Problem
Museums are a great resource for exploring artifacts and learning history, but young adults often aren't motivated enough to visit — the experience isn't presented in a way they're used to engaging with.
Outcome
We designed an all-in-one mobile app to make museum visits more interactive: AR-powered and voice-powered mini tours, plus a social feed for sharing what you learned.
How might we use technology to create an interactive, immersive museum experience for young adults, while keeping it genuinely educational?
User research
We focused on 15–22 year olds who see the value in visiting museums but aren't motivated enough by the current experience. A survey of this group, mapped against their visit journey, surfaced three main areas of frustration.
1. Too many choices, too little context
Only 8% of respondents used museum-specific apps to discover what museums had to offer.
2. Not very educational
78% of respondents found large blocks of text boring, and disengaged from the "story" behind each artifact.
3. Nothing sticks
Only 4% shared what they learned on social media — even though 60% said they would, if there were a platform built for it.
Design opportunities
- Better discoverability — one place to explore museums, instead of hopping between apps.
- More interactivity — AR-powered and voice-powered tours to make the "story" land.
- Retention — a way to share and revisit what was learned.
Exploring directions
High fidelity
Feature: discovering museums
Visitors browse museum types, access relevant info in one place, and leave reviews.
Feature: AR and voice-powered tours
Museums are broken into mini tours so exhibits are easy to navigate, presented through text, images, AR, and voice-over.
Feature: social feed
An in-app social feed so visitors can share facts and photos, and interact with what others posted.
Learnings
Working on a fast-paced, student-run team taught me how to break a big problem into manageable sections and tackle each one — and working closely with engineers taught me a lot about the technical feasibility of my designs.
If I went back, I'd spend more time on primary research focused on a specific age group and geography, and once shipped, test with the same users again to add customization for the categories of museums they actually care about.