Case Study: Cultural heritage through design thinking

or how to apply creative problem solving to a wicked problem.

A bridge is a structure built to span a physical obstacle: water, a valley or a railway for instance which would otherwise make the passage difficult, sometimes even impossible. In our society, some gaps are hard to be bridged: the inequality of access to culture amongst the most tenacious ones. Public institutions should be fostering understanding through history and appreciation of cultural differences in order to help opposing groups of people to coexist and behave well towards each other. The museums in that effect aim to make culture and heritage accessible to everyone. But do they really?

My assumptions are that the elitist image of some museums and institutions is still a barrier for a part of the population. Moreover, some cultures are sometimes represented distortedly, through the point of view of the exhibiting country’s history. The activity of going to the museum itself is pricy. Even when free, not everyone is willing to spend hours in museums. A wicked problem, we’ll try to solve thanks to Design Thinking. In this case study, we’ll aim to help museums to build bridges in between people and art thanks to technology.

Visitors in a crowded Louvres trying to see Da Vinci’s master piece: Mona Lisa. Source: Unplash

Secondary Research
With secondary research, we gathered data on Museums as a mediation space, the cultural product they display, their audience and the services they offer.

• Culture is unique, complex, symbolic. It is not a product like the others.
• Museums have a traditional authority and are seen as high cultural places. Their space is often well-structured in a linear fashion.
• In the 1970’s, they suffer a profound mediation crisis. The public started to reject the museum as a space, referring to it as a “white cube”, a place where “art is confined into a sterilised, artificial, conflict-free space”.
• According to demographics, visitors are more likely to be middle-class and educated. Fewer males than females are going to the museum.
• Looking at age samples, Millennials are less keen than previous generations to go to museums. They like novelty and having an active role in what they are experiencing.
• The average time spent in a museum is 2 hours.

A user-centered approach
“Why?”- A question known to be the UX/UI Designer’s favorite as it explores the cause-and-effect relationships underlying a particular problem. We targeted 5 users who don’t go often to the museums and we asked them why they don’t feel like going more. What’s their favorite museum and why? We asked them to tell us about a time when they have been blown away by their experience in a museum and…Why? Here are the main insights that came out of this primary research:

• Mediation services offered by the museums fail to win unanimous support.

“ I don’t use audioguides as otherwise I can’t talk with the person I am with. It is also too detailed. The same for description labels. If I’d go alone I’d prefer to listen to my musique and be in my bubble.” — Terrence

When following a group with a tour guide, there is not enough space to enjoy the artwork on display. If you are at the back of the group, you can’t even hear” — Sylvie

• The only times they would visit a museum would be when in a new city.

“If I go to the museum is not in my hometown but while travelling and discovering a new city to understand the local culture.”- Terrence

• The amount of content on display can be overwhelming.

“ I went to the Louvre with my sister once. The first 15 minutes I was excited but after seeing so many different art pieces, it was almost “too much beauty”. I lost interest. We did a big tour and it was hard to stay focused.” — Mara

“ In general, I have mixed feelings in museums. I am both amazed and bored. I don’t want to spend too much time in them.” — Hazem

• What is learnt during the visit is difficult to digest. This state is also called: “directed attention fatigue”.

“When I exit a museum where there is so much to see, I feel like I can’t even remember all the art pieces I have seen.” — Mara

The Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg, Russia — Did you know ? To see all the exhibits treasured in the Hermitage is just impossible — it has been calculated that, if you spend a minute at one item and spend 8 hours in the Hermitage daily, it will take you almost 15 years to view all the museum’s exhibits.

User persona
When merging the information from both researches, several user personas are taking shape. Amongst them: Tom.

• Tom is a Millennial, he doesn’t go often to the museum but when he does, he has company and it is when he visits a new city.
• Tom wants to optimise his time while visiting in order to access the culture and heritage of the visited city.

Millennials like Tom, occasionally visiting museums need continuous and diverse enjoyment during their visit because they are getting bored quickly by its repetitiveness.

We targeted Tom as we can convert him “easily” to go more often to the museum thanks to technology.

Generate ideas in minutes
Criticism is always easier than constructive solutions. Out of the several problems pointed out by our users and supported by our secondary research, we focused on two main problems altercating the museum experience today: the time spent within the museum and the user’s passive experience in it. Performing several brainstorm sessions with a timer while alternating techniques such as the Bad Idea Brainstorm or the classic Mind Mapping has helped to generate many ideas in just minutes.

The solution
We prioritised an app that would display — as the main feature — a personalised tour based on your interests and the museum collection taking into consideration your time available. You’d be able to download the app within the museum thanks to a QR Code.

The Crazy 8’s happened to be a very efficient technic when brainstorming on a prototype in a group and in a timely manner.

1st version of our Lo-Fi prototype

When prototyping, finding a good balance of what is essential to see while making it still abstract enough so that testers don’t focus too much on details can be a little tricky.

Concept testing
Put simply: the way you think is not the way everybody thinks. So take a step back and concept test. We recruited 5 users to do so. This is what we kept from their feedback:

• UX writing matters — “Pick your favorite” was vague enough that some testers didn’t understand they were picking their interests at this stage.
• Same for the suggestions page showing the percentage of matching interest with a proposed path in the museum. The connexion was not made with the previous user’s choices.
• The best option was just not highlighted enough to help the user’s decision-making.
• Users testers also couldn’t really picture what the Map would look like.
• The section “steps” was too open to interpretation. Scrolling down to see it, didn’t feel natural while using a map.

Areas to be improved after concept testing of our Lo-Fi prototype

Not the best but better
We took into consideration our users’ feedback and simplify the amount of information on display while showing a more precise map visualisation. This is our last Lo-Fi prototype version but surely not our final. Concept testing is an iterative process. So is Design Thinking. As next steps, we would have developed our last wireframe, allowing the users to have clear information on what is on their way. We would have also paid more attention to the categorisation of interests and would have conducted extensive secondary research to do so.

Last version of our Lo-Fi prototype after concept testing

What’s your idea of an app which would help museums give access to culture to a wider number?

Thanks to Julia Toquet and Marta Dagna, my colleagues for this one-week project in the context of Ironhack’s intensive Bootcamp in Paris.