You can look at my final presentation about this assignment here;
https://www.icloud.com/keynote/000MxdO2qsSqXHj8TqqkyMoqQ#Maritime_Museum
Category Archives: Y2 Technologies, Platforms and the User Experience
Final Whaling Museum Mockup
Pushing the idea nationally
Creating a national brand can be done really easily using my method of creating an in app experience. Since all the information related to the items in the museum are stored on a database the information can travel really easily, all that would need to be sent would be the actual exhibition pieces. The current government budget for museums is £5.4 Billion, if the cost of transporting exhibitions around the country was cut then the money could better spent on other things like the content of the exhibitions etc.
It would also change what traveling exhibitions look like, instead of having pop up stands, they would look like they actually belong in the museum!
References;
http://www.nationalmuseums.org.uk/news/newsletters/?item=106
Final Designs and User Testing
Prototype testing
On this page the user believed they only needed to click on the flag/difficulty level to proceed, the forward button was pointless and there was no need for this to be a requirement
The user felt like they needed words as well as the symbols, for genders and most missed inputting their age.
Users were unaware of the fact that there multiple exhibition topics and tried to start the first exhibition they were shown. A redesign of this page would allow the user to be aware of the fact that there are other exhibitions available.
The captain is there to introduce the exhibition and explain the user interface to the user. The user has been given the option to skip the captains introduction so a quick UI tutorial may be necessary for the user to understand how to use the UI.
The line on the map is not obvious to the use that it is to indicate the direction of the exhibition.
Within the mini experience, the user was confused as to what they should click on therefore I would need to create a way for the user to differentiate between the clickable and the un-clickable or instead make everything these mini experiences interactive. Also, within the mini experiences the user was against using the blue exit button because they believed it would shut down their entire experience therefore it would be more straightforward for the user to simply have a back button instead of an x.
One of the largest flaws in the design is the relax room interface, as the initial ideas was that it would automatically appear and disappear as they entered the room, but the user testing proved that they had become accustomed to the ui interface and were confused when they couldn’t get back to it.
The final design flaw was the video editor at the end of the exhibition which allowed the user to edit a frame of the video which is being displayed on the wall before they leave the exhibition and also on the outside of the building to entice visitors into the museum. It lacks to inform the user of what it really is, a social tool to bring together the community and raise awareness of the exhibitions and the problems it causes. Before this page there should a be descriptive page saying thank you for visiting the museum and taking the time to enjoy the exhibition, what the purpose of this video was and how it would benefit whaling to take part. It could allow them to input their twitter name or Facebook name so the exhibition page could tag them in the images that were taken throughout the exhibition in the selfie zone and also the edited frame of the video.
All of the different screens I have designed…
Catering for the spiritual & emotional visitors
There are two categories in my audience that I have catered for specifically, these find refuge being surrounded by what the museum has to offer. I created a room for relaxation after visiting everything in the museum, it is a room that has projections on the walls of whales, calming music and sea biscuits available as snacks. In this room I have offered multiple things on the iPad, there is an opportunity for the user to learn more about the history of whaling, with the addition of a game which would look something like this;
and an artwall for kids to get involved with each other, and draw pictures while their parents relax.
Get people talking
It is vital to get people talking about an exhibition, this way it more marketable and gets more footfall. This is needed to lure the target audience into the museum in the first place.
The idea of creating a user generated marketing video to be project on the walls within the museum walls and on the outside of the building works quite well. Basically the video would potray scenes of the whaling industry, but would allow the user to edit the frames of the video with drawing, a great example of this can be seen in Justin Bieber’s “where r u now?”;
there are frames here you can see an example of how his video uses this technique;
and this is what it would like for the whaling exhibition;
Pictures of the Maritime Museum
The exhibiton I have chosen, the whaling exhibition in the maritime museum is need of a well need polish, which you will see below in the pictures of the space. You will note there is plenty of space for improvement.
Content Research
The museum will be split up into various sections, of different factual information. This allows the visitor to get real insight of what a Whalers life was really like. Images on the wall will turn into animated scenes on the iPad, there will be questions about the images. Interior of the museum will be dimly lit, with lights focusing on the actual content for the visited to see, this will create a much more immersive experience. Changing the boat within the museum to allow it to move and have people sit inside it, whilst wearing virtual reality headsets will create a truly realistic experience that is not only factual but visual. The flow of the content will move through a Whalers life, showing the tools he used, his life on the ship, people you came across on his journey and other exotic animals he so along the way.
This is the information that is viewable when looking at the various animals around the exhibition;
Geographic distribution
Images
Bone/ muscle skin Layers
Communication
Amount of people who have signed the petition/percentage of number of people who like whales
scale of the animal in com[parison to other animals
Life expectancy
Diet = Carnivore/Herbivore
Weight
Population
Timeline
6,000 BC – The earliest archaeological record of whaling is found inSouth Korea, where carved drawings dating back to6,000 BC show that Stone Age people hunted whales using boats and spears.
9TH CENTURY – Whaling begins in Norway, France and Spain.
12TH CENTURY – Hand harpooning begins in Japan.
1848 – The exploding harpoon is invented. The harpoon was fired with a cannon and used a motorized whale catcher. This enabled whalers to catch the fast-moving and huge rorqual whales.
1930 – 80 per cent of the great whale species are thought to be on the verge of extinction.
1946 – The International Whaling Commission (IWC)is set up by15 whaling nations to manage whale stocks.
