Eskenazi Museum of Art at Indiana decided to adopt AR technology to educate museum goers on key exhibits in an engaging way. As part of a course on Applied Augmented Reality, we as a team of three chose the 'Greek Bronze Vessels' exhibit from the Asian Art Gallery and developed an AR mobile app using Zapworks to educate people about the use of the vessel in an ancient Greek setting
UX Designer - Tanya Kuruvilla, Dinesh Ram
Developer - Kavya Basu
User Research, Interaction Design, Visual Design, Information Architecture, Wireframing, Usability Testing.
Eskenazi Museum of Art - The Asian Art Gallery
Feb 2020 - April 2020 (3 months)
Figma, Zapworks, Sketchfab, Adobe Illustrator, Z-Brush
Lack of aesthetic appeal and placement of the exhibit among other interesting exhibits drew no attention to the Greek Bronze vessels failing to educate museum goers about its rich history.
We primarily wanted to provide an in-museum mobile AR experience but had to pivot to a digital collection on the museum's website as Covid struck. We chose to provide a code on the Museum's Digital collection website that can be used to view the 3D model of the vessel on Zappar App
The Greeks used the bronze vessels in every phase of their lives - for drinking water, for storing wine, as trophies on winning tournaments, for elections and also followed them to the grave to their afterlife. that was forgotten with time. Despite the rich history, the exhibit in the museum did not convey this in the best possible way because of its plain and unappealing look. We believed that bringing in AR might give the exhibit the face-lift it required.
The Design Process always depends on the project at hand and should be malleable though there is a generic design process. The following is the design process I followed for this project.
We wanted to get into the specifics of the Greek Bronze Vessels and so we resorted to literature review.
As a next step, we headed to the Museum ourselves and observed visitors view the exhibit. We also conducted interviews with the museum staff and the musuem visitors
" Most people spend around 20 minutes in the museum."
" I see visitors coming more during Wednesdays and Thursdays "
" I am PhD holder and I have read all my life about the relevance of objects in the past. I would not be interested in reading about the exhibits when I go the museum."
" The pot has such importance to Ancient Greek and people do not understand it. I would never recommend removing the exhibit from the museum."
" We were interested in the terracota vessels because of the paintings. We were examining them and discussing what we each of them could have meant."
People were ignoring the Greek Bronze Vessel exhibit while they were interested in the neighboring exhibits of other pots.
People were drawn to murals and paintings within the gallery.
People spent little time reading texts on long boards beside the exhibits.
Age-group of people ranged between 18 and 35. We noticed school students and older women.
Most people came in groups and discussed the exhibits when they saw something interesting.
The placement of the exhibit and the competing neighboring exhibits influenced the attention to the Greek Bronze Vessels.
People related with an exhibit more dearly when they knew its history in an ancient setting
How might AR make up for the appeal and placement issues to educate museum goers about the rich history of the Greek Bronze Vessels?
During the research phase, we noticed that people related with an exhibit more dearly when they knew its history in an ancient setting. Since we couldn't control the positioning of the exhibit, we decided to find a way to help the audience relate with the history of the Pot by focusing on its contexts of use in an ancient setting.
To understand the different ways to educate on the contexts of use of the Pot in ancient Greek history, we ideated on 3 probable paths we could consider.
After Covid19 struck, we decided to make the AR experience as part of a digital collection. We decided to go ahead with the research insights from before but conducted additional research to understand how people interacted with Mobile AR apps. We learned that many people were not used to Mobile AR apps and we had to keep this is in mind as we created the 3-D model of the Bronze Vessel to project into the environment.
Since most people spent an enormous amount of time at home due to Covid restrictions, improving the museum's digital collection was one of the best ways to help the museum grow in popularity.
Since we could not consider in-person AR applications in the face of the lockdown, we had to discuss alternatives with the museum.
Our idea was to convert our product to a part of the museum's digital collection. Since the museum was not updating the digital collection at the time, we suggested the creation of a website for the museum where all of us put up our projects as part of the digital collection.
Since we could not consider in-person AR applications in the face of the lockdown, we had to discuss alternatives with the museum.
Our idea was to convert our product to a part of the museum's digital collection. Since the museum was not updating the digital collection at the time, we suggested the creation of a website for the museum where all of us put up our projects as part of the digital collection.
Once we finalized on the medium, we set out to understand how to get users to educate online museum visitors about the Greek Bronze Vessels
We wanted to use this phase to check how many people knew how to interact with the app and make the 3-D model of the pot appear in their environment.
We decided to create the 3-D model of the vessel and test it for the first round. Hence, for the first test, we only built the 3-D model and developed that into the AR app.
Participants were unable to find the 3-D model of the pot because they did not know that they needed a flat surface to bring up the 3-D model. This was an interesting find and helped us understand the general population in general.
We noticed that participants wanted to interact with the pot by pinching or zooming on the pot. Inability to zoom-in or play with the vessel left users frustrated. Since we had not built it in the first testing round, we couldn't help handle it.
Are participants able to project the 3-D model in their environment by following the hint ?
Hints to help participants project the 3-D model of the pot
Since the first test showed that participants were not comfortable projecting the model on the flat surface, providing hints at the right place could solve the problem
Provision to zoom and pinch the pot for closer view
Since the first test showed that participants were not comfortable projecting the model on the flat surface, providing hints at the right place could solve the problem
The hints helped guide participants to projecting the 3-D Model of the vessels but the placement of the hints posed a slight problem. Since the hints were placed too close to the menu bar of the app, some participants had trouble reading it.
Was the position of the hint hindering the participant?
Hints positioning changed
The position of the hints were slightly lowered from the menu bar of the app.
'Contexts of Use' shown as cards with paintings and text
Since people related with exhibits when they knew its history, we showed the contexts of use of the Greek Bronze Vessels as cards with ancient paintings and text.
The positioning of the hints were perfect and helped the participants project the 3-D model perfectly in their environment.
Participants loved the cards with pictures of ancient paintings. They were able to effectively relate with the vessels contexts of use in an ancient Greek setting.
The museum visitor visits the website online.
They are given a set of steps to follow.
1. Download the Zappar App
2. Scan the Zappar code using the App.
3. Project the phone onto a flat surface to see the 3D model of the pot.
Presented the project to the museum director
Since our project was considered one of the best in the course, we were given the opportunity to present our project to the director of the museum
Added to the museum's digital collection website
The zappar code was added to a website that could be accessed by anyone who wanted to view the exhibit as part of the digital collection
The contexts of use of the vessel in ancient Greece with appropriate paintings were highly appreciated by participants and the museum director.
Allowed users to play with the pot like add water or flowers to build a fun positive relationship with the pot.
Tested with more museum goers in the museum to get deeper insights but we couldn't meet them due to lock downs
AR is a powerful medium
AR can be a powerful medium to educate people about topics that may otherwise not be interesting.
AR may not be always necessary
Although its powerful, it is necessary to check if AR is absolutely necessary for a problem space.
Project Pivots are inevitable
When the situation calls for a quick pivot, it is necessary to adjust to changes. Changing our concept from an in-museum experience to an in-home experience drastically changed our execution and development but we were able to make the pivot.