360 Explorer for Unseen Connections

A collaboration with Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History

This is a collaboration course between Parsons DT and the Smithsonian Institution NMNH, to brainstorm and rapidly prototype interactive exhibition designs within the context of an upcoming exhibition "Unseen Connections" opening in 2021. We are proposing an interactive video display that creates an attraction point for the Unseen Connection exhibition by introducing a personal narrative. This interactive tool focuses on allowing the user to visit virtual spaces through an interactive video experience. It is designed to accompany individual subcomponents of the exhibition.

Throughout the course of this collaboration, our team prototyped concepts involving AR, projection mapping and interactive devices, and we conducted on-site user-testing at NMNH for our final concept.

This project is done with teammates Jason Chen, Rosa Huang, Sisi Ma, Youchun Zhang and Tong Zhang.

Storytelling

Our design process began with a conversation with the team from NMNH on the core concept of this upcoming exhibition, which is to "reveal the unseen connections between and within all objects through the story of one particular object". These connections are between all objects, humans, and systems, and they can be found around the globe. After a study of potential topics and content within the exhibition, we begin to examine whether the stories that offers personal stories would resonate the most with audiences.

A selection of topics in the Unseen Connections exhibition
by Junko Chinen, NMNH

Initial concept and design

Our approach to designing an interactive component for the Unseen Connections exhibition is to create a device that introduces personal narratives. While the overall exhibition tells stories about the ecology around mobile phones, we are proposing to present supporting visual narratives around specific individuals. For example, as audiences enter the section of the exhibition which is centered around manufacturing, they can use the 360 Explorer to see the life of a factory worker.

The format of a video explorer is preferable to VR headsets for both operation and engagement purposes, it requires less maintenance and allows for multi-user engagement. This format is also easy to repurpose for other content and future exhibitions.

For the purpose of demonstration and testing, we used the Shenzhen Oppo Factory tour 360 video by Pocketnow, a mobile technology news and review platform.

Usability testing session at NMNH

With the opportunity to present our prototype on-stie to real museum visitors, we were excited to test the following aspects of the device: its accessibility, affordance, content design and interaction duration. We split the roles within the team as moderators, observers, and videographers. In order to better understand our users and results, we setup pre- and post-test surveys to obtain both quantitative and qualitative data.

We had 19 participants in total. Because of museum policies, the images shown here are only of museum staff and team members.
A statistical break down of our testing findings is recorded here.

Results and findings

Overall our users found the device approachable and easy to use, and the format to be engaging. 40% of the users turned 360 degrees around, while 30% reported that they didn't know of the option. Users expressed that they needed a greater range of movement before they knew to turn the device. Half of the users rotated less than 180 degrees, and most only tilted the screens less than 30 degrees.

Revised Design

The revised design of this video explorer is situated on a track, which provides more structural support as well as better affordance. The explorer will feature a single curved display.

We made the adjustment of providing only 180-degree rotation to take advantage of the corner conditions in this specific exhibition space, and also to bring focus to the content itself. The device features a more ergonomic handle design and will be complemented with on boarding signage nearby. We also created a set of UI guidelines for content curation, as well as a physical zoom button to allow users to explore specific parts of the video tour.

Special thanks to professor Brad MacDonald and teaching assistant Tu Chao Hui for their guidance and support in the development of this project, and the NMNH team for sharing their knowledge, advices and accommodation.