WNDR Companion App

Chicago’s WNDR Museum is an interactive experience, a multi-sensory showcase of art and technology. Currently there is only a website for the museum and there exists a space for a companion application to take the experience of visiting the museum to the next level.

Through this application, exhibits will be enhanced with the stories behind them, opportunities for further interaction and engagement will be given and planning a visit will be made that much easier and more enjoyable.

Project Goals

Creation of a mobile companion application to help elevate the experience of visiting the WNDR museum. To achieve this our app will allow for:

  • Booking and managing tickets

  • Planning/curating visits

  • Learning more about what they are seeing in each exhibit

  • Giving users information on each exhibit and allowing them to curate their visit based on their needs (seniority sensitivity, physical ability etc.)

  • Interactivity in exhibits for a more immersive experience (QR scan for exhibit info, Augmented reality opportunities, etc.)

  • Information on location, best way to get there, accessibility notes, hours, etc.
    Showcasing upcoming events and activities

Style Guide

Collaborators : Sridevi Pamarthi, Alfred Langen, Faris Thabet, Neel Pendse

Hi-fi Outcomes

Conclusion

We have learned a lot as team throughout the different phases of prototyping and designing the WNDR Museum Companion App, most notably in the need for iterative prototyping throughout a product design cycle. Our initial ideation phase was focused more on developing personas and their accompanying scenarios rather than strictly prototyping and we feel that our project benefited from that. It was particularly helpful in keeping the end user in mind while we were designing throughout the whole process. Seeing the prototype come to life in the mid-fidelity stage was also exciting as we were able to get it in the hands of actual users and see how they interacted with it. It was definitely an eye opening experience to see what went right and wrong in our design decisions/assumptions. We really didn’t know how the prototype would be received, but we were able to gain key insights to further improve it in the next (high-fidelity) iteration.

Future steps for the project would include conducting additional usability testing sessions with our high fidelity prototype to gain deeper insights into how to improve it. We were only able to run four usability tests and these were with our mid-fidelity prototype. While we were able to get useful feedback and recommendations for changing, there is a definitely need for additional testing. We also could have done usability testing earlier on with our lo-fi prototype to perhaps iterate additional features/functionality. Meeting with stakeholders at the WNDR museum early and often during this project possibly might have been a good idea to align strategy, get buy-in from the museum and possibly additional resources.

Links to Prototypes