Gates Foundation/SVC Capstone Project Seattle
Roles-Researcher, UX writer, Usability, Space Auditor
How do you deliver back to your audience without knowing the “who” of who they are?
This was the challenge we wanted to address for the Gates Foundation’s Discovery Center.
The Discovery Center showcases some of the 28 worldwide initiatives the foundation is working on at any given time.
Their audience is individuals and students motivated in understanding and potentially fostering social change.
Discovery
During initial research, I spent 17 hours onsite, making multiple sketches, taking pictures, and observing 64 guests interacting with interactive exhibits and tours.
What I saw- The foundation’s only demographic data gathering was done via a printed guest book and a tablet-based exit survey. Both were underutilized and went largely unnoticed.
The survey was long. I clarified with the client what their most important data needs were now. Later as we started working towards a solution, this conversation became the basis for the questions I used on our initial paper prototype.
Ideation
Field trip!
We saw in person how the foundation employs interactive exhibits to give a voice to visitors. An example would be creating a digital poster with a positive slogan for social change, or suggestions for educators about ways to create better learning models. The interactives are popular, but because they are not attached to the back end, no help in the foundations’s quest for data.
We were collectively interested in creating an interactive data visualization that would inspire visitors to share information about themselves.
An idea started to bloom-create a nature based art object that would grow in detail or shape (homage to the northwest home of the foundation) as our user input their data. That object might then connect to a larger community of similar objects to signify the power of togetherness.
I was reading The hidden life of trees by Peter Wohlleben. It talks about how trees speak to each other through their root systems as a support for the whole community. It got me thinking about leaves and trees. The individual and the whole. Had I found a visual theme to base the prototype on? It did feel on point for the Foundations’s mission.
I used this tree of life visual as a space holder for how the final screen of the interaction might feel. A large screen that would be IG and selfie friendly to further promote the Discovery Center to a wider audience.
Approach
Our initial usability question-how might users view sharing their personal information with the foundations via a data visualization.
My goal-to learn about our users and gauge their interest in our concept.
I developed a paper prototype with the top four data points most important to the Gates Foundation
Native Language.
Where they were visiting from.
Age.
What causes they most interested in learning more about.
This is the progression of the art object forming as visitors answered each question.
When they completed the flow, my usability script informed them to imagine their completed leaf moving up the screen and joining a branch of the tree of life. That particular branch would now pulse to show that their data was joining visitors with similar information.
Key insights from users:—
Want to choose their age from numbers over an infographic, and age range over a specific number.
Enjoyed the gamification idea of their data being turned into an object.
Liked the concept of their object joining a larger community.
User confidence was split over sharing their email or contact info. But after users were informed through a script change this was a project for the Gates Foundation, confidence level switched to high.
The biggest actionable insight going forward- users found the idea of an art piece takeaway less interesting than seeing more of how they connected to other guests.
We were excited, but a problem presented. The Foundation gets over 80,000 visitors annually. How could the design space of our display compensate for that many visitors interacting with our piece? We realized the level of generative design that would have to be employed to keep our tree growing and inter-relating would be beyond the eight week scope of our project. We were going to need to change direction with our visual concept.
The Opportunity
What we had discovered so far
Our users felt comfortable with the Gates Foundation using their demographic info.
Delight had been achieved by seeing their data become graphical.
They were more interested in seeing how they related to other guests than creating a stand along art object.
Our client loved the concept and user feedback at our five week presentation, and we were given the go ahead to move farther in this direction.
Time to jump to a mid fi prototype. Because of the art direction change, we decided to return to some sketch ideation we had done as a group during the first week, and agreed that new direction would be based on the shared concept of push pin maps and build user connectivity from there.
Getting the words right.
The foundation had supplied us with their style guide, but there was not much direction regarding tone or voice. As it was time to start really writing content, I did a word audit of the center itself to establish how best to emulate the voice of the experience. The audit became a voice chart, which we used as a fast way to validate word choices that were being generated quickly.
UX writing sample of our original screen
We performed our mid-fi digital prototype as a group and conducted usability testing on site at the Discovery Center. We worked with twelve users on a Saturday afternoon in teams of two.
This was invaluable to get to interact with our core users for the first time. We were able to quickly iterate our script in spots where users were getting lost in the flow or interactions were unclear. It also validated if our audience would interact with our exhibit.
Insights were very positive. Users did want to see their connection points to other visitors, and definitely welcomed the opportunity to be more personally connected to the causes. Only 16 percent choose to skip any screens, and after early iterations 100 percent of guests were able to complete all tasks.
The pain point of the day-
Many of the museums visitors are international, and we had made a design decision to push a QR code as the more GDPR complaint choice in regards to rewarding them with their connection card. Unfortunately it quickly became apparent few were familiar with QR codes or needed to download an app to use them. We realized we should add an email option for receiving their connection card in the final iteration. A great example of how new tech is not always friendly tech.
Final Deliverables
We excitedly shared our revised prototype for an interactive exhibit with the Gates foundation.
In the end, our solution for Gates took form as a dynamic interactive that could deliver desired demographics and the added bonus of syncing those demographics with their new salesforce platform. Not only that, but we were able to create an outreach program based on personalized user interests. This was something Gates Foundation wanted, but didn’t ask us to try and do within the timeframe.
Along with our hi-fidelity prototype was a space recommendation I had developed. Three different location options established where best our interactive could have optimal audience participation. I also provided a further recommendation of how our new interactive might replace some older ones with design similarities. This could pave the way for future interactives or new exhibition space.
The proposed large data driven interactive was well received. Two large Microsoft Studio 2 touch screens would be housed in a custom built area of the front desk. It would immediately draw a guest in via its dynamic graphics, and once having completed it’s flow the user would be awarded a “Connection card”.
A Connection what? A Connection card. We take your data and show you interesting ways that you connect with other visitors. We also offered a curated map of the museum based on your interests, and ways to get further information or get involved with the initiatives.
This is fantastic. I love how the data drives what the visitors will see on the screen, and really shows how much they have in common with other people from all over the world. I can’t wait to throw out the binder and get this into the Center”.
Cara Egan, Discovery Center Client
What I learned
Shared team vision is very rare but lucky thing to get to work with.
UX methods really shine the light on your own bias and guerrilla testing can be a lightening fast answer answer to proving/disproving your hypothesis in a time crunch.
Just because new tech seems fun, it may not be the same story for your user. While QR codes were a familiar concept to visitors, few users were actually set up to use one.
Not having time to run usability testing on your final prototype will haunt you till the day you die. So many insights I would have loved to have known.
We are capable of so much more with a supportive team.