Open Museum – mobile pass for art enthusiasts

User experience research & design

Understanding the experience of visitors of the Musei Capitolini in Rome in order to improve the quality of their visit on the museum and the city. UX research and design, development of the Open Museum concept.

This is the final Project Work developed for the Master’s Degree in User Experience and it is grounded on the data collected during the preliminary research phase. Observation, benchmarking and evaluation sprints were conducted during all the lifecycle of the project.

Mission: Supporting an ancient art museum by improving the visitor’s user experience through the usage of “smart technologies”; establishing a connection with the city in which the museum is located; designing for the specific field and also providing a concept which can be adapted and exported to different cultural / museal contexts.

Research work on the field was conducted to the development of the concept and it included the following

  • Observation of user interaction in the museum context
  • Narrative interviews with visitors
  • Narrative Interviews with stakeholders
  • Shadowing of users in the museum context
  • Analysis of transcripts
  • Creation of User ethnographic maps
  • Benchmarking, market analysis

Research outcomes were field reports, user ethnographic maps, data-driven Personas and a detailed Affinity Diagram of the museum experience – featuring a pre-visit (decision and plans) visit and post-visit phase (sharing and remembering)

The Concept: Open Museum is a service addressed to art lovers, tourists and citizens aimed to let them discover, reach and seamlessly explore museums and artworks as if they were part of the city. It is an “enriched” Pass delivered mainly through a mobile application which provides orientation, personalization and augmentation of the museum experience. It is sensible to the museum internal context and it is able to gather user preferences to narrate the museum to the city. The visit experience can be preserved and shared, with a smooth transition between digital and phisical level

Poster presenting the concept
Poster presenting the concept

Activities & Deliverables:

  • Benchmarking, market analysis, best practices
  • User journey
  • Desktop walkthroughs
  • Service blueprints
  • Information architecture design for the cross-channel experience
  • Interaction design for mobile experience
  • Functional mobile prototype
  • User Testing in the museum context
  • Video demo

Designed with: Fish In the City Team – MasterUX
Role: Team leader, UX designer, Information architect