3. Museum Audio App
Background
Museum audio app
Design an audio-tour app for a museum
-Google UX Design Certificate
Project Type | Assignment
Duration | 2 Weeks
My Role | UX\UI
The purpose of this design project is to enhance the user experience of the British Museum audio app.
The goals are to improve the sales rate of audio tours and alleviate any pain points that users may have encountered.
UX Process
Given the tight 2-week timeframe for this project, I applied a lean UX process with two diverge/converge phases to complete the design.
Understand
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Literature Review
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Social Media
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Current Site Map
Define
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Persona
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HMW
Ideate
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User flow
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Sketch
Prototype & Test
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Lo-fi prototype
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Usability testing
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Hi-fi prototype
Phase 1 - Understand
1. Literature Review
"Visitors often come to the museum with specific expectations about the highlight objects they want to see; we observed the same behavior almost universally [2]
Mannion et al. [1] have introduced the Visitor Attribute Scales to better understand museum visitors' motivations. They come up 6 attributes:
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"Time" perception of time. An important factor in deciding to use an audio guide.
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"Confidence" indicates a visitor's belief in their ability to explore the museum unaided and control the visit experience.
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"Authority" is the desire to retain or willingness to relinquish power in deciding what to see and how to see it.
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"Tools" as the likelihood of visitors using materials for assistance.
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"Movement" as the visitor's route through museum spaces and whether it is structured or self-contained
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"Aim" was defined in the original study as "Strength and Specificity in predicting whether someone would take an audio guide." The authors assume that visitors with "strong" and "specific" aims were less likely to use an audio guide, while those with less specific aims were more open to it.
However, this is highly influenced by how the app was marketed and promoted. A tour package for 1 or 2 highlights objects could also be a lead-generation opportunity.
A follow-up study by Hudelson et al. [2] analyzed the behavior of users on the new audio guide app and provided some observations and insights.
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Visitors have specific objects they want to see in the museum.
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There are difficulties in navigating the museum for all user groups.
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Older users had trouble using the app's features.
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Users want more content.
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Some museum terms were confusing to audio guide users.
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Visitors from different cultural backgrounds have different preferences for tour packages and want to listen in their own language.
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Users from Italy were more familiar with the keypad than the audio app itself.
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Users stop looking at the screen once they find the object they are looking for.
2. Social Media
I conducted a short social media study by searching for reviews containing the words "audio" or "app" in The British Museum Google Maps review section. From this search, I identified the lowest-rated reviews that mentioned potential pain points.
3. Current Site Map
As part of this design exercise, I have explored the latest version of the British Museum audio app and created a site map for reference.
Mannion et al. [1] proposed 3 paper personas. 1. Annette, 2. Leonard, and 3. Ming. I integrated insights from Hudelson et al. [2] as well as observations from google map reviews and updated them with behaviors and characteristics specific to different user groups.
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I have redefined the "Aim" attribute as an indicator of visitors' motivations and behaviors. The attribute can be broken down into four quadrants:
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Strong and Specific: Visitors with a clear and specific goal, such as "I'm going to see the Rosetta Stone and other stuff in this guidebook."
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Strong and Loose: Visitors with multiple goals but varying specificity, such as "I want to see the Rosetta Stone, Sophilos Vase, The Parthenon Sculptures...and all the "famous" objects!"
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Weak and Specific: Visitors with a loose plan but a specific goal in mind, such as "It would be great if I can go see the Rosetta Stone, but let's see if there's anything else interesting."
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Weak and Loose: Visitors with no specific plan, just looking for something interesting or fun.
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I created a persona for Leonard's daughter to represent the Gen Z age group and make them a representation of the family visitors.
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I adjusted Ming's Confidence and Authority to align with the google map reviews.
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I adjusted Annette's Movement and Aim to reflect the "Conscientious consumption" behavior.
These updates provide a deeper understanding of the motivations and limitations of museum visitors and can inform the design of an audio guide to better meet their needs.
