Museum Archive

An application was created for families with kids for a convenient experience at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston.

My Role

User Research

UX Design

UI Design

Type

Student work

Year

2020

Background

This project compelled me to think about ways dynamic media can help the Museum of Fine Arts Boston. I created a tool that enhances the museum-going experience for visitors. Through extensive primary research, multiple site visits, and user interviews, I found a need for a tool for a convenient experience for families with kids.

Design Challenge

How to improve the experience of MFA for the visitors using dynamic media.

MFA Boston is the 20th-largest art museum in the world, measured by public gallery area. It contains 8,161 paintings and more than 450,000 works of art, making it one of the most comprehensive collections in the Americas.

Design process followed

Discover

A week’s visit to the museum to find out the problem statement. I started by observing visitors, surroundings, lighting, different spaces, and artwork. In the process, I spoke to many visitors, including various age groups. My primary research observation included the following:

Visited mainly by senior citizens and families with kids. 
Someone always accompanied people in wheelchairs.
Struggled reading.  
Struggled Navigating.
Poor visibility of titles on the wall.  
Exits are not marked on the map.

Observations made in the museum

I decided to focus on visitors from the following age groups:

30-45 years with young to teenage kids.
60-80 years old couples or single individuals.

Through multiple interviews with both age groups, I found families with kids with the most struggles, so I decided to focus on them.

"We love MFA. The experience
can not be better."

Senior Citizens

"MFA is so big, my kids get really tired on every visit"

Family with kids

Post-user interviews with parents, couples and families, the primary takeaway were:

To encourage kids to visit museums, how might we make them a part of it?
Too much information to consume. Is there a way to store what they looked at and learned?
Kids like to know more about the pieces, but not just through reading, as they lose focus soon.
If kids can touch or interact with art in some way.
Kids get tired very quickly if there is a way that parents can customize the tour in advance.

User interview takeaways

Define (Articulating the problem)

Researchable questions:

How might we make the museum experience convenient and fun for the kids and families?

Ideate (Possible solutions)

Brainstorming on potential solutions

I decided to create a tablet application for the Museum of Fine Arts to customize the tour according to the user's preference and stimulate interactivity (using the latest technology like Augmented Reality) with art objects within the Museum.

Prototyping

The prototyping started with a detailed user flow concept - a raw information delivery system combining two problems It was built for presenting to classmates and cohorts for early feedback.