attraction:
There is lot of confusion at the initial entering of the museum due to
the lack of information or understanding of where to go or what to
do. There is an Information Desk with an attendant situated in the
lobby, but it is so unobtrusive in the environment that it is
faster and easier to locate the bathrooms than museum information. Our
idea for the interface was that, like the Information Desk,
it would not intrude on the visitor and lobby environment but
also that it would be attractive and curious so that visitors
would be drawn to look at it.
tangibility:
Throughout the course of the project, we debated the design decision of
tangible versus digital metaphors. Overall, we hypothesized that tangible was
better in this situation. We used three types of objects
to represent: rotating exhibits, course-related works, and printing.
Through the design of our objects, we were able to attract users and guide
their interactions in a fun and exciting mannor. In forsight of the likelihood
of loss of objects, we developed the objects out of inexpensive supplies. As
such, the course objects to be presented in classes as personal invitations to
the students. We also implemented the printing feature so that the users would
indeed have something tangible to keep.
exploration:
A major design decision was to not implement the entire Davis Museum
database of artwork, objects, etc but rather represent only the
rotating exhibits and course-related works with our tangible objects.
While this limits the user's ability to find anything in the museum,
based on our academically-inclined user groups we believed that
users were more likely to visit the museum based on their academic
interests and objectives or the installation of a new exhibit and
not a leisurely visit. Due to this limitation, we were able to allow
users more exploration of the pertinent information such as history,
quips, podcasts, related works, etc.
customization:
Any museum can seem big, and impersonal -- it is a large, unfamiliar
space filled with large amounts of information. While there might be
available tours, they are predesigned, scheduled, and do not allow for
wandering. With the ability to create one's own tour, it gives a much
more personal and comfortable experience. Progression through the tour
is based on one's own schedule and desire, and sidetracking is allowed.
contextualization:
Mentioned previously, museum environments are big and confusing.
Design rationales are complicated and not communicated to the users,
thus order and placement of pieces and exhibits is not evident or
intuitive at times. An exit path is usually marked, but not a
"continue this way" path. Our desire was to give the user a
continuous context of his/her location and destinations (works of
interest), thus removing this sense of vast, confusing space.
>> tangibility