Museums today are facing a dilemma: how to cope with the shift in the world of interaction in order to attract and cater for visitors, particularly the young adult demographic - studies have shown that museum visitors are usually classified into two groups - students in schools, and parents who visit the museum primarily for family outings. (Shrapnel, 2012) Our research goal was to identify the reasons of this gap - and how to engage the young adult population in museum visits, while delivering an engaging and satisfying museum experience.

One of the museums that faces numerous dilemmas is Sydney Observatory - a museum located on the top of a hill near Sydney Harbour. Despite its central location, the museum remains a "hidden mystery", and faces a number of issues including:

1. A dwindling number of visitors

2. Limited engagement with the visitors

3. Outdated exhibitions

Empathy

For the first step in the process, we visited the observatory and conducted a context mapping exercise - i.e, an ethnographic analysis into the location and the place, making a record of anything noteworthy.

For each exhibit, we analysed the following:

1. Is the function of the exhibit clear?

2. Does it work as it is intended to?

3. Does the user get immediate, perceptible feedback as soon as they perform a task? If yes, how is this feedback presented?

4. Is there direct or indirect mapping between the exhibit and the functions it performs?

5. Are there any other usability issues?

6. What is the navigation like between the different "spaces"?

In addition to ethnographic research, we conducted interviews with young adults (who formed our target consumers about their perceptions of museum experiences.

Example of an exhibit with physical and digital exhibits combined - highlighting a lack of coherency

Some of our findings were:

1. Sydney Observatory was not known as a "museum" - but rather as an observatory, and so, the "museum" was rarely visited. Additionally, the location of the observatory meant that it was on the top of a hill, which made it difficult to access for both adults with young children, and any other individuals with accessibility issues

2. Many of the exhibits were extremely "texty" which meant that users would zone out, and often not engage or take interest in the exhibits

3. Many of the "electronic exhibits" were not working or functioning

4. The interior of the space was not very well lit and very cramped, and so it was difficult to understand the content of the exhibits

5. The technology in the museum was extremely outdated, and since a lot of the exhibits were displayed behind glass, a barrier was created between visitors and the museum.

Ideation and co-design

Since we were designing for young adults, we wanted to design with them through a co-design process. This was done through two approaches:

1. Sensitising Booklets

2. Generative Sessions

Sensitising booklets were given to 5 young adults to "fill out". These exercises were intended to transition users into a "creative mindset".

Some of the exercises from sensitising booklets are shown below:

Knowing that our participants were comfortable with the creative design process, we then sought out to conduct a generative design experience. The generative design experience had two goals:

1. To understand what an "ideal museum" looks like for participants

2. To understand the "delight points" and the "pain points" in an experience for individuals.

Participants were asked to conduct two exercises:

1. After being provided with artefacts and "word prompts", fill out a "museum" space with the ideal museum

2. On a line, map out their most recent museum experience, highlighting delight points and negative points

An example of exercise 1

An example of exercise 2

Insights

• Visual and experiential artefacts formed a key component of the ideal museum experience

• Good food also played a role in a good experience

• Some participants expressed frustration with having to find locations of museums, and also, an excessive amount of reading required

Define

Based on these insights, we mapped out the customer journey, as well as key insights derived from our research.

Conclusion

Since this project was focused on the User Research and Service Design aspect, the insights from our research, along with the customer journey map, were delivered. These insights highlighted the need for museums to offer immersive, participatory experiences for young adults, whilst also catering to other issues such as access to food and accessibility.