Tourtle!
Designing a brand new museum experience for kids!
Don’t feel like reading through everything? Check out the Final Prototype!
Problem Statement & Background:
The traditional museum experience has been the same for decades; wandering endless halls, looking at exhibits, and reading tiny information plaques. This system works great for those who can read, but younger kids who haven’t developed their reading skills are often unable to engage with museums and the content they offer. We wanted to find a way to bridge that gap so younger kids could still get all the benefits of visiting a museum, while having a blast!
Investigating the Problem Using UX Research:
Literature and Journal Reviews
Museums have been around for thousands of years, and there's a lot of great knowledge which we could take advantage of which helps describe the museum experience while also pointing out potential issues. To take advantage of all this information, we conducted literature reviews to specifically look at how the museum experience works for children. By utilizing tools such as Google Scholar, Jstor, and Elsevier, we found a plethora of valuable information which helped guide the rest of our research. The following quotes help summarize some of the information we found:
Key Quotes from Our Reviews:
“What children take away from their experiences is determined by a combination of what they do and what they talk about.”
“The combination of hands‐on engagement with objects and elaborative talk during events may promote successful transfer.”
"Overall, conversation and building tips helped parents to initiate conversations with children during an interactive activity."
Literature Review Findings
Conversation is Essential
A big portion of what makes kids have a good museum experience revolves around be able to talk and ask questions about their experience and curiosities
Adult-Child Interaction
Kids tend to have a better time when visiting a museum when they can actively engage with their parents or teachers
More Engagement is Better
Museums and exhibits which have more engaging components such as touching, listening, and playing make for better experiences for kids
Museum Observation Sessions
To gain better first-hand experience with how kids engage with museums, we decided to conduct observations at the Henry Ford Museum in Detroit, MI. We chose to observe at Henry Ford for two distinct reasons. First, the exhibits have a wide variety of interactions, from looking and reading, to touching and building. We were able to see first hand what types of experience kids gravitated towards and which experiences they dislikes. Second, families tend to be the main audience due to the subject matter of the museum, which meant we could see more about how parents interact with their kids and vice-versa.
Museum Observation Sessions Findings
The Experience Revolves Around Kids
Even though many of the people observed were families; kids tended to dictate the entire trip. Deciding where to go, what to see, and for how long
Kids are Independent
Kids went anywhere they wanted while in the museum, often times getting away from their parents or other groups to go and explore
Museums Have Sensitive Subjects
Museum exhibits that contained more sensitive information such as Slavery, War, and Death were always accompanied by parental explanations and questions
Creating a Survey for Museum Visitors
Finally, we created and deployed a 26 question survey with the goal of learning even more about the museum experience. For this survey, we decided to focus our efforts on targeting parents or adults who have visited a museum with children to learn about how their experience was. In particular, we wanted to focus on how going to the museum with a child affected their experience, how did they interact with their kids during the trip, and how museums can best improve their experiences for children.
Survey Goals
Learn about how parents interact with their kids during museum visits
Learn about how kids interact with the museum during visits
Discover ways to improve the overall museum experience for kids
Sample Survey Questions and Responses
Museum Survey Findings
Museums are Family Experiences
Most kids that attend museums end up going with other family members, meaning we need to consider them when creating solutions
Kids Love Asking Questions
Kids ask a lot of questions during their trips to museums. Ranging from how things work to learning more about the history of an exhibit
Reading is Not Engaging
Parents reported their kids often got bored when museum exhibits required reading. Instead, their kids favored touching, listening, and watching
Designing a New Solution!
Ideation Sessions Based on our Research
The first step in our design process was ideation. The goal of the ideation phase was to generate as many ideas as possible which aligned with the design criteria we established. To help with this process, we decided to create a large matrix table which helped us create a plethora of different solutions. Using this method we were able to over 50 unique ideas which all had the potential to solve our design problem.
Goals for Ideation:
Generate as many ideas as possible, no matter how silly or implausible
Have ideas be mapped to a specific type of interaction
Incorporate a kid-centric museum experience into the ideas
Ideation Session Idea Exercise
Top 3 Ideas Emerge!
After creating over 50 ideas, we needed to compare each idea against the criteria we previously established to see how well or poorly they met each. Examining each idea and talking about their strengths and weaknesses, helped us narrow down to three potential design concepts, they were:
Interactive Toy Companion
Exploration Kit
3D Printing Fossils
The Final Selection
After much deliberation, we decided to go with the Interactive Toy Companion; we felt idea was not only a fun and unique way to make a museum feel more interactive, but also something which could be applied to a wide variety of museum, types, unlike several of the other ideas.
Creating Our Initial Prototype
Once we decided on a concept, we began prototyping our idea to solicit feedback. For our first prototype, we used an electronics kit called LittleBits, and paired it with a toy bear stuffed animal. LittleBits allowed us to mimic the experience of listening to a story about a museum exhibit, by letting us play audio through a speaker when a button was pressed.
Initial Prototype Pictures
Prototype Feedback
Too Heavy & Heavy
Our original prototype ended up being over a foot tall and 2 lbs once all the components were inserted; making it tiresome to carry around all day for a kid.
No Parent-Child Interaction
The bear we used for the prototype was approximately a foot tall; making it a pretty large object for a kid to be carrying around for the entire day
Has to be Carried
Due to the bear not having any other way to stay with their kid companion, there was concern it would get left behind as they explore the museum.
Prototype Version 2
For the second iteration of our prototype, we went back to the drawing board to re-imagine how our stuffed animal companion could work. We needed to seriously consider all of the feedback we got.
Prototype Goals
Make the design much smaller and lighter
Think about how a kid could have it with them at all times
Consider what a parent is going to be doing
A Refined Idea Emerges - Tourtle!
Step 1: Use the snap band to attach the stuffed animal to your kids arm or wrist
Step 2: Scan him on the NFC reader present on a museum plaque
Step 3: Hold him to your ear to listen to a story about the exhibit
Step 4: Parents can use the mobile app to see what their kids are learning and interact with them
Building the Prototype
Adding a Mobile App
To ensure that adults are still able to engage with their kids, we created a simple mobile app, which allows parents to connect to their kids tourtle and see what exhibits they’ve scanned, as well as provide fun questions and conversation topics about the museum and the exhibits. We also envisioned the ability to locate where your kids went in the museum, and have the app serve as a locator in case they ever got lost.
App Goals
Connect to the kids Tourtle
Show Visited Exhibits
Provide opportunities for parents to engage the kids in dialogue
App Image Gallery
Reflections & Thanks to My Project Partner
Tourtle was my favorite project I’ve ever worked on to this point in my UX career. I love applying the principles of user experience outside of the digital realm, and instead focusing on physical products.
The final prototype we created was tremendously difficult to assemble; getting the components to play audio files was difficult, and ultimately we weren’t able to integrate it properly with the snap band.
Special Thanks to Novia Wong
Novia was my Co-designer and Co-researcher during this entire project; and everything we did was a joint group effort. This project was made so much better by her insight and expertise, especially on the research side of things.
Novia is currently working on her PHD in information from The University of California - Irvine, feel free to visit her Linkedin if you’d like to see more of the amazing work she’s done.