Flip It
Interaction Design Explorations for the Carnegie Museum of Natural History created by Shambhavi Deshpande and John Baldridge, graduate students at Carnegie Mellon University School of Design.
Today, many museums are facing the challenge of transitioning from rigid institutions to experiential and flexible spaces. This is driven by factors such as expanding collections, increased competition for visitors, and visitor expectations for greater engagement. According to the 2008 NEA Survey of Public Participation in the Arts report, the audiences for museums, galleries, and performing arts institutions have decreased drastically. View the full report here. Museums are turning to virtual reality, apps, and interactive experiences to keep tech-savvy visitors engaged.
We looked into the audiences of the CMNH (Carnegie Museum of Natural History) and learned about their primary visitors, and what appeals to these museum visitors. We learned about the museum’s philosophy, objectives, and resources.
Young children are really the most important part of the audiences of CMNH. Families in Pittsburgh visit this museum when they want to spend some leisure time together, and have a safe, indoor place that their children would enjoy. School educators visit the museum to help children learn about natural history, biodiversity, the evolution of species, or human impact.
These learnings helped us derive our focus user group:
Field Research
Museum Visit 1 —Nov 1, 2019
We started the project with a field visit to learn about the museum. Wayfinding seemed like one interesting thing to look into, especially for children. In her popular book, The Participatory Museum, author Nina Simon, says visitors’ needs are varied. Some need to “accommodate energetic children, to be inspired, to see something novel” and these are rarely represented on institutional maps and program listings. She goes on to explain that labels like “Blue Wing” or “People of the Land” don’t help visitors understand what they can see, do, and experience in various places and programs. So, how can a visitor learn to “make their own meaning” from a museum experience if they cannot make meaning from the map?
We spent a few hours just observing visitors, how they interact with different exhibits and within themselves. Experiences that worked well involved accessible content which also facilitated interaction between visitors.
We observed the museum from the perspective of our focus user group, children of ages 5–10. How might it feel to see everything in the museum from a 3 ft height? How might all the information feel to someone who is in 1st grade and just learning to read?
Initial Ideation — Storyboarding Possible Interventions
User Research
Museum Visit 2 — November 9, 2019
In a highly informing field trip, we visited the museum with two members of our target user group: Johnny (age 8) and Elizabeth (age 5). We encouraged them to lead us through the museum, looking at exhibits that interested them for as long as they wanted to, and trying to keep up with them everywhere else! We captured all the interactions that were meaningful to our user group.
What Works?
Tangible interactions, role-playing, restriction-free activities, mystery, discovery, interactive interfaces would be keywords for the elements that work well with children.
Tangible Interactions
This dinosaur footprint received a lot of engagement, because of its tangible nature, no restrictions. 5 yr old Elizabeth observed details like “ this is where the dinosaur’s nails would have been!” Quite a few kids had also queued up to play with it.
Role-playing and Restriction-free Activities
This sand playground is a popular place in the museum, and sometimes they need to put up an “At Capacity” sign. Children enjoy the element of role-playing here: putting on gear, handling tools in the sand, and of course, getting messy with the sand!
One of our initial ideas was based on this sand playground, where we place digital tokens in the form of hidden fossils, and provide an experiential learning setting using those earned tokens. So we hid a few toy fossils in the sand, and let the kids discover them. And we found that they didn’t really want to do much with what they had discovered.
It was very valuable to validate ideas with our focus user group, throughout our design process.
Mystery and Discovery
In a lot of places, we observed that an element of discovery drove a lot of engagement for children. Children stayed for a long time with drawers or boxes that open to reveal fossils, puzzle-activities that build some objects, and this door below that showed a different motion picture every time. Mysterious things also facilitated social interactions, bringing together children from different visitor groups to come together and solve them.
Interactive interfaces
There are a lot of digital panels in the museum, that kids enjoyed interacting with. It is important to note that the information on these displays has very sophisticated language, and it is not readable for children of ages 5–10 years. However, what keeps them engaged is an element of interactivity, that responds to their actions. When they tap somewhere and something happens, it amuses them.
What doesn’t Work?
CMNH has several beautiful, artistic exhibits that can be appreciated by adults and museum enthusiasts. However, most of these exhibits are behind a glass, or do not allow touching. Children of age group 5–10 enjoy handling, playing with, and making things, and exhibits that don’t provide creative freedom or encourage a playful environment are practically inaccessible to them.
Stillness
‘Do not touch’ labels and displays behind glass are confusing for children and tricky to handle for their guardians. While Johnny visualized these elks coming alive and out of the glass into the museum space, Elizabeth invented her own game, imagining this grizzly bear alive whenever she touched it, and then running away!
