Navigating the High Museum of Art
Developing a map redesign, kiosk and mobile system solution to assist visitors with their navigational needs at the High Museum for my master's thesis project.
Duration
Aug 2024 - April 2025
Role
Research and Design
Team
3 members
Tools
Figma
About the Project
The High Museum of Art, located in Atlanta, GA, is the largest museum for visual art in the Southeastern United States. The original version of the High was designed by Richard Meier in 1983 featuring one building. In 2005, Renzo Piano designed three new buildings to add to the High.
While these were created to be a seamless addition to Meier’s architectural design, they had created issues for visitors ability to navigate the museum.
In a nine month timeline, our goal was to research and design a solution to help ease visitors' difficulties navigating the museum.
Role
In a team of 3, I was a co-lead designer and participated in research. As a designer, I hosted design workshops, ideated solutions, created wireframes, prototyped, and tested our design solution. As a researcher, I conducted multiple research methods.
The Problem
There is a big difference between the visitors' spatial perception of the museum compared to that of the High personnel. Because of this misalignment, giving and receiving directions is difficult and leads to unsuccessful wayfinding. The structure of the High is the main proponent for this confusion. With 3 buildings each with their own number of floors, and two connecting bridges, it can be hard to fully understand how to traverse the space.
Problem Statement
How might we improve users’ experience with navigating between buildings and exhibits in the High Museum?
Research Questions
1
What is currently understood about the relationship between wayfinding and visitor engagement?
2
How do other museums go about guiding their visitors across exhibitions?
3
What does navigation look like for visitors at the High Museum?
4
What is the impact that current navigation tools have on visitor experience at the High Museum?
Our User Group
We identified a diverse user group that varies across age, familiarity with the museum, group size, and motivations/intentions.
Visitor of the High Museum
The Solution
Using existing High Museum web services, create a map redesign and kiosk and mobile website system that allows visitors to plan, save, and navigate to exhibits they want to see during their visit. This system allows for quick use in the museum and for prior planning before beginning their visit.
The Process
My teammates and I (known as The Muse Collective) approached this project in two phases: five months of research and four months of design.
September
Literature review
October
Literature Review
Comparative Analysis
November
Field Observation
Contextual Inquires
December
Contextual Inquiries
January
Inquiries cont.
Interviews
Ideation
February
Wireframing
Concept Testing
Design System
March
Iterative Prototyping
April
Testing
Presentation
Research Methods
Lit Review
Comparative Analysis
Contextual Inquiry
Field Studies
Stakeholder Interviews
Literature Review
Researcher and Analyst
Research Goal
Understand the impact navigation has on visitors and the relationship between way-finding and visitor engagement.
Focus
Museum and Visitor Studies
Wayfinding
Wayfinding in Museums
Key Findings
Explorer related motivations are a common type of identity visitors inherit
Effective wayfinding relies on a combination of clear environmental cues, cognitive strategies, and user-specific factors
Interactive navigation can be helpful, but visually demanding distracting from the art
The design of movement and paths can determine how visitors explore the museum and their levels of engagement
41 papers and articles analyzed
Research Synthesis Workshop
We compiled all of our findings and met with our client's at the High Museum to synthesize our findings with business needs in mind. This 2 hour workshop resulted in the development of our design requirements that helped keep our final design grounded in our research.
Our biggest finding was that there was a disconnect between High personnel and visitors. Our clients told us this was something they never knew and was a pretty big eye opener for them in terms of understanding this problem a lot better.
Research Findings
1
Visitors have a different spatial perception of the building structure compared to the High personnel
2
Visitors have different intentions when coming to the High
3
Many people rely on staff within the museum but it doesn’t always result in successful wayfinding
4
Existing tools show what is offered in the museum but not how to get there nor indicate visitors’ current location
Design Requirements
1
System should bring the two perspectives of the High together (mental model alignment)
2
System should support varying motivations
3
System should support effective communication with High personnel and visitors regarding navigation
4
System should create consistent vocabulary to what is physically existing
5
System should help people navigate from one space to another
Co-Design Workshop
We hosted a co-design workshop with 7 people to help us brainstorm and ensure we explored all possible avenues for our solution. Participants roamed the museum for an hour, then did a round of crazy 8's and had time to iterate and critique their ideas.
Design Synthesis
We compiled our ideas and the ideas from the session, organized them by themes, ranked them based on how many design requirements they met, and then presented our findings to our clients to get their input. During this meeting, we decided that our final solution was a kiosk experience which would later expand to mobile.
Wireframing
Concept Testing
Testing was conducted to get feedback on the layout of the interface to helps us identify any major feature adjustments before the development of the high-fidelity prototype.
Participants were asked to complete two tasks (looking for nearby exhibits and planning a route) using the kiosk and mobile interface, then provide feedback on the concept.
Feedback and Iteration
Participants thought:
The kiosk relieved some cognitive load
The art matching feature was fun
QR codes were convenient and reduce time spent waiting at the kiosk
The system is intuitive and user friendly
When viewing nearby collections, users wanted to see more information when they click on each collection.
When creating a user name to maintaining a saved version of their route, users didn't want to create a username because they didn't understand the benefits. They think if they knew the advantages that came with a “username” they would’ve create one.
Design System
In order for our designs to fit seamlessly into the High's current design system, our system is built upon theirs. Additions to the system include Secondary Colors used for status indicators and icons that we hand-picked. This system was used to create our component library.
4
Iterations
18+
Components
200+
Variations
Testing and Iterations
Prototypes focused on 2 user flows: New Users and Returning Users. All iterations were precedented by Internal Testing, Expert Heuristic Evaluation, or Usability Testing.
Home Screen
The navbar was updated to better reflect the current screen
A section for new exhibits was added to provide users quick access
Map indicators were added to help users identify their location
The map was improved to include a detailed view where users could see the floor plan
A legend was added to explain icons
Explore Collections
Tabs were changed to a list of all exhibits so users could see everything in one view
Maps were made interactive so that users could view details
A location marker was added to the map so that users know where they are in reference to the exhibit they are viewing
My Map
The organization of exhibits was changed so that they are viewable in a list rather than tabs named after buildings
An interactive map was added with legends and location markers
Edit options and mobile access codes were added for map management
Quick start directions were added to help users navigate to exhibits once leaving the kiosk.
Accessible route options were added to mobile versions and routes are marked on the map to help users navigate to exhibits step-by-step
More coming soon...