Marbles Kids' Museum - Exterior Engagement

For the class IBM - Design it Forward. Our goal for this project was attract non-engaged people to Marbles, increase convenience for current visitors, and integrate play into the experience of it all. My contribution to the team included researching existing users and their issues, conducted on-site interviews, writing a research report summary, and developing concept maps outlining research. I also created our As-Is Scenario, Hills, and To-Be Scenario based on our research. Graphics Credited to Konstantin Troianov Team Members: Sarah Trinkle, Paola Amparan, Konstantin Troianov, Charles Jacobson, and Cole Ferguson

Initially, we needed to figure out what the pain points were at Marbles. I started off by cross referencing all of their bad reviews from Yelp and TripAdvisor with their Mission Statement. This shed light on their more "popular" issues. My teammates and I also conducted a few on-site interviews, which targeted Marbles Users and the pedestrians who walked by the area. Using the information taken from both ethnographic and observational research, we were able to formulate 3 main personas that would describe the users we were primarily targeting. Specifically, we were interested in adults with children, downtown visitors, and Downtown Raleigh residents.

Melissa represents our users who are adults with children, Patrick represents downtown Raleigh residents, and Jordan represents downtown Raleigh visitors.

We then cross-referenced our new personas with the major pain points experienced by Marbles' users and potential users. This helped us organize and focus on the major issues that needed to be addressed.

We found that the area with the most pain points happened to be the courtyard, which is a major part of their exterior. Marbles is located in Raleigh's historic district, so there are certain restrictions they have to consider when it comes to their exterior. The courtyard was unassuming and did not clearly indicate that the space was a children's museum. Current guests had no incentives to stay in the courtyard.

From this, I was able to write an As-Is scenario for our users:

This scenario aided us in figuring out exactly what our users needed. We then crafted needs statements based on this.

Needs Statements:

Hills are statements that turn our users' needs into project goals. We created our hills statements by each brainstorming as many as we could for each persona. We then separated them into categories based on their underlying theme. From that, we were able to finalize our statements.

I have illustrated this process in the thought map below:

Our finalized hills:

Finally, we used these hills to prototype a solution for marbles. We decided an interactive light wall could accomplish our goals. This would create a spectacle for the residents of Raleigh and would draw attention to the exterior of the museum, hopefully intriguing potential visitors to find out more. This solution is viable for both active and passive users, and would easily reach many people with the integration of Moore Square in 2019.

Using motion and proximity, the wall would reflect the movement of those passing by. When users are further away from the wall, the light color would change to a darker color and get dimmer. The opposite is true for those who get close to the wall, as the lights would become brighter and a more vibrant color. As people walk by they will see a trail of lights that follows them along the wall, eventually revealing the word “Marbles.”

Our final goal and prototype is encapsulated by our To-Be scenario, which I had the opportunity to write for the team.

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