Innovating at the American Museum of Natural History
Over 5 million people visit the American Museum of Natural History, New York City, every year. For five months in 2017, I was part of a lean team tasked with testing emerging technologies for future usage in the museum. I was involved with over five projects that were presented as proof of concepts to stakeholders.
My Role: UX Research and Design intern
Methodologies: User interviews, usability testing, ideation workshops, storyboards, and user flows.
Team &Duration: I was part of a diverse team that included an assistant director, UI Designers, and programmers during my 5-month internship.
We conformed to a lean UX Design Process following these six steps:
CASE STUDY
Paleo: Behind-the-Scenes
360 Virtual Experience
A VR experience that explores the uncharted parts of the museum, visiting the Big Bone Room and the office of the Chief Paleontologist.
Ideation for this venture started with a breakdown of the project’s constraints and the directions from the stakeholders.
Key Ideation Mandates:
Highlight the Big Bone Room (BBR), where they store bones that aren’t part of an exhibit.
Focus on the job of the Chief Paleontologist
Use Youtube’s 360 feature
Explore VR gear that utilizes mobile devices
Have it ready to test in three weeks
We decided to set the experience as if the user is joining a guided tour in the museum walking through the Fossil Hall, next to the Tyrannosaurus rex model. This location is an iconic part of the museum, and it provides a point of reference to begin a conversation about dinosaur bones.
Another decision we made was to keep the experience short (under five minutes), because our idea was to be tested during an upcoming event, and we predicted that many people would want to try it.
Following the ideation workshop, I created a storyboard to inform the filming and editing of the experience.
Storyboard Breakdown
Panel 1: Andrew, the tour guide, introduces himself and the Fossil Hall.
Panels 2-7: The visitors ask questions, and Andrew invites them to join him to find answers behind-the-scenes of the museum.
Panels 8-13: Exploring the BBR with Danny.
Panels 14-16: Mark, the Chief Paleontologist, discusses his work.
Panels 17-24: Back in the Fossil Hall, Andrew recaps what they learned.
Prototype Experience
After a week of work, we had a video uploaded to Youtube that followed the storyboard. We presented and tested this prototype with visitors doing an event at the museum.
Conducting Research
We were examining visitors’ interest in the experience and technology, as well as their interest in the content.
I ran the experience, took observation notes, and conducted a post-experience interview.
Key Findings:
Most visitors showed interest in the VR experience and were lining up to try it out.
Adult visitors (above 30) enjoyed looking around and exploring the 360 environment while sitting.
Kids (under 18) wanted to stand and walk around while wearing the VR gear. They were looking for interactions and clickable elements.
About half of the visitors showed interest in a more extended experience.
Over 20% of the testers, inquired about a link they can use to try it at home with their own VR gear.
Iteration Workshop
The user-testing findings were discussed during the following week. We came up with a few iterations to include interactivity in the experience. I created the user flow below to present one of the ideas we had. The green text details the interaction within the BBR.
The project was concluded with a presentation to the department’s director and other stakeholders.
Thanks to this research study, in the following months, the museum published a 360 experience, exploring the museum’s collection room.
CASE STUDY
Martian Golf: an AR Experience
We set out to explore interaction opportunities at the Lunar Gravity exhibit.
The project went through a few titles and iterations before we settled on Martian Golf.
The first ideation workshop focused on:
What are the project objectives
What do we have to work with
What is the primary interaction we want to focus on
The presentation below is a product of that first meeting. It goes into detail and simplifying what had been discussed.
Discovery Research
After our first brainstorming session, I conducted observational research noting information such as how visitors interact with the Lunar Gravity exhibit, what piqued their interest, and how much time do they spend there.
Iterations
We used the notes I took in our following brainstorming and iteration sessions. We finally settled on the idea of playing golf in space. This interaction encourages the user to understand the changes in gravity and adjust their swing to the new environment.
I created the user-flow and storyboard below to visualize the iteration we decided to prototype. It walks through the experience and the different types of interactions. Presenting what the user is physically doing, what do they see, and what they hear.
The user-flow legend
Blue: Physical actions the user does
Purple: Audio heard by the user
Green: The AR layer
At the time, we were working on other projects as well, and my internship ended before a prototype was made. However, I heard from the project manager that they completed a rapid prototype and usability testing a couple of months later and that they were excited to explore more AR experiences in the future.
The research we conducted with emerging technologies, informed the stakeholders in the museum of the possibilities to integrate such experiences into visitors’ interactions with the exhibits.
Recently, the museum introduced a social VR experience in collaboration with VIVE in the T. Rex exhibit.