Project brief
Investigate a bespoke service where visitors to the gallery can pick up a free card, interact with touchscreens, and scan it to collect content that can be accessed at home via the website. The service is underperforming, card registrations are low, and failed content collection is high. My task is to assess the current service and make recommendations for change.
Design challenges
The need to consider many factors beyond digital interfaces; the project requires a holistic approach looking at the entire experience touching on signage, ergonomics of the scanners, interface design, interaction, and flow.
Design deliverables
- Evaulation proposal outlining research approach (word.doc)
- Findings report and recommendations (keynote)
- User journey covering (sketch)
- Concept sketching for interactive touchscreen kiosks (sketch)
- Annotated wireframes (Omnigraffle)
- Recommendations for signage and card designs (sketch)
Project process (research, design, and testing)
1. Compose a semi-structured interview and observation guide to be applied within the 'live' gallery space and administered to visitors. The aim is to observe visitor behaviour without their knowledge in order to ascertain how they interact with NaturePlus in the gallery.
I am interested in what they look at, how long they spend reading instructions and signage, whether they pick up a card, and how they interact with the digital screens. The interview will then enable me to gain an insight into their thoughts and feelings in relation to the interaction, and also find out what their expectations are about the content they have collected. In total, I observe 47 visitors and interview 20.
2. Compilation and analysis of results shows that only 2 out of 47 visitors interact with the service in the desired manner. Evidence indicates that visitors look at but do not read the signage, or the card, then interact in an unexpected manner with the touchscreens. 37% of visitors also mistakenly believe that because the cards have four different types of designs, each type of card influences the type of content they can collect.
Action: Construct a user journey and pinpoint areas of difficulty having an adverse effect on the successful use of the card and touchscreens.
3. Redesign the user journey making recommendations for task allocation and purpose of each of the key touchpoints within the journey e.g. Signage should introduce NaturePlus but not instruct the manner in which the card should be used, the card should manifest as one design rather than four, instructions for use should be contextual and appear on the touchscreen as and when each action is required.
4. I recommend testing messaging and proposed allocation of tasks in the live space. Unfortunately the logistics of signage are deemed too difficult for implementation and I am unable to test my proposed journey in its entirerity.
5. I approach visitors and ask them to test the prototype interactive touchscreen in the live space using an iPad.
Result: All 15 users interact correctly with the prototype, cards are scanned at the appropriate time indicating successful collection of content.
6. Signage, cards, and interactive touchscreens are passed to the Exhibition graphic designer and Digital designer for visual treatment. Several iterations follow with minor tweaks to wording by the editorial team. (Visuals created by Exhibition graphic designer and Digital designer).
