The interactive museum exhibit project included creating an app with a unique interactive element to represent an exhibit at a museum. The main objective of this project was to create a new and exciting way for museum-goers to experience exhibits, while following iOS guidelines. The chosen exhibit was the Community Coral Exhibit at the Ontario Science centre.
iOS Guidelines
One of the project requirements was to follow Apple UI guidelines. This project uses elements from the UI kit provided by apple and familiar layouts for sign-in pages, navigational elements, buttons, etc, which all helped create an app that followed iOS guidelines.
Touch targets are suggested 59px by 59px, and each touch target within this app is this size or only slightly smaller on one edge, for example extremely long buttons are approximately 50px tall but at least 250px wide, which still makes them easy to click. The target audience is also within a range where they most likely are quite familiar with phones and other personal devices, so they are familiar with buttons that look like this.
The design of the app uses a very deep blue for the background, a colour choice to match the topic and resemble the ocean. This avoided a plain black for the background as that could be difficult on
the eyes and the blue provided enough contrast. The text and graphics are all very vibrant colours, something often seen in coral, the app mainly uses pink, as well as some vibrant blue and orange. The colours have all been accessibility checked.
the eyes and the blue provided enough contrast. The text and graphics are all very vibrant colours, something often seen in coral, the app mainly uses pink, as well as some vibrant blue and orange. The colours have all been accessibility checked.
The type sizes vary between 16px to 24px, and different type elements use bold/regular to establish some hierarchy. The font is Arial, a recognizable sans-serif font, which was used in the Apple UI kit. The app also has some overlays and pop-ups, which also follow Apple UI standards, and will look familiar to any iOS user. These are mostly to get across key information like what gestures to use, etc. There is also a pop up when a user scans crocheted coral, that provides information on the real-world version of the piece of coral that was scanned.
The app works with 4 main gestures; tap, pinch, swipe, and double-tap. Almost everything uses the tap gesture as it is simple and common. Pinch to zoom is also common, and something most users will know if they’ve previously used any sort of camera app.
Testing Results
Most users found the app intuitive. It was easy to follow and every user got through the navigation easily. Most of the feedback was about aesthetics, the text was a little bit too small or there was an empty page or two. All font sizes were increased by 2px after testing to increase legibility, and empty pages were either removed or filled in (testing was conducted during the creation of the app – some pages weren't done yet). It was also suggested that the navigation might be a bit overwhelming, so the menu now has sub-sections to give more context and divide sections so that it is less overwhelming.
Features
The main features of this app are the camera/scanning page, search for coral page, and the quiz/ minigame pages. The camera page is the most important feature, as it allows users to connect the crocheted coral with the real-world versions, as well as providing some information on different roles of different corals in their ecosystems. The search for coral page lets users search for a specific type or a broad class of coral so they can gather more information about it.
The gestures I wanted to include but couldn’t due to software limitations include; swipe up to access camera from any page, double tap to open an image on the search page, and pinch to zoom on the camera.
The colours were chosen to match the theme of deep sea coral, dark for the deep water, and bright for the colours of the coral. The typography is a simple sans-serif that is easy to read and not too thin.
Design Decisions
Overall, the goal of the design decisions was to create an interactive and unique app, which makes for a more immersive experience for visitors of the community coral exhibit. Design decisions like the colour scheme made from key elements of the exhibit, and a comparison of real to crocheted coral help achieve the goals of making a more exciting and interactive museum exhibit.
There are features geared toward the older portion of this target audience, and some fun features for the younger target audience. This app could be used for fun or school trips, and the main purpose is for the target audience to show that they’ve learned something in an interactive way.