation and linking their virtual tour feature with a centered button on its home page. It’s a high-quality app with seemingly everything a user would potentially need.
It has a strong brand identity with a playful logo that appears in page transitions as an animated loading symbol and a correlated color scheme and font hierarchy. Distinguished from the other direct competitors, it has a selfie camera feature with filters, where in one example, it adds the iconic Salvador Dali mustache on the viewer! The settings include several
accessibility options including changing, text size, language, and data downloads. On the other hand, some improvements include adjusting the text and button spacing in some areas for better readability/clickability and widening the audience for AR to remote museum guests. All in all, it is a beautifully curated app that centers its virtual tour capabilities.
Weak qualities ● AR Capabilities are limited and can only be used in-person at the museum ● Virtual Tours are only 360° views, no addit. actions ● Guided tours with audio designed for in-person use but can be improved to incorporate remote users ● Color contrast ratio can be better
Smithsonian National Museum of African History
Location: Washington D.C.
Marketed use: Use as an in-person guide or virtually explore museum with AR and virtual tours, share with social media
Type and Quality The Smithsonian National Museum of African History’s app is innovative and seeks to engage users with the ability to remotely interact with their collections. Although their virtual tours are not immersive simulations of their exhibitions (as how most conceive of the phrase ‘virtual tour’ per project study) but collective scroll “stories” of narrativized artwork and artifact images, the user has the opportunity to share the work to social media and ‘like’ or discuss the work with others in a comment thread. Despite this awesome included feature, it’s poorly
highlighted and fairly hidden within the app: the app’s homepage highlights information on the museum / how to visit in an unanimated and less playful manner which feels as a missed opportunity. Otherwise, the app is an exemplary means of access to its collections and provides high quality imagery/supplementary texts and features of engagement.
Weak qualities ● The map feature only includes images; not compatible with accessibility standards or screen readers ● Inconsistent photography, fonts (a multitude of font types) and imagery (e.g. map floor plans ● Not fully responsive; screen size is outdated and does not properly fit iPhone mobile device screen ● Virtual tours do not allow simulation
Walt Disney Family Museum
Location: San Francisco, California
Marketed use: Virtually explore museum with virtual highlighted lcations/tours and an audio guide available in 12 different languages
Type and Quality The Walt Disney Family Museum app is a visually appealing and well-designed means of accessing some of their collections. While their virtual tours are valued and appear as the first button on the top of the homepage, the amount of them is fairly limited. The offered collection though is quite immersive and allows the user to move through the space, zoom into artwork, and read more about the work. In contrast to the two previously discussed competitors, the app seems to only engage an audience that will eventually physically visit the museum;
their main collection is teased with a “top ten things to visit” page, a video “virtual tour”, and only a supplemental audio tour is offered. Overall, the app is very easy to use, well branded with Walt Disney, and navigation is simple.
Weak qualities ● Guided tours with audio designed only for in-person use but can be improved to incorporate remote users ● Need to download heavy-file audio tours before using ● Very limited amount of simulation-based virtual tours ● Page transitions are awkward as they link to exterior web pages
National Gallery of Art
Location: Washington D.C.
Marketed use: Use as an in-person guide to locate artwork, find certain amenities, and listen to audio stops
Type and Quality The National Gallery of Art also seems to cater to potential in-person visitors but provides a larger extent of their collection to the user in a playful and engaging app. The app simplifies navigation by opening to a 3D model of the museum where the user may pan around the museum and click exhibition-titled buttons to see a birds-eye view of each room. With the ability to click individual art pieces and open a detailed pop-up with high quality supplementary information, the app allows a remote guest to immerse themselves in a distinguished manner and learn about the collection in lieu of physically attending. In a more typical design, the app also provides the collection through a
conveniently placed button in the bottom navigation bar, where the user can scroll and explore the collection inventory. Although the app does not allow an eye-level simulation of the space, the app is a prime asset of the museum for high quality collection access.
