¡Adelante! Team Clemente Pushes Forward

“¡Adelante!” in Spanish means “onwards” or “forward.”

Time really flies and it’s crazy for our team to think that we only have a few more weeks left to wrap up these final research activities! The end of the spring semester marks a midpoint of our Capstone project. Of course, research will extend into our summer semester where we validate and test our ideas but we have come a long way since January. From directed story-telling about participant’s most memorable museum experiences to Minecraft to the Social prototype, our team has been speeding ahead to understand, “What makes a museum a museum?” and “What could museums be?”

Insights from Social and Patron Research Activity

A few weeks ago, we left off introducing the Social Pretotype, where we created a virtual exhibit walkthrough experience on Google Slides. Participants would watch three videos by Storycorps and be presented with a “reflection board” left behind by other participants after each video. They were free to add comments on the reflection board if they wished to.

We found that participants desired social interactions with friends, particularly in a live setting. With strangers, they were only comfortable with interacting asynchronously, and not in a live setting.

Here are 2–3 key insights we would like to share.

Social Pretotype:

1. Observing the thoughts, feelings and reflections of others around a common experience point creates a stronger connection to that experience, regardless if it is virtual. This is true for both friends and strangers.
2. In order to leave a public reflection, people need to have a personal connection with the story/content, feel like their comment/reflection adds value to the conversation, and feel comfortable contributing (anonymity).
3. Allowing people to process their thoughts and emotions after a given experience or story makes for a more lasting impression.

At the same time, several other team members were hard at work interviewing patrons of the museum. While we only expected important themes from Clemente’s life to emerge, we ended up finding much more.

1. Clemente’s experiences with racism and injustice are relevant now more than ever. Younger generations can resonate strongly with his struggles as a minority in the United States and his work serving marginalized communities, connecting it to today’s challenges.
2. People are intrigued and simultaneously comforted by the dichotomous stories of Clemente’s struggles and success, where they recognize Clemente has a complex and relatable character, to model his perseverance for success.
3. The history and how the Clemente museum came to be, especially the idea that it was built from the passion of one man, compared to other museums, makes people curious and want to visit the museum again.

These three insights gave our team a direction to go in. Not only did we gain content with which we can curate an engaging experience around Roberto Clemente, but we also gained an understanding of people’s motivations behind visiting (and re-visiting) the museum.

Conceptual Prototype

So, now that our research foundation was solid, we started slowly transitioning towards thinking about potential solution space (how exciting!). Before summer comes around, we expect to load up on our creative juices in order to go into deep ideation mode once the project picks back up. Our conceptual prototype has been a good segway to dip our toes into the ideation phase.

After several iterations of our conceptual prototype, our team ultimately decided to draft 20 storyboards to test multiple potential museum futures through a process called speed dating. The great thing about these rough sketches is that they’re cheap and quick. Plus, by getting each participant to look at 8 storyboards, we can have each storyboard reacted to at least three times! The statistics just don’t lie.

So, now you’re probably wondering how we came up with 20(!) ideas. Well, I’m glad you asked. We tweaked an ideation game that another MHCI capstone team designed. The general gist is that out of our five team members, 2 are big brains. They spitball ideas, both good and bad. Then, there are two third eyes. This role tries to bring the ideas back to reality and our project goal. Finally, the last team member takes notes so we don’t miss any of the juicy stuff. From here, each round is quick, only lasting around 5 minutes. The big brains are given a problem space (aka a “how might we” question) and a design constraint that they have to keep in mind. For example, how might we utilize all five senses to create a unique experience with the constraint that the target audience doesn’t like sports at all? Feel free to leave any ideas as a comment below!

The online game room we used to facilitate our ideation session

With some initial ideas in tow, it was simply a matter of sketching them out. P.S. Yes, we know they look a bit rough. They’re called sketches for a reason. And we’re proud of them!

One of the 20 storyboard ideas we’re piloting.

From here, we’ll show 18–30 year olds a random set of storyboards and ask them about their reactions — what do they like, what do they feel uncomfortable with, what would they change about the design, and more. We’re hoping for explosive reactions here, like when a player hits a home run or when your favorite team strikes out. No matter how positive or negative, a strong response is better than just feeling ‘okay’ about an idea. These responses will be crucial to us as we begin moving into ideation. You’re not even ready for what we can come up with. Stay tuned.

Spring Deliverables

As we move to transition between research and design, our team is looking to consolidate and present our work from the past months. In our report, we’re bringing together all of our insights, presented by theme, and connecting them to the research narrative we’ve been building all semester. This report acts as the complete encyclopedia for our research, that which can be referred to in the future. Our presentation then encapsulates the most key elements of this work, which we will build to communicate to and engage our clients and HCI faculty. Lastly, the website will stand as a monument to what we’ve accomplished so far, and displayed publicly to link to our report and presentation.

As we craft these artifacts, each for a specific purpose and audience, we feel a sense of pride in the work we’ve done. We’re weaving together the insights and our excitement exploring Roberto Clemente and storytelling, to tell our own story.

Signing Off,

Team Clemente