Visual and Experience Design

MSU Museum

  • Name: MSU Museum

  • Field: Physical, Virtual, and Visual Experience Design

origin

Let's take a museum exhibit into the digital age.

Timeline

  1. Visit museum, researched and laid out current mission approach and floorplan
  2. Reorganized floorplan with interactive displays and aesthetic visuals
  3. Designed and prototyped a Virtual Reality space
a secondary preview of new visuals in the exhibit
Journey

Problem

Museums, especially those at a much smaller scale or with less of an audience or funding, are finding it more and more difficult to compete with technology in the digital age.

Strategy

Don't compete with the digital age, embrace it. Build an experience for the museum involving technology.

Research

In visiting the MSU Museum, taking consideration of guests’ and curators’ voices, we also measured the floor space and took consideration of how we could maximize the physical area the most in a redesign to optimally use technology and meet all stakeholders' vision, audience and administration.

A sketch of the initial new floor plan
A sketch of the initial new floor plan.

Challenges

A main challenge we faced was how we could be innovative with technology in the limited amount of physical space provided, without needing renovations or causing too much construction in the current exhibit, which may hinder an already diminished audience.

Response

Our response to this problem was to redesign the floor-plan of the exhibit, making space for our visual additions, interactive panels, and an Augmented Reality space.

Moral

Solution

In making museums more interactive, and more of an experience, through technology, we approached the Michigan State University Museum Hall of Evolution exhibit to move further with the redesign—an effort to augment reality and the human experience (apologies for how cringe-worthy that sounds).

New brand for the Evolution Exhibit as part of the redesign
New brand for the Evolution Exhibit as part of the redesign.
New Evolution Exhibit brand and color scheme implemented in floor of exhibit
New Evolution Exhibit brand and color scheme implemented in floor of exhibit.
New Evolution Exhibit brand and color scheme implemented in display case of exhibit
New Evolution Exhibit brand and color scheme implemented in display case of exhibit.

As part of the interaction design, we developed prototypes of multi-touch interactive planets rather than static poster-board cards and used the large, empty space in between the display to create an AR experience.

We prototyped the Virtual Reality (VR) experience using javascript to demonstrate a 3D scene surrounding the user that one could view through moving their phone as a lens. This experience strove to convey a lesson, apart from setting the scene in different parts of the evolution of life, by allowing users to interact with the environment in different ways and see the impact humans, might have or have, had on the environment at different points in the planet's history.

Growth

Conducting research as part of a team and deriving a physical experience rather than solely web or digital from that experience.

Impact

Rapidly prototyping in javascript with a 3D parallax effect for a physical experience to immerse visitors to further promote call to action rather than a single button (on a website/app).