Weak qualities ● No search capabilities ● Virtual tours do not allow eye-level simulation ● Location searches take too much time, unclear how long to wait before initiating app for non-local users ● Map feature does not use typical zoom / swipe and requires instructions on how to use
Google Art and Culture
Location: International
Marketed use: Connect users virtually to a wide range of international art institutions and art on a user-friendly and well known platform
Type and Quality The Google Art and Culture app not only provides the most features for user exploration into museum collections, art pieces, and artifacts but also highlights particularly playful methods of doing so. In a well-designed layout with two simple nav top and bottom bars, the user can easily find their favorited collections or galleries, explore the multitude of collections, play in learning games, and revert back home. Their virtual tours exist within each museum and can be explored in “scrollytelling”, a narrativized format of exploring the museum by simply scrolling. If you’re looking for something specific, the app’s search option works extremely well
to bring the user to the desired work with any applicable articles or galleries. Overall, the app is a prime and high quality example for simplifying navigation, feature ideas, interaction animations, transitions, and playful means of engaging the user.
Weak qualities ● Potential feature creep issue with the multitude of offered features & services ● App often requires reloading to function properly
British Museum
Location: London, United Kingdom
Marketed use: Use as an in-person guide to locate artwork, find certain amenities, and listen to audio stops without the use of wifi/data
Type and Quality The British Museum app is distinguished in its search abilities where the user can easily look for and find a certain museum-based artifact with high quality supplementary information and imagery. However, the app itself only provides paid tours and can use improvements on its visuals, branding, and homepage priorities. As the app opens up to the list of potential itineraries-those of which prioritize all paid tours, the next potential steps on the user journey most likely do not appear attractive or easily accessible. In general, the app is exemplary in its abilities to remotely search the museum’s collection and improved access.
Weak qualities ● App includes some dead-ends and broken links ● Color contrast is poor or nonexistant in some areas ● Library for in-app museum info is very limited ● Virtual tours do not allow simulation; they’re paid itineraries and guides
American Museum of Natural History
Location: New York, NY
Marketed use: Use as an in-person guide to locate artwork, find certain amenities, play quiz games, and listen to audio stops
Type and Quality The American Museum of Natural History has beautifully curated an app that enables access to their galleries in a similar manner to the Google’s scrollytelling tours: Users can find a specific gallery and learn more through scrolling downwards to find quality imagery, facts, and interactive quizzes. Although the galleries can be primarily accessed from the home page- a map with clickable gallery-entitled buttons, the app offers a ‘Recommended for you’ slide up page where the user can browse the museum’s inventory in a typical and scrollable format. Although it does not offer
a simulation experience, the user can thoroughly engage with the content through the multitude of playful features the virtual tours offer, including audio snippets, quizzes, share to social media options, and ability to favorite galleries. In addition to the large amount of galleries that the museum virtually offers, the strong imagery and branding across the app ultimately help the museum play a competitive role in the industry.
Weak qualities ● Website is only available in english ● Virtual tours do not allow simulation ● Potential accessibiliy issues with map feature
Yorescape
Location: International
Marketed use: Stream virtual tours from around the world in the past or present with friends and family
Type and Quality The Yorescape app centers virtual tours as the key function of the app where their main audience: education professionals, students, and history enthusiasts, can explore rendered simulations of world heritage sites. In comparison to the above competitors, the tour simulations follow the most typical design guidelines for usability but also provide amazing features such as a ‘play’ button to automate the tour, a map button to explore the site by location, and an ability to share the tour to a range of social media! In addition, users can participate in a ‘group roam’ where multiple users can view the same simulation at once. In general, the app best represents how to create a simulation
feature best fitted for the dimensions of a hand-held phone device.
