Parallel design session - conventional design

During the exercise we split up into two teams wtih one team creating a more conventional design and the other creating a more "extreme" design. In the first team we leveraged existing technologies to design a mobile app.

We chose to try to create a mobile application since we found during our research that everyone we interviewed had a smartphone and leveraging something existing general-purpose hardware the user already has allows us to focus on just designing the software.

We converged a bit but over time it became more and more clear that we wanted to design an application that is used by both the parents and children but with distinctly different experiences for both groups. When we thought back to our structured findings we identified the need for the children to have their experience at a museum such as Fotografiska clearly structured and that simply looking at the pictures in order is not enough. At the same time, our state of the art analysis summary we found the need to think about interactive experiences at a museum in terms of both isolation from and distraction caused to the environment around the user.

In the end we arrived at using a "gamification" approach for the kids, where they can interact with paintings and solve certain tasks, which would earn them points. At the same time, the parents would be able to locate their children on a map and see their progress. We also found ways to integrate the experiences of both groups by having certain "breakpoints" in the game progress where the children had to, for example, take a photo of their parents and by allowing the parents to view hints that they could use to help their children if they got stuck.

To make the process as interesting as possible we leveraged augmented reality tools to make the environment come alive on the screen and integrate the video feed from the phone's or tablet's camera with moving objects that just appear on the screen. This allows the experience to be as lively and exciting as possible without having to alter the experience of visitors not using the app.

Here are some pictures from our process:

 Above you see a few different screens from the app, which would display the picture via the camera but also show additional content in front, such as an animation or a video. Clues from the video could be used to find the next picture and score points. There is also the possibility of using the headphones to deliver audio clues.

The pictures above are meant as the "breakpoints" or "side quests" where the children have to take a picture of their parents (and possibly have to fit them in a cut out) to ensure that they stay in contact even though they are experiencing the museum in different ways.

The picture above shows both the parent and child view, with the child having to find a picture with a specific symbol above it and the parent monitoring their progress of their child and being notified when they progress.

The concept above is similar, with the children seeing the picture with additional content overlaid to create a story. At the same time they could be told a story through their headphones, which would put the picture in a context.

 The idea above is for the parent app, which would display a map with the position of the parent itself, the child and the next clue. 

One more idea for the parent app. When the child is stuck, the parent would be able to give their child a clue and also be notified when the child finally finds the picture so that they can give them some encouragement

We believe we got many good ideas from the session we had and think that many of them can make their way into the final product, in some shape or form.