Crest

Overview

The Cincinnati Science Museum renovated its iconic Union Terminal building and re-designed all of its main exhibits including the dinosaur gallery. Four new impressive fossils were added to the collection, including one discovered by the museum’s curator of vertebrate paleontology. The exhibit team was tasked with designing this centerpiece of the museum.

The Cincinnati Science Museum is located within an hour and a half of the Creation Museum, a young earth creationist museum focused on a literal translation of the book of Genesis. A significant segment of our members are also active members of the Creation Museum. In order to both present the research and current understanding of paleontology while also accepting where museum members may be coming from was a key driver in the development of the exhibits content.

Our key directive was to engage museum guests on the scientific process of observation and testing that is at the core of understanding. If guests leave excited having engaged with the scientific process for themselves, seeing how we arrived at our understanding and being clear about the questions we still have, then that curiosity will lead them towards a lifetime of learning.

Goals

• Engage guests of all ages with the specimens beyond just looking at them from a distance.

• Engage guests of all ages the process of scientific discovery by letting them see the process.

• Engage guests of all ages in the process of discovery by using their own hands to join in.

Team & process

Anything important and big takes a whole team. As a designer, I was responsible for exhibit interactive elements. I worked under the lead architect/principle exhibit designer and alongside the Curator of Paleontology, Director of Exhibits, Content Copy Developer, Project Manager, and Exhibit Fabrication & Maintenance team.

• MVP/ Teaser

• Physical Layout

• Interaction Brainstorm

• User Journey Map

• User Testing on features

• Development (fabrication) handoff

Outcome

• ASTC Business Innovation Award for Rhinegeist exhibit teaser.

• Exhibit opened as the main feature of the renovated museum, hosting both kids programming and fundraising galas.

• Recognition for Accessibility in Exhibit Design specifically for tactile information, audio content and physical interaction suitable for wheelchair access.

• Bill Nye liked it! He came to tour it shortly after it opened.
  

Wizard of Oz Test
Does anyone care? Before we invested the time and money to build this data product we did a simple manual version to see if our users would find this type of information useful. We recruited 20 folks and manually extracted their brushing data from their power brushes at the end of the week. I then calculated and texted them a weekly report on the amount of time they brushed, how often they brushed and a small improvement goal for the next week. Even though the process was clunky we saw a 50% gain in overall time spent brushing after just two notifications. We continued to use the manual messaging in small scale tests to refine what kinds of information users liked and how often they liked to receive it without having to make complicated dev changes.

Journey Map: Visualizing the User Experience over time
In order the change the way we thought about our user who in we would only interact with through a retailer traditionally we started a long iterative process of mapping their experience through the first three months of owning a power brush. I created the first map as a prototype to drive a discussion about how we were prioritizing feature development. In this first draft one of the main points was the reason the weekly messages are so important since the novelty enjoyment of brushing decreases after about 2 weeks.

Hooked Habit Change Theory
Using the Trigger, Action, Varaible Reward and Investment theory from Nir Eyals book, Hooked. Our hypothesis was we could create engaging content out of your own brushing data. We broke down the message like this:

• Trigger: Push notification at an expected time (like apple screen time)

• Action: Open notification

• Reward: See new information about yourself and your habits

• Invest: Spend a little time looking at what you could do to be a little better

Onboarding Content Strategy
In order the change the way we thought about our user who in we would only interact with through a retailer traditionally we started a long iterative process of mapping their experience through the first three months of owning a power brush. I created the first map as a prototype to drive a discussion about how we were prioritizing feature development. In this first draft one of the main points was the reason the weekly messages are so important since the novelty enjoyment of brushing decreases after about 2 weeks.

Opt-in to Simple Solutions
Out of the process of testing messages with users and listening to their response, we discovered that instead of interrupting them with an ad, we could ask them if they were interested in a solution to a problem they had already indicated they were concerned about. Most of our testers already knew they ought to replace their brush head, but they weren’t going to remember to do it without som prompting. This inspired us to opt in to a reminder. Then when the time came to remind them about the refill it was already a service they had asked for. We could then offer to ship them direct or they could change with one they already had.