AR Museum Experience

An immersive visitor experience for the Carnegie Museum of Natural History.

2021
Extended reality, 3D interaction design

Details

Team: Elaine Lu, Kate Guo
Carnegie Museum of Natural History
4 weeks, Interaction Design Studio

My role

Exploratory research, staff interviews, concept development, UI/UX, 3D animations, video production, project management

Tools

Cinema 4D, Spark AR, Rhinoceros 3D, Figma, After Effects, Premiere Pro, Dimension, Aero

Selected Exhibit & Experience Map

Video Demo

Many museums face the challenge of transitioning to more experientially dynamic spaces. We reimagined the museum’s underwater exhibit, featuring real fossils from the Cretaceous Period (145-66 MYA). This space represents an opportunity to help the museum make learning about the past relatable by encouraging visitors to consider human connections with aquatic ecosystems, while engaging visitors through immersive visual stories that bring the exhibits to life.

Submerge consists of 4 parts: (1) Onboarding, (2) Exploratory learning, (3) Tangible interactions, (4) Visitor reflection.

Timeline

1. Research & Project Definition

Literature review, interviews, contextual observations, opportunity areas, design principles

2. Concept Development

Museum exhibit selection, scoping & prioritization, content map, user journey, storyboards, systems diagram

3. Experience Design

Mobile UI/UX, 3D object animations, 3D modeling, visual design, branding & marketing assets

4. Prototyping & Testing

Video production, proposal framing, testing, UX refinements

1. Research & Project Definition

According to Cooper Hewitt’s Tools and Approaches for Transforming Museum Experience, museums are incomplete. Instead of providing answers, “we have real opportunities to inspire questions, create space for curiosity, and encourage close examination of complex topics and ideas.” Collecting museums have long upheld their tradition of caring for and studying the objects. But what’s missing are the relationships between these objects to people from the past, present, and future.

We were interested in exploring co-creation, and immersive ways to engage and people as collaborators with the museum, for more impactful learning experiences.

Staff and Visitor Interviews

Based on 10+ visitor interviews, 6 staff interviews, and contextual observations, we found gaps between the museum’s desired experience and the visitors’ lived experience: (1) relatability of exhibits, (2) unclear sequence of information, (3) passive learning due to cognitive overload (4) lack motivation to return when there’s no new content.

Museum Challenges

After prioritizing the museum’s challenges, mission and vision, and hearing feedback from visitors, we decided to focus our design proposal on addressing three parts of the museum experience that are desirable to both:

  1. attracting visitors

  2. enhancing learning and inviting participation

  3. and connecting people with nature in more impactful ways

2. Concept Development

Selected Exhibit

The Western Interior Seaway (“Cretaceous Seaway”) was a large inland sea from the Cretaceous period. The Cretaceous is known as the last period of the "Age of Dinosaurs” with warm climate and high sea levels.

The exhibit is situated in the “Age of Dinosaurs” which is the largest section of the museum. The space has high traffic, with three different entrances to the exhibit.

Source: Carnegie Museum of Natural History

Main Diorama | Cretaceous Seaway Exhibit

Entrance | Cretaceous Seaway Exhibit

The AR Opportunity

While the space itself attempts to make visitors feel they are underwater with the large murals, dim lighting, and ambient ocean sounds, this setup represents an underwater experience that can easily be enhanced with AR. The layer of information and structure that we provide over the current exhibit can be adopted by the museum at a lower cost and used by all visitors owning mobile phones.

Disconnected fossil objects and situated in the exhibit space

Organized ecosystem content

2D and 3D UI Prototyping

We tested many versions of the 3D UI components to adjust for visibility of the 3D object in the space, material and visual style, and to find the appropriate motion to represent the AR objects appearing.

3. Experience Design

Onboarding

We conceptualized the user journey in three parts: before the museum, at the exhibit, and at the end of the exhibit. The purpose of three touch points is to first generate awareness and publicity for the museum and engage visitors through improved multi-sensory experiences at the exhibit, then provide a takeaway at the end by offering a moment of reflection for visitors and feedback to the museum.

Moving forward, these three key moments guided our design decisions.

When visitors enter the space, they will find instructional posters that describe how to get started with the Submerge AR experience.

Poster animation sequence

Exploratory Learning

Scan to see the fossils’ living form in AR

“Many people don’t even notice the mosasaurs on the ceiling. If you look up close, they actually have two sets of teeth. I always have to point out this detail to visitors.” — Staff

“I want to know what the fossils were like when they were alive.” — Visitor

When visitors enter the exhibit, they can repeat the behavior of scanning fossils to see their living form. Gestures include tapping on the creature to see them move, scale up and down, rotate, and move closer to see them in detail.

Uncover the Ecosystem

Tap on the bubbles to view information about their predators and/or prey relationships. Check the ecosystem map, which indices other sea creatures to find and learn more.

This story about ecosystem relationships already exists in the entire museum. BUt the indexical nature of the exhibits makes this story fade to the background and visitors only realize it through passive learning. The same concept of augmenting static artifacts to reveal related artifacts and species could be applied to any exhibit.

“Many people don’t even notice the mosasaurs on the ceiling. If you look up close, they actually have two sets of teeth. I always have to point out this detail to visitors.” — Staff

“I want to know what the fossils were like when they were alive.” — Visitor

Scanning fossils to see them in life

Tangible Experience

Supporting hands on learning

“People learning different ways so having something people can touch definitely helps with learning.. even my first reaction was to touch the fossils.” — Head Preparator, PaleoLab

“I would want to know how they got the fossils…” — Visitor

Tangible learning opportunities for play and research.

Scanning fossils to see them in life

Reflection and Feedback

“We always want visitors to leave with learning something new and maybe take action in meaningful ways that relate to the natural world… help protect it.” — Staff

“I like sharing when I learn something interesting” — Visitor

Visitors typically pass by floor-to-ceiling glass display case when they enter and exit the exhibit. We proposed projecting a fish tank containing current species.

Visitors can select a fish from the tank and compose a message. After releasing the message, they can see other comments from visitors.

Feedback and Future Work

“Since users’ expect immediate and quick gratification when opening a filter, I wonder how you might encourage users to spend more time with the filter and experience some of the other features you’ve built out.” – Jonah

“The choice of turning skeletons to 3D models makes sense in terms of using AR technology. I also like that you brought tangible interactions to the museum, which is acting as a good anchor point to the physical world.” – Z