UX case study: digitizing the Saudi national museum experience

SarahAlmotairi

Published in

Bootcamp

7 min readJul 25, 2022

presenting to you my 3rd project as a UX designer at MISK academy’s immersive UX program,

first of all i’d like you meet my super team: Mayan Bashehab Norah Almaneea Hicham Mahmoud Ashjan Alfaidi

on this challenge we were asked to design and digitize an experience for an existing brand ,the experience we are
assigned to in a place/area/city taking into consideration the actual behaviors of users in these spaces.

Before assigning places i was actually praying that i’d get a place where i live at my hometown Jeddah, i always thought it would so fun being a researcher who get to do their job in the field observing, asking and hovering around living the real experience, i’m the kind of person who highly believe that a research done in action is way accurate than one done in front of a screen!

anyway, my prayers didn’t get answered and i(and my team) were assigned to a place i’ve never been to before, The Saudi national museum in Riyadh which is unfortunately closed (temporarily).

i wasn’t really liking the choice of a closed museum but i perceived it as an opportunity when i realized that in today’s tech-savvy world, museums are working harder than ever to attract visitors by allowing them to take selfies, interact with AR experiences, make apps to guide visitors through museums and teach them about exhibits and its history.

As a result, younger audiences are more likely to appreciate what they see and be motivated to learn more about what the museum is offering.

I ended up liking it, so let me walk you through the process!

About the Saudi national museum

National Museum of Saudi Arabia is King Abdul Aziz historical Center’s crowned jewel and the largest museum in Saudi, it was established in Riyadh in 1999.
It is famous for its magnificent architecture and eight chronologically ordered exhibition Halls each of which is themed around different centuries of Arabian prehistory, history, culture and art, everything from Neolithic rock art, to replicas of the buildings of old Jeddah, as well as transporting visitors on a magically interactive tour of the ages.
The museum which used to have 10 SAR entry fees started welcoming visitors for free post-pandemic to reconnect with them and bring life back to it after such hard time.
The museum has a well detailed and clear journey path for visitors (yellow dots on the floor to follow throughout the halls) .
it’s worth mentioning that the museum hosts a lot of events, exhibits, activities and workshops for everyone (adults and children)!
as for technology the museum has a virtual tour application and website produced by MOC but lacks a lot of basic information, also technology interaction are implemented throughout the visitor’s journey inside the museum such as: interactive visual screens, audio,QR codes.
Tour guides are sometimes available in Arabic and English with 2 tour guiders in each hall.

Business Research

We searched for similar products that our users are familiar with and came up with the following:

Local-direct competitors:

The Intl. Museum Of The Prophet’s Biography
The Museum of illusions
Ithraa

global competitors:

The British museum
the Metropolitan museum
Louvre Abu Dhabi
The Dubai Mall (indirect)

Ket C&C findings:

Most competitors have websites for museum information, and a separate application that focus on journey features (such as an audio app).
All competitors had screens with very good description about exhibitions with pictures.
All competitors, direct and indirect, included online ticket booking.
Local competitors neglect including a museum map in their websites.
Tour guides are always paid for, and are often group tours which users can register to join for.
Competitors are not including a section where users can review and share their experiences.

Key Qualitative Evaluation Findings:

Have simple UX writing, and fulfill information about the museum’s inside features.
Emphasize on the feeling of the experience throughout the UX writing, while also including straightforward information about the museum and its exhibitions.
Have a balance between texts and images to allow the user to get the gist of the pages without having to read.
Adopt a smooth scrolling experience with escalating with the depth of information at the bottom.
Make the user feel confident before visiting the place by giving them reliable information about the place.
Do not include a feature if it’s partly implemented, or does not compete with the quality of the rest of the features.
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LEMErS Heuristic Evaluation findings:

Avoid very large or very small banners and fonts.
Accommodate finger spaces for buttons and text fields on web apps.
Have general information and key information and instructions for maps to read and use.
Follow gentle UX writing when informing the user about errors.
Have an easy navigation bar with excellent UI that accommodates users.
Include important features in the top navigation bar.
Do not overwhelm users with large notifications during errors.
Avoid dead ends.

User Research

We interviewed 16 users after conducting a screener survey, our users are divided into:

•users who have been to the museum

•users who haven’t been to the museum but are interested in going.

We asked interviewees about their motivations, research methods ,preferences of tour guides, ticket booking and activities, likes and dislikes to get a better understanding of their pain points.

let’s put them together and get some insights!

User insights:

users prefer to book tickets online in advance to avoid crowding and waiting in lines.
Users quickly plan their museums visits.
Users gather their information via googling mostly and checking social media.
Users like to check reviews and recommendation about museums before visiting a museum.
Users don’t like digging the internet in order to find basic information.
Users visit museum with a group of family /friends and prefer to have a tour guide.

Now, Let’s meet our persona!

Current user journey

Problem statement:

Our local tourists struggle with finding information about the national museum in Riyadh when they want to learn about it and book a visit. Our solution should deliver a way to provide sufficient information and plan visits conveniently to enhance the journey inside the museum.