Persona #1
Annette - Wandering Expert - Conscientious consumption
Phase 2 - Define
1. Persona
Persona #2
Larry & Sophia (father & daughter) - Common Family - Code hunting
Persona #3
Ming - Non-Native - Casual use
2. How Might We
Eight pain points were compiled from previous research and my own experience with the current app. These pain points were then reframed into HMW statements, and a brainstorming session was conducted to generate possible solutions.
Phase 3 - Ideate
1. User Flow
After the brainstorming session, I organized the information architecture of the new design to define the scope of the upcoming exercise.
2. Sketch
I did a quick ideation exercise to develop ideas for addressing opptunity identified in the How Might We and Persona.
Phase 4 - Prototype & Test
1. Lo-Fi Prototype
After ideating and drafting some paper wireframes, I created the Lo-Fi prototype.
2. Usability study
I then conducted a usability study with 5 participants and followed up with a short interview. I found 3 issues with the Lo-Fi prototype.
#1
Hamburger Menu not able to links to certain pages
Most participants reported difficulty in accessing the main feature through the hamburger menu.
#2
Unable to find the Navigatie feature in the map
Most participants failed to access the Navigation feature without assistance in the prototype.
#3
Dead End in the
Navigatie tool
All participants encountered a dead end when using the navigation tool and were unsure of how to proceed when they reached the end of the navigated instructions.
3. Hi-Fi Prototype
Based on the insights from the usability studies, I applied some design changes:
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Integrate button navigation items into the hamburger menu and put "Achievements, Purchases, Downloads" into "Profile" to fix #1 and save space with simplicity.
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Make the navigation tool the priority map to fix #2, and add a button for accessing the whole map so that the user won't miss the navigates feature.
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Add an ending page for the navigation tool to fix #3 and recommend surrounding tours/highlights to increase potential sales.
Discussion
1. Impact
This design approach resulted in the creation of a new version of the British Museum audio app, aiming to increase sales and improve overall usability.
As this was a passion project, the focus was primarily on conceptual design and did not include other essential elements such as administration and development constraints. Since internal analytical data was unavailable, the decision-making process relied on secondary research and assumptions.
Despite this limitation, the design presents new ideas and opportunities for further exploration and can be viewed as an ideation process.
Further consolidation with the actual design would be beneficial for future iterations of the project.
2. What I learned
Designing for a museum environment poses numerous challenges, particularly with the diverse cultural and educational backgrounds of users, as well as the need to consider accessibility for those with impairments. It is challenging to create a solution that fully addresses the needs of all users. Therefore, a more flexible and adaptive approach, such as using a lean and agile methodology, must be implemented to continually improve and tailor the current solution to better suit the specific use case.
3. Next steps
As this design is a passion project that is based on secondary research and assumptions, it can serve as a potential solution in the ideation process. However, if the British Museum team decides to pursue this design, the following steps can be implemented:
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Conduct A/B testing and conduct follow-up interviews to determine what works.
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Define a product MVP to keep the design process lean and agile, and ensure that the app can adapt to the diverse needs of its users.
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Review the business model to explore potential partners for acquiring audio content in other languages, educational levels, and cultural backgrounds.
Reference
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An audio state of mind: Understanding behaviour around audio guides and visitor media." MW2015: Museums and the Web 2015. Published February 1, 2015. Consulted January 2, 2023.
https://mw2015.museumsandtheweb.com/paper/an-audio-state-of-mind-understanding-behviour-around-audio-guides-and-visitor-media/ -
Hudelson, Natalia, Casey Scott-Songin and Han Li. "Our work is never done: evaluation and iteration for a new audio guide." MW17: MW 2017. Published January 28, 2017. Consulted January 2, 2023.
https://mw17.mwconf.org/paper/our-work-is-never-done-evaluation-and-iteration-for-a-new-audio-guide/