1963 – The UK ceases whaling.
1972 – The population of blue whales falls to 6,000.
1990 – Seven out of the nine remaining whaling nations agree to stop whaling.
2003 – Iceland resumes ‘scientific whaling’.
2006 – Iceland resumes commercial whaling.
Boats
“Thar She Blows!”
Fin Whale
Antarctic Minkle Whale
Sperm Whale
Humpback Whale
Sei Whale
The captain
The mates
ATE TOGETHER AND BEST Accommodation BEST SLEEPING QUARTER
The boat steerers
The foremast hands
ATE LAST – WORST SLEEPING Quarters
Length of journey
The whaling schooner, the smallest whaler, generally undertook 6-month voyages
brigs, barks, and ships might be at sea for three or four years
Right whale – Carnivorous
(SCALE)
Population
Weapons
Harpoon
Fired in then bent with pressure
Lance
cut the meat
Polar Bear – Omnivorous
ABOUT ERIC THE BEAR
1981 – 22,000
1993 – 25,000
1997 – 24,000
2001 – 23,000
2005 – 22,000
2009 – 20,000
2013 – 18,000
References;
http://www.whalingmuseum.org/learn/research-topics/overview-of-north-american-whaling/life-aboard
http://www.whalecraft.net/Harpoons.html
http://mysite.du.edu/~ttyler/ploughboy/olmstedvoyage.htm
http://www.whalingmuseum.org/learn/research-topics/overview-of-north-american-whaling/life-aboard
Wireframes & User Journey
The User Journey is very important, once the wire frames have been completed it is vital to make sure that every user action has been accounted for. Below is the user journey for the museum experience.
1; The first stage allows the user select the language they pick – accessibility is vital here
2; The second stage allows the user to pick the difficulty of the information provided – this is important because it allows the user to decide what type of experience they want.
3; Select gender & age- data collect for the government budgets would be a great resource the in app service can provide to allow the budget to be spent more wisely. This is something my research suggests the government currently struggle with.
4; This page allows the user to pic specifically what topic they learn about within the museum
5; The captain is introduced to the user, the above wireframe was to show the captain on the left with a speech bubble on the right. I decided against this because it was too much to read and should instead be an audio track played into headphones of the user with a subtitles option for the deaf.
6; This is the main user interface that has all the basic functions of the experience, the camera icon takes you to the camera function where the user will see everything in black and white but have interactive objects appearing in colour. The map icon guides the user along their route within the museum experience, and finally there is the captain who will answer any of the user’s questions as they travel around the exhibition. You can see both of the wireframes at 7 & 8.
9-11; The first interactive element that the user would see is the boats section, you can see below the different wireframes that show the sleeping quarters of the boat and where the different staff slept, along with information on the lengths of trips the boats take.
12-15; This section shows the user the two most important weapons used when capturing a whale, what they look like, how they work and how they were used.
16-18; The second interactive section is of the right whale skeleton featured in the centre of the exhibition, it shows the user information on the scale of the animal, dietary needs, and al;so allows the user to see the different layers within the whale itself bones, organs, muscles and skin.
19; The selfie section allows the user to take a photograph in the costumes of classic whalers, the captain and the seamen. Once one has been take the user can see the pictures taken by other visitors.
20-22; This section of the exhibition is dedicated to the polar bears and and the eating habits and timeline of population
23-25; This section allows the user to relax in the 3D room with the ability to learn more on the iPad, play a game and also an art board to allow people to draw artwork that get gets submitted to the collection.
26; The second to last section of the website shows the user different ways to get involved with saving whales
24; The final section of the website shows the user a video of whales that is being projected on the wall of the final room and also on the outside of the building, this videos frames can be edited by a user much like the video found in my research
Two things noting are;
The social network login;
This is something that I have considered but decided against. The reasons for having social network login was to allow the museum to collect data on it’s visitors- something that my research suggested that the government struggles to collect. While it is important to collect data on the visitor – there are other ways of doing this that I have shown new wireframe below to collect the gender and age of the user.
The OLD menu;
I decided that the menu did not require a social feed as it looked clunky and would be unnecessary.
Other exhibitions
There are many exhibitions around the world, that show visitor varying amounts of content covering many topics in different ways. It is useful to see what is out there when creating an exhibition website. Chris Smith, who is responsible for the Art Fund Prize suggests that it is difficult to generate interest around a museum therefore the money is best spent around creating interest around the topics within the museum. He states that people who ignore this vital fact always fail and that content consistently comes out on top. Using a story to bind the exhibitions contents is second most important thing to do.
People are happy to visit a museum exhibition provided the tickets are under £15, once the prices get higher than that, people start to be dubious whether it would be worth going. Great exhibitions are huge scale with the content being the content specifically picked for the area. Cultural aloofness being a major factor, the exhibition needs to be certain to target itself at a mainstream audience, not selecting a certain age range or ethnicity. They should inspire people to approach with an open minded, positive attitude and to allow them to leave with something to think about.
Key pointer;
– Make sure that you generate as much interest as possible around the specific contents, regarding the exhibition itself and bind it together with a story
References;
http://www.artfund.org/news/2012/05/16/what-makes-a-good-museum
https://designmuseum.org/exhibitions/designs-of-the-year-2015
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-33184094
http://www2.montshire.org/stacks/exhibits/goodexhibits.html
akbrodie.wordpress.com 