Inaccessibility
While designing for kids, we definitely need to make sure that all objects, all text, or interactive buttons are accessible to a 3–4 ft tall kid. Also, when kids see drawers, they want to open them! These locked drawers drew quite a lot of effort from our audience for no reason.
Learnings
The museum has important information on the evolution, various species, their habitats, the food chain, endangered species, and even human impact on the Earth’s ecosystem. However, it is just not made for children. Because the communication style is sophisticated, only adults can process the information, and possibly narrate it to children, if they have their attention.
On their own, children enjoy looking at the exhibits, talking about them, and even imagining the exhibits come alive! But there is a lot of potential for augmenting the learning experience.
Itinerary led by kids
Throughout the visit, we let Johnny and Elizabeth lead us through to the museum and spend as much (or as little) time in each exhibit. We tracked how much time they spent in each part of the museum.
We also paid careful attention to the “stickiness” of each exhibit. After leaving the museum one idea really stuck with us:
- What if the animals in the exhibit could “come alive?”
- What if users could change the environment?
- How could teach users about human impact in a fun and engaging way?
Ideation Phase I — Human Impact in the Dioramas
Working session — November 13, 2019
Museum Visit 3 — November 14, 2019
We revisited the Carnegie Museum of Natural History to observe how visitors were moving through the wildlife dioramas. These beautiful dioramas were created by skilled taxidermists and really offered a window into the world of the animals featured.
Although the creatures are all dead, for a moment they just appeared to be frozen in time. We enjoyed how some of the exhibits extended outside of the glass, breaking the boundary of and pulling visitors into the environment.
Working Session — November 15, 2019
Inspired by the wildlife dioramas we explored several ways to increase engagement and allow for positive interactions among visitors within our target audience.
Although the dioramas are beautiful, we thought they were not showing the whole story. The pristine sweeping landscapes showed no evidence of human impact. We thought about how we could show the beautiful, pre-human condition, of the animals and then slowly introduce showing the way in which humans have impacted many species featured in the hall.
Working Session — November 18, 2019
Ideation Phase II — The Anthropocene Living Room
Our intent to explain the human impact on different species and their habitat helped us generate a lot of different ideas that could be integrated with different exhibits in CMNH, particularly the dioramas on their first floor. We further wanted to envision a distinct experience, prototype artifacts, and also iterate upon them based on evaluation with children of ages 5–10 years. We decided to center our efforts on the Anthropocene Living Room of CMNH, where the intent of the museum is also to exclusively explain the human impact on the Earth.
Museum Visit 4 — November 20, 2019
Interested in exploring the idea of human impact, we went back to the place in the museum that was created to educate users about that very subject, Anthropocene Living Room. According to the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, “this new space in the museum was inspired by how humans have and will continue to shape natural history and nature.”
We studied a video produced by the museum featuring Dr. Nicole Heller, Curator of the Anthropocene, sharing her vision for the new space.
Although the new space introduces various elements including items from their collections, books, and other tools for reflection and learning, it offers the information at a higher level, which we found to be difficult for our target audience to grasp.
We decided that we wanted to improve the space and enable children to learn about climate change and their own human impact on the environment.
Problem Statement
The Anthropocene Living Room in CMNH is a great place for visitors to pause and rest. However, the visual artifacts displayed in this room have limited engagement from visitors, especially kids ages 5–10. The information provided in this exhibit about human impact has sophisticated language, lacks hierarchy, and is not really suitable for kids. Although the games in this room keep kids engaged, they lack a connection to learning about Anthropocene.
Working Session— November 20, 2019
Physical Prototyping of the Cube — November 22, 2019
Working Session — November 25, 2019
We detailed out the interactions with cubes, and how they would affect the space. We thought of different ways and evaluated their pros and cons, and tied up any possible loose ends of how this exhibit system would work.
Proposed Flip It exhibit space
After many iterations, we developed the ‘Flip It’ concept, which is is a proposed redesign of the Anthropocene Living Room space. This exhibit is a responsive space that provides children a learning experience about their impact on the environment, through playful social activity.
We felt that this new space would be peaceful, calming, with smells like the forest and soft sounds of nature. Out research found that comfortable couches for adults and bean bag chairs for children would be ideal for taking breaks during the museum journey.
3D rendering of the proposed exhibit space
The exhibit space also has plenty of textured trees, tall grass, plants, rock molds, and fun taxidermy animals. All of the tangible items that help kids feel intrigued and drawn into the area. The room will feature self-serve snacks, drinks, and coffee in recycled cups.
Overall, we wanted to create an inviting place for visitors to pause and reflect while allowing our younger visitors time to get some energy out in an experiential learning setting.
