Vision G

A set of standalone augmented reality glasses that provide assistance to visitors during their visits in the Science Gallery Melbourne.

This project focuses on the interactions of the visitors within the Science Gallery Melbourne. It aims to investigate the main factors that contribute towards an interactive and immersive visiting experience and thus come up with a design solution to address the key issues.

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Overview

Overview

Problem

The perceived weakness of invisible gaps exist between visitor and collections in traditional museums, While limitations have always been existing in the installation, which resist visitors’ engagement in the exhibitions and reduce their quality of the visiting experience, challenges have been brought up with regard to how to improve the design of technologies and thus encourage visitors’ engagements with the exhibits.

Solution

Based on the research and fieldwork investigation, a solution to creating more engaging experiences is through new technologies, which can be integrated into the exhibits, to make the “seemingly tedious engaging”.

Therefore, the team introduces Vision G, a set of standalone augmented reality glasses that provide assistance to visitors.

Some of the key features include: a bluetooth system and mini LED display for indoor navigation, speakers for audio information in a hands-free manner and subtitles rendered in users' native language.

Tools

Team

Google Drive
Trello
Slack
Miro
Figma

Glen - Software Engineering
Jean Paul - HCI
Haoyue Aurora - HCI
Tunya - HCI

My Role

User Research
Prototype Design
Taking Meeting Miniutes
Fieldwork Investigations
Fomatting & Presentation

Timeline

Overall: 9 weeks
Discovery & Research: 6 weeks
Design & Presentation: 3 weeks

Project Design Process

Discover

Brainstorming about the topic
Construct the investigation plan
Conduct the fieldwork Study

Develop

Explore design ideas based on the personas & scenarios to regulate the painpoints of themes.
Come up with iterations of design.

Define

Analyze the findings
Set up design requirements
Conclude the next steps

Deliver

Draw storyboards.
Refine drafted prototypes.
Edit the Video & Poster

Main Target

Main people in the situation of use:

People who visit the Science Gallery

University Students
Melbourne Connect staffs
General Visitors

Accompanies

Individual Visitors
Groups Visitors

Their Task and Goals:

Explore some new technology and interactions
Get inspiration
Meet up with friends
Education purpose
Assignments
Consume time

Aim of Investigation：

Overall
- What are their reasons to visit the Science Gallery?
- How long visitors stay in the Science Gallery?
- Why do they stay in the Science Gallery that long?
- What could be potential methods or interactions that can enhance more empathy for people visiting experience in the gallery?
Interaction with exhibits:
- Are there any exhibits that grab their attention the most?
- What are some of the group/individual activities involved?
Interaction with one another:
- Who are they going with?
- Are there any interactions between visitors who come across the exhibits?
Interaction with staffs
- Do the staff affect the visitors’ engagement to the exhibits and how?

Techniques & Methods of Investigation

After gathering data, the thematic analysis approach was chosen to analyse the data . It helps us to organise and describe our data in detail. This greater depth led to the team uncovering a total of 8 themes and four main themes of findings.

Guidance on interacting with the exhibits

Accessibility of Additional Exhibits Information

Engagement with the Exhibits

Comfort within the space

Design Requirements

We wanted to form a deeper understanding of our users' goals, needs, experiences, and behaviors. So, we created 4 personas for each of our user segments. They were based on user interviews and observations, and we kept updating them throughout the project as we gathered more data. We used these personas whenever we wanted to step out of ourselves and reconsider our initial ideas.

Define

Non-Functional Requirements

In regards to the settings and environment of the Science Gallery, the design should consider the trade off when using noise and flashing lights to get visitors attention.
Additionally, besides direct touch, methods to read exhibits’ information and learn exhibits’ interactions should be provided in the design.
In terms of the social context, it is important to consider the finding that interactions are encouraged by group visits. The design should support both individual and group use so that the Excited Emma persona may feel welcome to bring her companions along with her. Moreover, respecting users’ privacy should be considered as a priority in the design.This ensures that the concerns of the Nervous Nelson persona are addressed, along with privacy laws that are important from a legal standpoint. Findings regarding issues in providing information to visitors, illustrate the need to accommodate the Smart Sally persona. To achieve this, the design should structure information in a consistent and easy to digest format. This design consideration could help visitors find information more easily and in a shorter time. Subsequently, this could lead to the improvement in visitor’s engagement and experience.

Conclude the Next Steps

Unsurprisingly, a desire to engage with exhibits was demonstrated by a large proportion of our study participants. On the other hand, an insight that stood out to the team was the wide range of ages and demographics that are drawn to the Science Gallery. This plethora of visitors goes beyond the Science Galllery’s rather restrictive intended age demographic of fifteen to twenty-five. In addition to this, the pressing need for guidance and more information, across younger and older audiences alike, presents itself as a vital future direction for the Science Gallery.

Subsequently, the team wishes to address the following problem statement: “How might we improve how the Science Gallery caters to the different information needs of its visitors, so that visitors can have a more pleasant and engaging experience?”.

To solve this, the team first hopes to create a solution that will address the information needs of visitors by building upon the existing infrastructure already available at the Gallery. Secondly the team hopes to leverage their experience in UX and UI Design to come up with a digital solution that will complement the efforts of Science Gallery staff to educate and inform visitors.

Development

Based on the findings from the Discover and Define stages, pain points were listed for the different themes and personas uncovered. Ideas were then brainstormed accordingly.

From all of the listed ideas, the personas of Smart Sally and Lost Lizzie were selected to be focused the most for further design. Draft Prototypes were made for each of the core ideas we had. Idea 2, for Lost Lizzie, was selected as our final choice after internal team voting and consulting.

Later, the product was updated with a more detailed design and new features. Here we hoped to address two key problems: Lack of Guidance and Accessibility.