The Chazen Museum of Art: The Immersive Experience
To design an Immersive Museum App for The Chazen Art Museum that would enhance a users experience in the museum.
The dilemma for this brief was to create a unique app that adds to the museum. This wasn’t just recreating the website into app form. This project needed to create a new way to experience The Chazen in an interactive way.
Objectives & Goals
Focusing on 3 main features within the app:
Interactive Museum App
Exhibit Information
A Virtual Tour Guide
Keeping interactions easy to navigate and understand.
Presenting museum pieces and information in an easy to understand format.
Using virtual navigation to simulate moving through the museum.
Keeping aesthetic to mimic Chazen branding
The key focus for the sitemap and UX designs was on usability and paths through the app navigation. I wanted to make sure users could explore different features such as the Virtual Tour Guide, the artwork information, and Museum Mode, but also perform vital tasks like find location via the floor plan map.
The initial prototyping did not focus enough on these features. There were features that were mimicking general website to app transference, not enough to demonstrate why a user would find this app particularly interesting or special enough to download and use.
Prototyping
Based on these results from user testing and feedback, the appropriate changes were made.
During testing, users struggled to location the interactive pathway and stated it was unclear where they were located on the map. Having both a visual floor plan map with clickable buttons along with a VR map made the purpose of the app more clear.
Solutions were to remove a login page and dashboard, and change to an experience that encourages users to enter the immersive world/museum immediately.
The Results
Conclusion & Next Steps
Future iterations will have more refined features, such as the potential removal of a “Gallery” screen all together. This screen served as a flat visual aid for people that want a traditional scroll view/preview before entering Museum Mode or exploring other features.
Enhancements to Museum Mode will include a card that has a flip over animation that leads to the following screen Exhibit Details.
Adding additional viewing in the AR mode to further move along the explore path.
Refining prototyping for the navigation tab, ensuring a total seamless experience.