The floor will have many soft, holographic cubes and kiosks with tablets where you can reveal each cube. Our research revealed that children enjoy picking up tangible items and moving them around a physical space. We also learned that children respond to items that they can manipulate with their hands. The proposed cubes allow the visitors to discover them in two ways, first by locating them throughout the exhibit, and secondly, by revealing their digital content using the kiosk screen display.
The design will enable visitors to observe and feel the environment change based on the collective actions of the group. It is determined by the percentages of cubes in the exhibit space that are in a good state versus in a bad state. The exhibit leverages digital displays and augmented reality in the form of a dynamic digital screen, a railing display, a TV, and symbolic visuals.
This immersive environment allows the visitors to experience a spectrum of states, from a pristine landscape, biodiversity, harmony to discord with storms, dead plant life, rising water levels. This exhibit as a whole will act as a metaphor for the Earth’s ecosystem, and it is in the hands of the visitors to determine its state.
Cube design and technology
We really wanted to create something that we could test with our target audience. The concepts we had were relying on future technology, which limited us when it came to prototyping our ideas. We found an existing product called MERGE Cube. MERGE Cube is a holographic cube created for children (but can be enjoyed by everyone). The cube allows the users to physically hold and interact with 3D objects using augmented reality (AR) technology. The MERGE Cube is affordable (at only $15) and is compatible with iOS and Android devices. What we liked about the MERGE cube, is that it is open-source, and they encourage designers to build educational experiences to be hosted and used freely.
Prototyping— December 4, 2019
Concept User Testing and Iterations
Once we developed our concept, we tested it using users in our target audience. The below two videos show a real user (age 8) using the cube for the first time.
Negative State
We had the user read each panel of the cube. We noticed that the user had trouble with a few words outside of his vocabulary, as well as certain concepts relating to the cube states. We then refined our design using this critical user feedback.
Positive State
User Journey
Entice
Our users would receive news about the ‘Flip It’ experience through different media content published by the museum. The museum usually advertises their new exhibits via brochures, outdoor signage, member newsletter, CMNH website, local media, or radio ads. We also see a good possibility of learning about this exhibit through word of mouth, even within the circles of children.
Enter
The exhibit intrigues visitors by offering them a resting place combined with a play area for children. Adults are usually tired by the time they reach this space and would be happy to find a place to take a break, while also having their children nearby.
- This space is peaceful, calming, and smells of nature. Visitors will also recognize soft sounds of nature.
- This space offers comfortable couches, bean bag chairs for children, and plush carpet for floor activities and sitting.
- Textured trees, tall grass and plants, rock molds, taxidermy animals, and other touchable items help draw visitors closer into the space.
- The space also offers self-serve snacks and coffee in recycled cups
Engage
We will engage visitors once they enter the space with clear signage that offers a simple overview of what the ‘Flip It’ space is about and how to use the space to learn more about human impact.
- The museum employee will act as a facilitator. There will always be a museum employee available at the entrance of the exhibit where they will be able to answer any questions as well as assist with the technology. The museum employee will act as a facilitator.
- Visitors will then go into the exhibit where they will start to discover non-descript cubes.
- The user will then take the cube over to the screen display where they will place the cube under the screen.
- The visitor will then see the cube (through the screen) appear as an animal of interests relating to climate change.
- The visitor can then move the cube to reveal information about the object.
- The visitor can then take action by “flipping it” (selecting the desired state of good or bad). For example, one object could be fossil fuels, and the visitor could “flip” the object to renewables, thus turning the object green.
- The percentage of green (good) objects versus red (bad) objects lying in the exhibit space determine what the back wall digital screen landscape looks like. The more green cubes are in the space, then the better off (less human impact) the environment is overall. When there are more red cubes in the space, the environment will start to get worse (storms, dead plant life, rising water).
- The cube object syncs with the user and the movement of the cube can be seen on the screen.
- Visitors will be able to observe and feel the environment change based on the collective actions of the group.
Exit
The feeling that the visitor should have while exiting the exhibit should be positive, empathetic, empowered, and informed. For example, the visitor should have learned about their power to make positive (and negative) change regarding the environment. They should also feel empowered and informed to share their new knowledge and take action locally (within their family and the broader community).
Extend
In order to extend the experience, we plan to offer the cube (coupled with a custom CMNH app) for sale at the gift shop. The gift shop is the first and last place the user sees during their journey.
- With this app and cube, the user can enjoy the entire Flip It experience.
- They can also share it with friends and family which will future the mission of the exhibit.
- Lastly, the visitor is encouraged to come back every few months and the landscape (desert, arctic, rainforest, etc.) of the exhibit and the objects that cubes represent (plants, animals, actions) change.
