Project Details
Title: IMAN: Experiential App for the Smithsonian NAAHC Museum
Role: Concept Development, Interaction Design, UI Design
Tools: Adobe Illustrator, Sketch, Principle
Overview
The conceptual development behind this project was aimed to address a shift in the museum experience paradigm to promote COVID protocols. As museums seek less visitor density in spaces and hands-free interactions, they find themselves falling short of creating what nevertheless still feels like a full and intentional experience. Using my knowledge of emerging creative technologies and systems architecture, I devised a feasible conceptual design for a new museum application leveraging AI technology to drive new stories and visitor movement and AR visualizations for contact free engagement.
The Problem
Due to favoritism and the current political climate, for this design sprint, I wanted to focus on a design intervention for the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC). In light of a health and racism pandemic, I see a future need for a solution that will promote the efficient and safe use of the museum space and empower many people, who in response to the killing of George Floyd, have expressed they “needed to do the work” to battle America’s greatest problem.
How do we create an engaging museum experience in light of a global pandemic?
Research
Due to these unprecedented times, I was unable to conduct any primary research using the appropriate methodologies that would allow me to gain the proper insights to design an intervention for the museum. Therefore, I relied heavily on secondary research. These sources included: case studies completed by other designers for different museums, tech articles written about emerging tech and implementations in various museums, and travel articles and reviews written about the NMAAHC experience.
The biggest trends are web-based audio tours, AR interactions and navigation, Bluetooth beacons and RSSI distancing, and AI robots and chatbots.
Goals
Create an immersive experience that augments, rather than distracts from the physical experience.
It’s easy for users to focus on the technology; it’s shiny and cool. With a mobile app, it’s even easier for users to get distracted as social, text, and email notifications take their attention away from what’s happening around them. How do you introduce a mobile app without taking away from the in person experience?
Establishes a unique experience appropriate for those visiting in groups.
Often times, the digital apps created for museums are limited to a single device and experiences amongst groups are siloed. This app should create a collaborative environments amongst a group so visitors leave with a shared experience.
Promotes current COVID safety precautions.
In order to maintain a safe environment, the most crucial regulations require wearing a mask and social distancing. How can an app ensure that people maintain a safe distance with limited space?
Is a solution accessible to those with all abilities.
There are many digital and physical factors that feeds into accessibility. Can users digitally access the information? Is the content available for those that have sight and hearing disabilities? What about physically? Does this solution afford users to use the space around them so that their needs are met?
Solution
Meet IMANi. She’s an AI personality built to empower learning and discovery within the National African American Museum of History and Culture. By leveraging AR and spatial technology, IMANi immerses her guests through a personalized, multi-user tour exploring themes and artifacts celebrating blackness in the US.
Features
Create Your Own Adventure Guide
Provides a fluidly structured Adventure Mode or exploratory Roaming Mode that immerses users into the museum narrative and experience.
The Adventure Mode utilizes our AI chatbot IMANi to guide visitors through a specially curated narrative theme of their choice. IMANi will initiate conversation by guiding visitors to establish settings for their adventure including: the duration of the adventure, a suitable age range for user(s), and prior subject matter knowledge.
Once the settings have been selected, IMANi will suggested an adventure route based on a particular theme or offering the museum has available. When one has been chosen, IMANi will begin narrating her interactive tour.
Throughout the tour, IMANi will lead a conversation amongst users to provide context for new information and prompt users to engage with her, simulating a real time tour guide.
Group Experience
Just like any tour guide, IMANi is equipped to provide group experiences. Visitors can start a group adventure by using a lead device to initiate the tour. Once the settings have been selected, IMANi will prompt the user to add additional guests to the tour by generating a QR code for the extra devices to scan.
Once the code is scanned, additional devices’ Adventure Mode will enter Follow Mode. In Follow Mode, users become spectators and receive the same visual and audio cues that the lead device does. However, actual interaction with IMANi can only occur on the lead device. Groups are encouraged to interact with one another to formulate the group’s answers to IMANi’s prompts and explore the museum together.
AR Powered Immersion
IMAN guides her visitors in an immersive AR experience by using CV technology to recognize artifacts and guide visitors.
The themed adventure tour is formatted to guide users throughout the museum to see and hear about different artifacts. IMANi will give an artifact to search for and offer directional guidance to help locate it. Once located, users are asked to point their cameras to the artifact so IMANi can verify you’ve found the right one, share its connection to history, and continue her narration.
In Roaming Mode, visitors can freely explore artifacts without a given structure by scanning any object at any time. They simply point their camera to the artifact, and IMANi can inform guests about their new discovery.
Personal Artifact Library
In either Adventure or Roaming mode, users can build their own artifact library by saving artifacts that they’ve found throughout their visit. This allows guests to later refer to the content they learned and empowers deeper exploration and information sharing.
Integrated Architectural Systems Information
The IMANi app isn’t limited to just mobile devices. It takes on a more systematic approach and utilizes spatial information technologies to promote COVID safety rules. IMANi gains a sense of visitor density based on occupancy sensors measuring CO2 levels and cameras using computer vision technology. IMANi uses this data to help recommend certain themes and reroute tour paths by altering narrative pacing so guests are properly space out without feeling as though they are traffic jammed or missing out on the experience.