Burke Museum Cards
An interactive card game experience designed for the Burke Museum
Role
- UX Designer
- Illustrator
Time Frame
8 weeksTeam Members
- Savong Tan
- Kairavi Chahal
- Johnathan Tran
Tools
- Adobe Illustrator
- Paint Tool Sai
Context
Our team was invited by the Burke to come up with new ideas and concepts that could work in their new space and promote engagement.
These cards provide unique experiences for visitors by allowing them to see the museum from another perspective, similar to mechanics at other theme parks that combine the physical realm and the digital realm to deliver introspective experiences.
The poster that was presented to the Burke Museum staff.
Research
The Burke Museum did us the honor of providing us a 46-page evaluation report on how visitors reacted to their "Inside-Out" exhibits which featured researchers on display working, and allowed guests to interact with researchers as they did their work, whether it was organizing handcrafted baskets, cleaning the t-rex skull, identification of fossils or animal prep. Overall, the findings supported that the experimental exhibit was well-received among museum visitors, and the human connection of the exhibit contributed to visitors feeling comfortable, engaged and connected to the Burke.
However, visitors desired more interaction in the exhibits. Parents and children agreed they would like more interactive elements that incorporated touch and play. The popular museum activities among children and families were the dinosaur sorting exercise, x-ray activity, archival materials and labeling bones.
Meeting the Staff
To get more context on our client's work, we interviewed the devleoper of the "Inside-Out" exhibit, Melissa Kennedy. We structured our interview questions to make sure we understood the work involved in developing an exhibit, the museum space itself, participant experiences, the audience and their goals, and the future for experimental exhibits in the museum.
“People really like to see what goes on behind the scenes, and live work happening. Even if they can’t talk to a researcher, just a handwritten note is exciting for visitors.”
Main Findings
- Important to be respectful - the Burke values decolonization and hearing other's voices
- Authenticity and transparency - Being able to see how exhibits are being created makes it easier for people to have deeper interactions with them
- Experiences are more valuable to guests, especially among millennials.
One of the 4 walls we did affinity diagramming on.
Design Requirements
With our research phase conducted, we came up with our design questions and requirements based on the needs and mission of the Burke Museum by condensing our findings. To analyze our research notes, we did affinity diagramming and separated our notes on walls categorized by constraints, audience, human connection, and visitor engagement.
Questions
- How might we increase visitor engagement?
- How might we create stories/experiences that highlight cross-cultural or interdisciplinary knowledge?
Requirements
- Appeal to all ages
- Different & engaging museum experience
- Provide multiple perspectives or new knowledge
- Encourage interactions between visitors and staff at the new Burke Museum
Ideation
Using our knowledge and research from the Burke Museum and design requirements, our team had a couple of design charettes to come up with ideas on how we would create a new exhibit space to increase engagement. Our 2-hour design charette consisted of the four "double-diamonds" ideation technique: discovering insights to the problem, defining an area to focus on, developing potential solutions and then delivery of solutions.
The prompts we used in this phase were:
- "how might we highlight stories that share multiple perspectives and share knowledge?"
- "how might we fill the "inside-out" spaces that are not occupied or closed off for privacy?"
- "how might we increase visitor engagement?"
- "how might we design for more authentic museum exhibits and experiences?"
Some concepts we came up with included live action role playing games where visitors could pretend to be a researcher or scientist, scavenger hunts around the museum, ways to increase communication between researchers and visitors, increasing ways of socializing between guests and card games. Eventually, we combined the aspects of our ideas we liked to create the concept for an interactive card scavenger hunt. We were inspired by theme parks that combined the physical world and digital, such as Disney's MagicBand, Harry Potter's Wizarding World Interactive Wands, MagiQuest and Nintendo's Amiibo.
Disney MagicBand
Nintendo Amiibo
Harry Potter’s Wizarding World
Concept
The idea we settled on was a combination of a scavenger hunt, role-playing card game with interactive discoverable elements. We decided on fleshing out the idea of interactive cards. The way the cards work is that each would be assigned an occupation, such as a zoologist, paleontologist or anthropologist and users could go on a "journey" in the museum. Their occupation would effect the journey in what they unlock via touchpoints. The touchpoints would be connected to an exhibit and some effect would take place when unlocked. Different occupations may see different effect catered to them.
Scanners and Delivery Mechanisms
As the cards were created, we mapped out a framework for how an implementation of our concept would work. We kept it simple and allowed options for the Burke, so if they would be implementing it they could go in their own direction.
We have physical scanners accomanying our cards. Ideally, they would be RFID or NFC chips in the cards and the scanners would be scattered among different exhibits. If the user finds a scanner with their symbol, a certain "event" will happen. These events can range from extremely simple(unlocking a fold out box or video on a screen) to more advanced (simulation of an erupting volcano through lights and sound effects)
A “informative” interaction could reveal something simple as a fun fact.
A more advanced effect could be a volcano eruption (with lighting changes and sound effects of course!)
Cards
As the main illustrator for the cards, I sketched out some early designs that were more illustrative. Ultimately, we went with a flat color simple design to keep up with Burke’s desire to modernize it’s branding and be more attractive to all-ages. I kept the Burke's teal and hot pink colors and made the figures more neutrally colored to not be too straining on the eyes.
For a gamification aspect of the cards, we added a stamp system where the stamps could be given out by the card scanners. This would add to the achievement and collectibility value of the cards. The different occupations makes the cards more personable and making everyone's museum visit unique. Plus, it could encourage return visitors if they want to collect more cards. With the occupations, visitors could even get inspiried to talk to the researchers in the museum about their occupation to enhance the human connections during their visit and hopefully inspire a new generation of scientists.
Reflection
In my education, we spend a lot of time designing strictly for screens. I'm really glad this opportunity gave me a chance to design for a physical space and work with more interactive elements. There is a lot of fun to be explored in physical spaces that I would love to design more for. Going to Disneyland, a museum, gallery or theme park are all experiences that have been designed to be delightful and insightful, and being able to work on a project for the museum space just made me appreciate that more.
If I were to have more time, I would love to work with the museum staff to flesh out full visitor journeys and possible scavenger hunts that could work with these cards! It would be awesome to have a full story on how interactions with these cards and museum artifacts could work!