Weak qualities ● Immediate request to create an account ● Page transitions could be designed better
Design Solution
#Persona Storyboards
#Bridging Gaps
#Tyler: Classroom Integration
#Jasmine: VR as Academic Citation
#Riley: Preview before Travel
Incorporating top-requested functionalities from our user feedback,
aligning with user journey needs, and benchmarking against successful competitor features,
it's evident that an immersive virtual reality component for museum collections
would significantly enhance the user experience and address numerous pain points.
At this stage, it also became essential to consider branding, and ultimately, the choice of a museum.
Because of the close proximity and the lack of an app, I chose the Staten Island Museum as the perfect opportunity to provide a research-supported design for an app.
See the initial concept sketch below.
Wireframing and Design Development
#Persona Storyboards
#Bridging Gaps
#Tyler: Classroom Integration
#Jasmine: VR as Academic Citation
#Riley: Preview before Travel
Creating these frames relied on two key ideas:
1. Easy access to search and initialize virtual reality collections.
2. Conform to the look and feel of the Staten Island Museum brand.
Because VR and non-VR design patterns can be very different, it was important to uphold consistency between designing for the VR & standard app frames.
To begin, I created a main IA diagram to dictate the main navigation links. This incorporated the Staten Island Museum's existing navigation hierarchy.
Below, I show how the website nav bar directly correlates with the app's overall navigation links.
It also includes the VR feature as the main nav button to minimize the amount of steps needed to fulfill the original user journeys (appealing to all personas). Adjacently, the 'search' initialization button is included as a portion of the primary navigation (appealing to Jasmine, the student).
I've illustrated a few key user journeys below that facilitate a successful user flow, best minimize the user journey, and maintain typical design patterns.
The VR Journey can be initialized immediately from the homepage, which then opens to a exhibition list where the user can read about, choose, and/or share their chosen exhibit. Hoping to reduce friction points, the quickest route to VR is minimized to two taps.
Tyler (my educator persona) can choose an exhibit and visualize it with VR, attain more information on each art piece, for all of their students to experience! The museum was brought to Tyler's classroom- a success!
VR Journey
Home
Exhibition List
Simulation
Interaction
In designing for the Search Journey, a quick user journey was also prioritized with extra focus on a smooth transition between typical app screens and VR.
Jasmine (my student persona) can seamlessly search a certain art piece, quickly attain and confirm more information, and visualize it in VR. Citation for her paper- success!
Search Journey
Home
Search Home
Search Results
Result Page
Result VR
Feature Overview with Sample Marketing
Problem: Study participants lacked an in-app option to share content to social media or friends. In addition, the Staten Island Museum website lacked a share option.
Solution: Offer a social media-like feed for users to read more about the museum's current events with option to share via the user's social media or message platform.
Always up to date with your favorite museum.
Make sure your friends are too.
Read and share the museum's current events and exhibitions with ease.
Problem: Little to no access to exhibitions, and limited accessibility features when available for teachers, students, and art enthusiasts.
Solution: Game-like VR exhibitions with special consideration for easy-to-use UI and interaction features, marketing with my user groups in mind.
Bring the exhibition to your couch, your cubicle, or your students.
Virtually explore current and past exhibitions with added accessibility and interaction features, including:
Face DetectionEye TrackingTouch
Curious how this works? Click
here
for more information.
Problem: VR Users yearned for more interaction features beyond visualizing an existing exhibit. Competitors lacked such features.
Solution: Offer users to curate their own exhibition and create artwork with novel technology as an opportunity for increased engagement.
Become a part of the exhibit.
Create your own artwork and frame it on the wall.
Use new AI technology to create artwork from photographs and/or text and contribute to the exhibition.
Curious how this works? Click
here
for more information.
Problem: Virtual copies of artwork and sculptures were low quality with little to no screen-readable descriptions.
Solution: Offer high-poly 3D scanned models and high quality imagery of artwork with full live-text descriptions.
Don't need glasses now- Just zoom in.
High quality scans and 3D models available for all sculptures and artwork. Full artist descriptions available with audio options.
