Introduction
This project is created during the course of the Google UX Design Certificate program, from April to June, 2021. The goal is to design a mobile app for a made-up art museum, which helps visitors conduct a self-guided tour tailored to their specific interests and needs. The tools used are Adobe Photoshop, and Figma.
User Research
Interviews are conducted with museum visitors, especially people who have taken children to visit art exhibitions. Secondary research is also conducted by researching self-guided tours, articles of parents’ experience, and tips for taking children to museums. As a museum-lover myself, most of the research results resonate with my own experience. But new issues are also discovered, for example, pain points for users with disabilities, senior users, users who aren’t tech-savvy, etc.
Pain points
Some of the pain points identifiled based on the research are:
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The visitors often need detailed introductions to the artists or artworks.2
Children and seniors often can’t handle long tours and may need to take a break from the tour to use restrooms or to rest.3
People often don’t know where to start or what to look at in a big museum.4
People who aren’t tech-savvy may find it difficult to find and share information related to the exhibit.Personas
Two personas are created as the result of the research:
Persona: David Wang
Problem statement:
David is a dad of two young children who needs recommendations for fun activities because his children have short attention spans.
Persona: Viv Zhao
Problem statement:
Viv is a senior citizen who needs recommendations of viewing routes for an art exhibition because she gets tired quickly from walking in a big museum.
User Journey Maps
The user journey map is based on the persona I created and it helps to put me in the user’s shoes to better understand their needs.
Wireframing and Prototyping
Because of the limited time and resource, at this time I'm focusing on designing the process of finding and completing a museum tour. Paper wireframes were created to quickly demonstrate the user flow.
After that, digital wireframes are created and later develop into a low-fidelity prototype. A usability study is conducted using the low-fi prototype and below are the findings:
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Users need more ways to find tours2
Users need recommendations3
Users need guidance when they exit the tour
The protoype is updated based on these findings. It can be viewed on Figma.
High-fidelity Mockups
High-fidelity UI designs are added to the project. The color pallette is fully tested using the web accessibility contrast checker. A second usability test is conducted using the hi-fi prototype and the designs are interated before finalizing. The final prototype demonstrates the user-flow of browsing, searching, starting, completing, and reviewing a museum tour. It can be viewed on Figma.
Takeaways
Some study participants report that this could be a very useful tool for museum visitors. This app allows visitors to have a self-guided tour that’s tailored to their specific interests and needs. And people have the freedom to taking breaks or switch between tours.
This project allows me to go through all steps of UX/UI design process with new knowledge and skills gained in accessibility, user research, and usability test.
Thank you!
If you're interested in this project and want to hear more, please feel free to contact me.